Ludwig Ritter von Höhnel (6 August 1857, Preßburg – 23 March 1942, Vienna) was an Austrian naval officer and explorer. He was trained at the naval academy in Rijeka.
Contents |
Von Höhnel was the second-in-command of Count Sámuel Teleki von Szek's expedition to Northern Kenya in 1887-1888. He and Count Teleki were the first Europeans to see Lake Turkana, which they named Lake Rudolf after the expedition's patron Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria and Lake Stefanie (named after Prince Rudolf's wife, Princess Stéphanie of Belgium). Von Höhnel acted as the expeditions's cartographer, scientist and diarist. Teleki and von Höhnel made numerous observations on the climate, flora and fauna of the territories visited and collected more than 400 ethnographical objects, most of them from Maasai and Kikuyu tribes. Their observations provided important contribution to ethnographical knowledge. The scientific results of the journey were published by Höhnel in several articles and in a book written in German and translated into Hungarian and English, entitled The Discovery of Lakes Rudolf and Stefanie (1892).[1]
Between 1892 and 1894 von Höhnel explored the territory in the vicinity of Mount Kilimanjaro with American magnate William Astor Chanler.[2] They proceeded inland from the coast, mapping the north-eastern part of the Mount Kenya massif,[3] the Guasso Nyiro River, the Lorian Swamp, the Tana River, Lake Rudolph and then Lake Stefanie. They were the first westerners in this region to come into contact with the Tigania, the Igembe Meru and the Rendille people. The expedition was eventually stranded in what is now the Meru North District of Kenya because of the death of all of its 165 pack animals (probably due to trypanosomiasis) and the desertion of many of the 200 porters.[4] On August 24, 1893 von Höhnel was gored by a rhinoceros[5] and was forced to leave Chanler and return to Zanzibar and then Vienna, arriving in February 1894.[6]
After recovering from his injuries, von Höhnel became an officer on board the corvette Donau, and traveled to the Mediterranean and along the coast of West Africa south to Cameroon, then across the Atlantic to the Caribbean, and to New York and Newport, Rhode Island. During the trip, von Höhnel met the future US president Theodore Roosevelt, who was then in his words the 'much feared' police commissioner of New York. He was then assigned as officer of the deck to the battleship Tegetthoff, whose executive officer was Commander Anton Haus, the future commander of the Austro-Hungarian navy.
In 1899 von Höhnel became Emperor Franz Joseph's aide-de-camp and later (1905–09) led an official Austro-Hungarian delegation to Emperor Menelik II of Ethiopia. He also commanded the Austro-Hungarian cruiser SMS Panther in a voyage to Australia and Polynesia. Von Höhnel was instrumental in introducing the chamois into New Zealand, negotiating in 1905 six does and two bucks from Neuberg in Austria. They finally arrived in New Zealand on board the SMS Turakino in 1907. He was the commanding officer of the armored cruiser SMS Sankt Georg and the commander of the navy yard in Pula. In August 1909 he married Valeska von Ostéren and resigned in the rank of captain. He was promoted to rear admiral three years later, probably in recognition of his duties as the aide-de-camp to the emperor.
Von Höhnel also wrote an autobiography centered on the turbulent years preceding the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, providing insight into African exploration, the Austro-Hungarian Navy and prominent personalities of the Habsburg court, including Admiral Hermann von Spaun, Admiral Maximilian Daublebsky von Sterneck, and Rudolf Montecuccoli. The complete manuscript was in the possession of the family of William Astor Chanler for many decades and was finally published in 2000.[7]
He died in Vienna in March 1942.
Regarding personal names: Ritter is a title, translated approximately as Knight, not a first or middle name. There is no equivalent female form.