Checkmated by the Mountain - Julius Perlis' story
PREFACE
Today I am going to tell you the fascinating story of a young man who lived his life on the edge, with enthusiasm.
He studied assiduously to become a lawyer, but his great passions were others: mountaineering and chess, which he played as an amateur, but with excellent results.
Those were the decades between 1800 and 1900.
His name was Julius Perlis. This story is dedicated to him.
Julius Perlis
1. Childhood
2. Brief history of mountaineering
3. Youth
4. The Chess Legacy of Julius Perlis
5. The End - Liesl & Julius
Epilogue
Checkmated by the Mountain - Julius Perlis' story
We need heroes.
We love them, their stories excite us. And that's good.
What do we expect from heroes, though?
Them to take care of everything, freeing us from our responsibilities? Them to save us?
Our responsabilities while the heroes take care about everything
Sometimes, unfortunately, they can't even save themselves.
If we take their example, then heroes become mentors.
Mentor and disciple have the same goals. They walk together along the path they have chosen.
The mentor lead by example, but he expects the disciple to overtake him in worth and mastery.
Mentor and disciple
<< TABLE OF CONTENTS
Julius Perlis was born on January 19, 1880 in Białystok, odiern Poland, to David and Klara Schumer.
His father died when he was only one year old and his mother remarried in 1886 to the lawyer Ezekiel Friedmann.
At that time Poland was divided and subject of Russia, Austria-Hungary and Prussia.
The partition of Poland
Julius was there born a subject of Tsar Alexander II, then of Alexander III and then of Nicholas II, who was the last Tsar.
It was a time of transition, heralding great upheavals, the Russian Revolution and the Great War.
Julius was a contemporary, although twelve years older, of the great Aleksandr Alechin.
Julius' family was well-off and gave him everything he needed.
His stepfather introduced him to chess at an early age, but Julius did not initially devote himself to the game assiduously.
He preferred to play outdoors, to venture into the woods and to gaze from the plateaus of his native land at the mountains on the horizon, which exerted a magnetic fascination on him.
View of the Carpathian mountains at dawn from Poland
He loved climbing.
With his friends he competed in daredevil challenges. He used to push the limits further and further.
When he finally moved with his family to Austria and took citizenship, he could grow his passion for the mountains.
It was very agile.
It should be remembered that at the time there were no adequate protection systems.
The rope was carried on the shoulder and was heavy, made of braided hemp.
It got soaked in case of rain and then froze.
There were mountain boots, not tight climbing shoes. The clothing was heavy. The wool kept you warm but, after you sweated, it didn't dry and you were cold again.
Mountaineering equipment from times gone by
There were no carabiners, no pitons, no helmets, no harnesses. No crampons as well.
The ice axe was used to create artificial steps on the ice to be able to proceed.
But what a thrill! The mountain made him feel alive.
2. Brief history of mountaineering
At the beginning the mountain was a feared place inhabited by the gods, almost forbidden and considered inviolable.
Mount Olympus - Greece
Just a century before Julius was born, in 1778, seven young men from the village of Gressoney in the Aosta Valley debunked the myth and were the first to dare to climb the Lys glacier of Monte Rosa. They returned safe and sound, to the surprise, the joy and the relief of the villagers.
Less than 10 years later, in 1786, the doctor Michael Gabriel Paccard and the crystal hunter Jacques Balmat made the first ascent of Mont Blanc 4810 m - the highest peak in Europe - and spent the night on the glacier.
French via normale to Mont Blanc
Another myth debunked. You could survive a night out in the cold in the mountains.
In 1857, about 30 years before Julius was born, in 1857, the London Alpine Club was founded.
Four years later, in 1861, Michael Croz climbed Monviso, the beautiful iconic mountain of Paramount pictures.
No description needed
But the history of mountaineering is dotted with tragedies!
In 1865 the first ascent of the Matterhorn by the great Edward Whymper and Michael Croz from the Swiss side, roped together with Lord Francis Douglas, the Reverend Charles Hudson, his young, but unfortunately very inexperienced friend Hadow and the guides Pierre Taugwalder and son, was marred by a very serious accident on the descent after reaching the summit.
Serious accident descending from the Matterhorn
Hadow slipped, dragging those who were roped in with him.
Lord Douglas, Hadow, Michael Croz and the reverend fell from the wall and lost their lives.
They rest today in the cemetery of Zermat.
In 1880 Albert Frederick Mummery attempted to free climb the "Dent du Geant (lit. "Giant's Tooth"), one of the most beautiful and iconic peaks of the Mont Blanc massif.
Halfway up the face on the crux passage he found a granite slab too smooth to be climbed.
"It’s absolutely impossible by fair means” he wrote in a message left in a bottle at the base of the face.
Albert Mummery absolutely did not contemplate the use of pitons and ladders - the so-called artificial climbing - to conquer a summit.
Two years later, the Dent was climbed with the use of artificial tools and from that moment generations of alpinists, climbers and mountaineers still haven't finished debating on what it means to climb a mountain “by fair means”.
Dent du Geant
Mummery would attempt the summer ascent of the Diamir face of Nanga Parbat one of the tough and dangerous mountain of the world After K2 (now Pakistan) years later and die there in 1895.
Ahead of his time. The same feat will be accomplished, but only many years later.
The "Mummery Spur" or "avalanche route" of Nanga Parbat is called like this in his honour.
Nowaday there are people who dream of climbing it in winter!
The attempts of the brave Daniele Nardi and Tom Ballard on February 2019 ended tragically.
The Mummery Spur, a sadly famous route
Between 1887 and 1888, Michael Innerkofler, an Austro-Hungarian, climbed the "Western peak" and the "Little peak" of Lavaredo, in the Sexten Dolomites of northeastern Italy. The Grohmann peak of the Sassolungo and the Croda da Lago.
The Three Peaks of Lavaredo on the right
George Winkler was actually Julius Perlis' hero.
He climbed in free solo. One conquest after another: the "Little peak" of Lavaredo, the Ampezzo crags, the peak of the Madonna on the Pale di San Martino, the Sass Maor and the third tower of the Vajolet, which is called Winkler in his name.
The Vajolet Towers
Unfortunately he died on the Weisshorn - a glacier in the Pennine Alps - at the tender age of 19. It was 1888. The glacier would return his body only many years later, in 1956.
Paul Preuss, Julius's contemporary, climbed the Grossglockner, the Ortles, the Gran Zebrù and the southwest face of the "Croz dell'Altissimo".
Mountaineering (red) and ski mountaineering (blue) route to the top of Gran Zebrù
Between 1899 and 1902 Otto Ampferer first and then Tita Piaz climbed the Campanile Basso - Brenta Dolomites.
The phallic Campanil Basso
In 1901 the first climbs of the south face of the Marmolada. An impressive vertical rock face, two kilometers wide and 800 meters high that has nothing to envy of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park.
Marmolada South Wall & El Cap
Link to the trailer of the beautiful movie FREE SOLO
At the time, it was still unthinkable to approach the North faces of the Alps such as the Eiger (which would begin to be courted in the 1940s), but people were already fantasizing about climbing the highest peak in the world, 8848 m, Mount Chomolungma.
It was Julius' contemporary geographer and cartographer George Everest who was able to recognize Chomolungma as the highest mountain in the world through his studies.
In his honor the peak changed its name in the following years and today it is universally known as Mount Everest.
These were the heroes of Julius Perlis' youth. His goal was to repeat their exploits. And so he did!
When you climb a mountain on a foggy morning you have a feeling of mysterious apprehension, similar to that which you experience when a difficult position to understand appears on the chessboard...
— Julius Perlis
At the age of 18 (in 1898) Julius Perlis moved to Vienna to study law at the university. He graduated in 1903. He then practiced as a lawyer.
In Vienna he was a regular at the Café Central, a well-known meeting place for intellectuals and chess enthusiasts.
It was at the Café Central that Julius Perlis met Liesl Bauer.
She was the only woman who frequented the café.
She was very interested in the game of chess. She had created quite a stir, not so much because it seemed strange that a woman should be interested in chess and frequent a café, a clearly male-dominated environment, but because she was really strong!
Julius and Liesl were young, handsome, sharp-witted and self-confident.
They immediately hit it off and, little by little, they started hanging out outside the club too.
"Why don't you ever take part in tournaments?" Julius asked her one day. "You'd win hands down!"
"I hate competitions," Liesl replied.
"But chess is actually a competitive game, a battle! When you play chess you are at war!"
"That's not true!
Chess is a kind of puzzle, a challenge with oneself, an intellectual pastime, a blank canvas on which to create harmonies of a beauty that, unfortunately, few notice.
I don't care about medals.
Play your official tournaments among you men, since you like them so much. I'm not interested to.
Of course, here at the Café I always play with everyone willingly." She replied with a smile.
It was the meeting with Liesl that rekindled Julius' passion for chess.
He instead conveyed to her his love for the mountains.
4. The Chess Legacy of Julius Perlis
Julius Perlis was active in the international chess scene between 1901 and 1913.
His youthful ardour was also brilliantly expressed on the chessboard.
He took part in a total of 13 master tournaments. He achieved notable results and won numerous cash prizes.
In 1901, at the age of twenty-one, he made his mark at the Vienna Tournament, where he scored 5.5 points out of 12, preceded by Carl Schlecter (9), Semen Alapin (8), Adolf Albin (6.5) and Georg Marco (6.5).
Alapin is the patron of a variant that is widely played by white in games with Sicilian defense.
In 1902, again at the Vienna tournament, Julius Perlis obtained his first victory with 7.5/10 ahead of Siegfried R. Wolf.
In 1903 he came second 9.5/11 behind Karl Kaplanek (10.5).
Kaplanek was born in 1855.
He had lived for seven years in the house of the great Austrian mathematician and astronomer Hofrath Dr. Theodor Ritter von Oppolzer who introduced him to the chess player.
So, just like Julius who was very busy with his law practice, he wasn't a professional chess player.
Kaplanek in fact ran a boarding school for boys and was unable to play regularly.
He knew Philidor, Luis Charles de Labourdonnais, Adolf Anderssen and Paul Morphy, but the names of Emanuel Lasker, Siegbert Tarrasch and Harry Nelsus Pillsbury (a chess genius who impressed and inspired Alekhine with his astonishing ability to play several blindfolded games simultaneously) were as foreign to him as was the new opening theory.
Harry Nelsus Pillsbury
In 1904 Julius Perlis won the Vienna Tournament for the second time.
Between 1904 and 1905 Julius took part in another tournament of masters. It was a thematic tournament on the King's Gambit Declined.
There were 10 participants, including Marco and Leopold Loewy jr. and Milan Vidmar (who was among the favorites).
The tournament was won by Schlecter. Second came Geza Maroczy. Julius Perlis came third, confirming that he is the strongest Austrian player after Schlecter, an excellent achievement for a non-professional chess player.
At the 1905 Austro-Hungarian Championship he again placed third with 10.5/18 behind Schlechter (13) and Heinrich Wolf (12), tied on points with Loewy Sr. and ahead of strong players such as Leo Forgacs Fleischmann, Aaron Nimzowitch, Albin, Neumann and Vidmar.
The Meisterturnier-B, together with the Hauptturnier, held in 1905 in the city of Barmen - today's Wuppertal - represented a showcase for a new generation of chess players such as Oldrich Duras, Nimzowitsch, Akiba Rubinstein, Rudolf Spielmann, Savielly Tartakower, Vidmar, Forgács and Perlis, many of them making their international debut and destined to dominate the scene for the next two decades.
The Meisterturnier B was won by Forgacs (13/17) ahead of Rudolf Swiderski (12) and Wilhelm Cohn (11.5);
Perlis came fourth with 10.5, tied with Neumann and Hans Fahrni, and was awarded the title of master.
In 1906, the international tournament took place in Ostend - today's Belgium. 36 players took part. It was a very long competition.
Perlis excelled in the group, winning 6.5/8 and ahead of Frank James Marshall, Richard Teichmann, Jacques Mieses, Hugo Suechting and Spielmann.
Things went less well for him in the final, which was won by Schlechter.
Perlis, however, won the prize for the best game. In that tournament he also had the merit of introducing (even if he later lost) the move 7. ...b5 in the Merano Defense against his compatriot Schlechter.
In 1907 the Vienna Chess Club organized the first Trebitsch Memorial with funds bequeathed by Leopold Trebitsch, a wealthy businessman who had been vice-president of the club until his death the previous year.
The competition attracted a significant group of chess players, including international figures such as Duras, Mieses, Maróczy, Vidmar and Tartakower. Among the Austrian masters, Schlechter and Perlis were at the forefront.
The winner, with 10/13, was Mieses, who preceded Duras and reached with that victory the peak of a career that lasted over fifty years.
Perlis, with 6.5 points, placed himself in the middle of the ranking.
Also in 1907, the Ostend Master B was held, a tournament with a prize pool of 50,000 francs and thirty participants.
It was won by Ossip Bernstein and Rubinstein with 19.5/28 who preceded Mieses and the emerging star Nimzowitsch (19); Perlis finished sixteenth with 13.5 but was awarded a nice cash prize of over 224 francs.
In 1908, the tournament in Vienna and the one in Prague, held a few months later, were two events organized to celebrate the sixty years of reign of Emperor Franz Joseph.
Emperor Franz Joseph
Johner and Reti participated.
The match was won by Maroczy, Schlechter and Duras with 14/19; Perlis placed seventh with equal points (11) with Tartakower, obtaining some nice victories, such as those against Mieses and Marshall.
In February - March 1909 the St. Petersburg Chess Club organized a tournament in memory of Mikhail Chigorin (Russian, one of the world's top four players, who twice challenged Wilhelm Steinitz for the World Chess Championship), who had recently died.
Mikhail Chigorin
The competition was attended by chess players from nine nations. The duo Lasker and Rubinstein won as expected, tied, with a total score of 14.5/18.
Julius Perlis finished seventh with 9.5 ahead of Schlechter (with whom he drew) and forcing Rubinstein, one of the winners, to a draw.
Perlis was a close friend of Schlechter and was one of the supporters of the theory that, in the 1910 World Championship match between Lasker and Schlechter, Carl would have needed only one point advantage instead of two to win the title:
Carl Schlechter was in fact leading by one point, after 7 draws and 1 win, going into the tenth and final game of the match.
In the tenth game the tragedy. Feeling forced to win at all costs to reach the required score, Schlechter refused (or did not see) the way to obtain a drawn position.
At move 39. played... Qh2+? instead of Qh4+!, so that slowly but surely Lasker was able to assert his material advantage and winning the game.
Schlechter lost the tenth game.
The match ended tied at 5–5 (+1 −1 =8), Lasker retained his title and Carl Schlechter missed his chance to become world champion.
I wrote about this in a previous article about the living chess of the city of Marostica. There you can also follow the 10 games of the world match analyzed and commented by Jose Raul Capablanca himself!
The second Trebitsch Memorial Tournament took place between December 1909 and January 1910.
There were eight participants; Richard Reti won with 12/14 and Perlis was third with 10, half a point behind Tartakower.
Also in 1910 Julius Perlis challenged and lost narrowly against Spielmann (+1=2-2).
The third tournament in memory of Leopold Trebitsch took place between 1910 and 1911. The competition between eight players was won by Schlechter and Spielmann, who obtained 10 points, ahead of Perlis, who recorded a victory against Spielmann, with 8 points.
Also in 1911 took Place the second international tournament in Karlsbad - now Czech Republic.
It was a high-level competition that was played over twenty-five rounds and lasted five weeks.
In total, 325 matches were played.
Karlsbad 1911
The tournament was so popular that the organizers received more than forty applications for entry.
The competition pitted established players such as Rubinstein, Schlechter and Marshall against emerging stars such as Alexander Alekhine, Nimzowitsch and Georg Rotlewi.
The opening ceremony took place in the Imperial Baths of the Kurhaus Hotel on 20 August 1911.
As the tournament progressed and the grueling match schedule took its toll on the players, the expected names emerged with one addition: Teichmann!
Since returning to international play in 1902 (after losing the use of his right eye due to an infection) Teichmann had drawn many matches due to poor health until 1910; this had earned him fifth place in eight tournaments, earning him the nickname “Richard the Fifth”.
Teichmann could be considered one of the strongest chess players in the world but never a candidate for the world title.
By the end of the thirteenth round Schlechter was leading by half a point over Teichmann, who was chasing him closely, 10 to 9.5. Schlechter's draw against Vidmar in the next round, combined with Teichmann's win over Tartakower, brought the pair to 10.5 points each.
The outcome of the tournament was decided in the eighteenth round, when the two favorites clashed. Teichmann engineered a beautiful victory with a brilliant sacrifice.
The final ranking saw Teichmann as winner with 18/25 ahead of Rubinstein and Schlechter (17) and Rotlewi (16), all of whom he defeated in the direct clash.
Perlis finished in the middle of the rankings – thirteenth with 12 points – due to losses to four of the bottom five but with fine victories against Alekhine, Spielmann, Gregory Levenfish and Burn and was awarded 250 crowns for his placing (the winner received 3000).
Between December 1911 and January 1912, yet another tournament was organised in memory of Trebitsch.
Six players battled it out in a two-legged competition.
Schlechter (7/10) won again, ahead of Reti (6). Perlis, together with Loewy sr, was third with 5.5.
The success of the 1911 San Sebastian tournament, which saw the triumphant entry onto the chess scene of Capablanca (winner of the tournament), led to a new edition in 1912, this time with home and away rounds.
San Sebastian 1911
At the halfway point of the tournament Spielmann was leading with a two-point advantage over his pursuers; he was gradually caught up by Nimzowitsch, with Rubinstein and Tarrasch close behind.
The last round saw the Polish Rubinstein and Nimzowitsch face each other, with a draw being enough for the latter to win the competition. After an exciting match, where both failed to see a mate in two moves, it was the Pole who prevailed and won the tournament.
Perlis reached the peak of his career there, with his consistent and solid game without taking excessive risks, a consequence of a "rational" style.
Competing on equal terms with the great chess players of his time, he finished fifth, with 10/19, two and a half points behind the winner and two behind Nimzowitsch and Spielmann.
His tournament record includes two draws against Rubinstein and a draw and a victory against Nimzowitsch, as well as a victory over the highly rated Marshall and Duras.
Apart from the first four classified, awarded respectively with 5000, 3000, 2000 and 1000 francs, the other players earned 100 francs for each point gained.
His last competitive appearance was at the Vienna tournament in March 1913, won by Spielmann with 11/14, where Julius came fifth with 6.5. He repeatedly demonstrated elegance and depth of calculation with his combinations, as he had already done in the San Sebastian tournament.
Julius was a kind person, a subtle and profound thinker and inventor of many ingenious combinations.
Perlis also dabbled in chess composition.
Four studies of him are known. I'll show you one:
According to Chessmetrics Julius Perlis best position in the world ranking was No. 14 (in 1913) and his best ELO rating was 2648 (achieved in the same year).
Edo Historical Rating instead reports No. 17 and 2512 respectively (both in 1909).
5. The end
One spring day, Liesl decided to hike to the top of the Hochtor alone, following the easiest path.
She had a thousand ideas in her head: enjoying the sunny day, admiring the view of the Gesause National Park, picking alpine flowers, one of which she wanted to give to Julius.
She hoped to find edelweiss.
Edelweiss
And then she was an athlete and wanted to keep moving.
She was so excited. They had just decided to get married.
She had also just found out she was pregnant and couldn't wait to tell Julius.
That walk would have been healthy. Being active is good for both mother and baby.
She was still lost in thought as a shower of rocks from the summit wall crashed down in a cloud of dust that buried everything.
That event marked the lives of many people. The outcry was considerable.
Awareness of the dangers of the mountains increased and this led to the strengthening of the network of mountain huts in the Alpine region, which today are also managed by competent personnel and represent a protection for visitors.
Alpine rescue, which had just been founded in those years in Austria and Germany, was also significantly strengthened.
In comparison, the natural parks of USA and Canada are much more dangerous today, where this management and rescue network is not so developed.
The magic bus: Alex Supertramp's hut in Alaska
Julius
A few months later, that same year, and to be precise, on Wednesday 10 September 1913, Julius Perlis, chess master, chess composer and skilled mountaineer, had his personal rendezvous with destiny too.
Hoctor East Ridge - Grossglockner group
Without making any specific statements about his intentions, he left the Alpine refuge where he had spent the night and set out alone for an Alpine climb on a misty day on the Hoctor East ridge, Ennstal Alps in the Grossglockner group of the Styrian region (Austria).
He was found two days later, froze to death.
The official date of his death is † September 11, 1913.
Some people think he got lost, but he knew the Alps like the back of his hand.
Actually after the death of Liesl he often came back to the Ennstal Alps.
There he felt closer to her. Now they certainly are.
The mountain made them lose and find each other again.
Only the facts relating to Julius Perlis' chess career are real and verifiable.
The account of his extraordinary chess performances is the result of the careful research of Fabio Colombo, an Italian endocrinologist and candidate chess master (CM), whom I had the great fortune to meet, purely by chance, just as I was writing the blog inspired by his book.
We were both attending the same diabetology conference in Rome. I naturally had the book autographed.
The facts surrounding the death of Julius Perlis are also real and documented.
It was nice to romanticize Julius Perlis' biography.
I tried to fill in the biographical gaps with respect, love and a little imagination.
I hope you also enjoyed the very quick overview of the history of mountaineering.
Happy to read your comments. Feel free to tell the emotions that the world of chess and the mountains, so dear to me, arouse in you.
A warm greeting
See you soon.
DocSimooo
- Spitzenberger: Perlis Julius. In: Austrian Biographical Dictionary 1815-1950 (ÖBL). Volume 7, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1978, ISBN 3-7001-0187-2, p. 425.
- https://timenote.info/de/Julius-Perlis
- "Quando la montagna dà scacco matto - la breve carriera scacchistica di Julius Perlis", Fabio Colombo, independently published.
- "Di roccia e di ghiaccio - storia dell'alpinismo in 12 gradi", Enrico Camanni, Editori Laterza
- "Guarda l'alba" from the music album "Per niente stanca" by Carmen Consoli - 2010 - Universal Music
Credits for html codes to @SPK, @ChocoCaramelPawn1729, @Sketch_28.
