In this final section we shall trace the growing “Antarctic consciousness” by con-sidering its manifestation particularly at the International Geographic Congres-ses held from 1871 to 1913, ten congresCongres-ses in all before another mode of international organization with a more modern professional and scientifically oriented spirit began with the establishment of the International Geographical Union in 1922. The existence of continual tension between a focus on geogra-phic exploration on the one hand and scientific research on the other will also be noted.
Among several useful tables Professor Budd has provided in his essay on the scientific imperative of Antarctic Research,41 there are three (N° 4, 5, 6) which show respectively the growth in scientific associations since the formation of Academies of Science, comparisons of Observational Systems in England, France, Germany, Russia and the USA in the nineteenth century and the devel-opment of International Science Associations. Mention should also be made of Elisabeth Crawford´s studies of scientific elites during the period 1880-1914, as well as the conceptual and historiographic methods she uses to approach a social history of national and international scientific development, and the forces that shape the patterns of models for international scientific cooperation42.
40 Berg 2003: 99.
41 Budd 2001: 46-50.
42 Crawford 1992: chapters 1-3.
Budd´s tables and Crawford´s studies supplement an excellent overview of international cooperation between 1815 - 1914 by G.P. Speeckaert43. Budd appropriately distinguishes between the national Academies, specialist scientific societies such as the Linnean, Geological, Astronomical and the Royal Geo-graphical Society which flourished in England between 1799 and 1830, and a broader type of scientific associations, whose emphasis is more practical, with a greater social impact, and quite often a commitment to specific scientific and technological undertakings: Gesellschaft Deutscher Naturforscher und Ärzte (1821), British Association for the Advancement of Science (1831) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1848).
In the history of Antarctic Research, the British Association for the Advance-ment of Science was responsible for the developAdvance-ment of the scientific pro-gramme undertaken by the British Expedition of James Ross. It developed a document, duly approved by both the Royal Society and the British Admiralty, where the proposal for magnetic observations intended to take place in areas of the Southern Hemisphere ranging from New Holland (Australia) to Cape Horn was partially implemented by an Observatory in Hobart. The bridge between the period of the “magnetic crusade” and the new crusade advocated by the 1895 Geographic Congress is again made by the establishment some ten years before the last date (Aberdeen, 1885) of an Antarctic Committee, Sir Clements Markham becoming a member. But the personal and spiritual continuity of the idea of an Antarctic Expedition was incarnated in Captain Davis, who served with Fitzroy in the Beagle and was Second Master of the Terror under Ross, and who constantly lectured and lobbied for a new Antarctic Expedition”. In time, Clements Markham would be able to transfer this project to the Royal Geographical Society, and finally defeat the Royal Society´s desire for a greater scientific input and finality in the 1901 British Expedition. The publication in 1986, under the enticing title Antarctic Obsession, of Markham´s personal narrative, whose original manuscript (“The Starting of the Antarctic Expedition, 1892-1903”) is kept at the Scott Polar Research Institute, including the original Instructions of the Joint Committee as finally overthrown at Markham´s insist-ence, allows an appreciation of both the scientific views of the Royal Society and the exploration bias of the Royal Geographical Society44.
While there is no question that, from the very early stages of Antarctic explora-tion, a certain antinomy exists between Scientists and Seamen45 the cleavage and, at the same time, the necessary relation between science and exploration has not been sufficiently highlighted. A recent study of Captain Scott’s expedi-tions46 refers to the description by the novelist Joseph Conrad of the transit from a “Fabulous” Geography including in particular the Terra Australis, to the era of
“Militant” Geography; and recalls Markham´s report to the Royal Geographicalal Society on the need to train travelers, limiting their activities to surveying and mapping, and his presentation to the British Association for the Advancement of Science on that same year: “Our first work as geographers is to measure all parts of the earth and sea, to ascertain the relative position of all places upon
43 Speeckaert 1980: 1-192.
44 Markham 1986: 152-172.
45 Finney 1991: 89-101.
46 Jones 2003: 16-47.
the surface of the globe, and to delineate the varied features of that surface”. A useful complement to the quotation is Markham´s own article on the field of geography published several years after.47
The fact is that national geographic societies, but also local geographic socie-ties as the Polar Society of the city of Bremen, play a decisive role in fostering international exploration. Publications such as the “National Geographic Maga-zine” (1889), “Annales de Geographie” (1891), “The Geographical Journal”
(1893) and “Geographische Zeitschrift” cross the interest barrier of specialists into the realm of the general public. But societies, publications and congresses mobilize simultaneously the interests of exploration and science. While the lineage of scientific congresses can be traced to Alexander Humboldt who organized at Berlin in 1821 the first congress of German naturalists, explorers, researchers and philosophers, it is the sequence of geographic congresses, which indicates the relative balance between exploration and science. A table has been appended to facilitate the examination of the dominant themes in the first ten International Geographic Congresses (1871-1913).
That table reflects the balance of resolutions and decisions adopted at Inter-national Geographic Congresses and reveals that during the fifty years counted from 1871, the polar areas were not neglected and exploration was constantly promoted, but the geographic societies of Europe, within the pattern established by the Royal Geographical Society and Sir Clements Markham, were strongly dominated by explorers, surveyors and cartographers. Since the end of the First World War, a more scientific spirit prevailed, as the International Geographical Union has been run by professional geographers and organized as a strictly professional organization.48
While the World War declared in 1914 did not stop Sir Ernest Shackleton from undertaking his ambitious Trans-Antarctic Expedition, it did interfere with many other initiatives, and was certainly a blow to the internationalist approach advo-cated by the International Polar Commission (IPC). The IPC has been studied in some detail by Aant Elzinga49. Cornelia Lüdecke50 has provided a picture of the German attitudes towards such organization. The German reluctance to the type of approach taken by the IPC was most certainly shared by Great Britain and the Royal Geographical Society. France also differed from the prevailing view of the IPC which tried to balance a variety of conflicting factors, such as national positions, explorers’ interests, a reliance on private initiative, a lack of genuine representation (i.e. Borchgrevink and Sobral appeared as represen-tatives of Norway and Argentina without consulting their respective govern-ments).
Moreover, we share Elzinga´s appreciation for this first effort to institutionalize Antarctic exploration and research. In particular, the creation of an International Antarctic Institute, the bibliographical effort undertaken by Jean Denucé, the idea of an International Polar Museum, but above all the concept of a
47 Markham 1898: 2.
48 Dickinson 1978: 267-283.
49 Elzinga 2004: 262-290.
50 Lüdecke 2001: 161-169.
nent international organization while all previous Polar Commissions had been entrusted only with the organization of the Polar Years. The IPC, for the first time, was a forum attended by representatives of the southern nations (Aus-tralia, Argentina, Chile and New Zealand) and remains a watermark in the process leading towards the present Antarctic Treaty System, including governments represented by diplomats, scientists grouped in SCAR, national Antarctic programmes with the Council of Managers of National Antarctic Programms (COMNAP), and the Antarctic Treaty Secretariat providing the continuity of the special legal and political regime applied to Antarctica.