Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
imperial control was thwarted, though dreams of almost-complete British control persisted.
Britain really did not want any neighbours in the Antarctic.
In the same year of the French claim, the United States, under its Secretary of State Charles
Hughes, emphasized an 'open-door' policy for the Antarctic, unrestricted by the territorial
claiming by others. Significantly, this declaration brought to the fore two competing visions
for the Antarctic. On the one hand, claimant states were eager to delineate their national/
imperial spheres, while claiming to be acting on behalf of 'mankind'. On the other, the US
represented a different vision, one less motivated by territorial claiming (at least publicly)
and more by open access.
Up and until the late 1930s, territorial claiming prevailed. Norway, in advance of a feared
territorial claim by the German Antarctic (Neu-Schwabenland) Expedition, announced that
they would be laying claim to a sector of the Antarctic between the Falkland Islands
Dependencies and the Australian Antarctic Territory. Termed 'Dronning Maud Land', the
Norwegian claim was based on previous whaling expeditions in the region, and was form-
ally announced on 14 January 1939. At the same time, however, German aluminium mark-
ers embossed with swastika lay abandoned over the ice-bound coast, in what the German
(rather than any Norwegian) expedition leaders termed 'Neuschwabenland'. Germany's de-
feat in 1945 ended hopes of a German Antarctic sector, but did not dampen speculation
that some Nazis still dreamed of resurrecting a Fourth Reich there. Japan, too, forfeited any
claim, despite earlier involvement in exploration and whaling.
Argentina (claim made in 1940) and Chile (claim made in 1943) were late starters by
European standards. Unlike the others, they were convinced that their southerly territories
were part of an imperial inheritance and integral to national territories. The only issue to
be resolved was the declaration of a mutual boundary between two South American neigh-
bours. In that sense, there was no Argentine or Chilean
claim
. Argentina and Chile copied
the behaviour of Britain, mindful of international legal precedents regarding remote and
thinly occupied spaces. In mimicking the behaviour of an imperial state, Argentine and
Chilean parties participated in their own ceremonies of possession, usually involving plant-
ing flags, reading solemn declarations, mapping territory, assessing resources, and naming
places after independence heroes such as Bernardo O'Higgins and José de San Martín.
Britain hoped vainly that the US might claim the hitherto unwanted Pacific Ocean sector
and join the claimant club - not unreasonably given that US Antarctic expeditions in the
1930s and 1940s carried out 'sovereignty performances' such as dropping flags out of aero-
plane windows. Furthermore, Richard Byrd reported back to hi major initiative" aid="Cs
political masters about evidence of mineral wealth of the polar continent in a blatant at-
