Known in earlier days as the Islands of Desolation, Îles Kerguelen, named after the archipelago's eighteenth-century discoverer, is one of the groups of French sub-Antarctic islands more than 2000 miles to the southeast of the Cape of Good Hope, and administered by TAAF (Terres australes et antarctiques françaises) since the mid-twentieth century. The islands were a haunt of British and American sealers and the site of scientific expeditions in the nineteenth century. They were visited by Captain Scott's old Discovery during the BANZARE voyages of 1929–1931, led by Sir Douglas Mawson. This book results from the labours of the four authors, all of whom have been associated with the islands. It is a pioneering work, which chronicles the activities of the French sealers, between the World Wars, sent there by the brothers René and Henry Bossière of Le Havre, whose father Emile had obtained from the French colonial authorities in 1893 the concession for the islands for 50 years.

It is not a happy story: apart from the indiscriminate slaughter of vast numbers of sea elephants for their oil, regardless of their age and sex, the enterprise was a commercial failure, resulting in a number of fatalities, and the abandonment of several vessels. In their preface, the authors point out that their book is neither glorification nor a condemnation of the ‘hunt’ (la chasse) for elephant seals. Their aim has been to reveal the previously little-known French participation in the elephant sealing trade, the product of which was oil from the rendering down of the carcasses on shore and afloat between 1925 and 1931. They leave the reader to make his or her own judgement, but are not afraid to criticise the lack of regulations and their enforcement before and during the period concerned. To their great joy, early enquiries revealed the existence of a considerable number of the sealers’ descendants, who kindly made their family papers and photographs available.

The text is divided into seven chapters plus references and five appendices. Black-and-white photographs appear at intervals in the text, while there are eight coloured plates, including two of the abandoned Espérance, one taken in 1970 and the other in 2002.

The first chapter provides a resume of the three campagnes (voyages) of Lozère in 1925–1926, 1926–1927, and 1927–1928. She had been fitted with ‘autoclaves’ to extract the oil from the carcasses of the seals, which was stored directly in the hold. The other half of this first chapter covers the three voyages of Austral, 1928–1929, 1929–1930, and 1930–1931. To begin with, the Bossières had envisaged following the example of the British on the Falklands in pasturing sheep on the islands, with sealing as a secondary activity. With this in mind, shepherds and their families were installed at Port-Couvreux, but with little wool being produced. Five shepherds are buried there. Another enterprise was harvesting and canning of large numbers of langoustes at Île Saint-Paul, another French sub-Antarctic island. Profitable as this was at first, leading to the recruitment of a work force from Madagascar, 42 of these died of beriberi, so that the remainder were evacuated. In this first chapter are described the origins of the sealing and other enterprises and the history of the various campagnes with their disastrous results. The wreck of Lozère on 12 February 1928, with the loss of her cargo of seal oil, and the wrecks of Espérance and Arques are described in chapter three, as well as the wreck of Dundee and Marie-Madeleine, of which no trace could be found in the year 2000.

Among the factual resumes of activities on the islands – for example, ship watering, coaling, navigation, the killing of the elephant seals and the production of the resulting products – can be found the personal letters of the chief engineer André Berland to his wife during six seasons in Lozère and Austral. In the letters, he writes of his management of the engines and of the machinery for rendering down the seal carcasses for their oil, his two captains and their personalities, the assistant engineers, the passengers Monsieur E. Aubert de la Rüe (whose publications are listed in the bibliography) and his wife, the surgeons, his own experiences, and his hopes for the future. In an appendix are short biographies of Berland and other officers, followed by notes on the vessels, their crew lists, and the names of shareholders in Pêches Australes, followed by sketch maps of Kerguelen to illustrate the various zones de chasse. There is no index.

Although ‘chasse’ means hunting, I am reluctant to use that word – the ‘chasse’ was nothing but slaughter, sometimes deliberately cruel at that, especially when a poleaxe was used to kill the seals instead of a rifle. One witness is quoted on page 317:

In conclusion, the authors ask, ‘what traces can found today of this chasse?’ The main ones are the remains of Espérance, Arques, Lozère and her boat, plus two 1931 huts at Point Morne and Point Charlotte. These last remains are destined to disappear. Existing relevant place-names are listed, followed by suggested additions.

The authors take pride in having saved from oblivion ‘cette histoire qui méritait si bien d'être exhumé: une histoire d'hommes rudes et courageux qui, avec les colons de Port-Couvreux et les pêcheurs de langoustes de l’Île Saint-Paul, ont écrit, au péril de leur vie, les ultimes pages de la saga des frères Bossier’ (page 237).

An omission from the bibliography is worth pointing out. It is Mme Gracie Delépine's history of the French sub-Antarctic islands, Les Îles australes françaises (1995, Rennes: Editions Ouest-France). The authors are to be congratulated on their assiduous research and on their publication of this book.