BOATS FROM SZEGEDIN
Near the next stopping place, Apátin, is a relic of the Roman occupation of the Hungarian plain, in the form of an embankment extending from near the Danube to the Tisza (Theiss). This “Römerschanze,” about twelve feet high and twenty broad, served to enclose an extensive tract which, with the Danube on the west and south, and the Tisza on the east, must have been a fairly impregnable position in the olden times. At Drávatorak (Draueck) the broad Drave flows in from its distant source in the Tyrol. Nine miles up the latter stream is Eszek (Essegg), the “Esseek” of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who tells us that “the bridge was esteemed one of the most extraordinary in the world, being eight thousand paces long, and all built of oak.” From the influx of the Drave, the long, southerly course of the Danube, which despite its myriad tortuosities has been maintained from above Budapest, is changed, and the river flows to the south-east.
At Gombos—where the river is about 1080 yards wide—is a steam ferry, connecting the railways on either side. On the opposite or right bank is Erdöd, with a picturesque ruined castle. Continuing through a rich agricultural plain we pass Dályai, and at Vukovár, a town of over twelve thousand inhabitants, reach the centre of one of the chief Hungarian fruit districts—with many plum-orchards and vineyards. (Hungary exports dried plums to the value of over half a million sterling each year, while the national spirit, Slivovitz, is prepared from plums.) Here the Danube trends more directly to the east, and for some distance flows more or less parallel with the Save, which runs at the further side of the range of hills we see to the south.
These hills form the Fruška-Gora notable for their vineyards, the produce of which makes the famous Karlowitz wine. While on the left side the country continues flat, on the right are low cliffs. Ujlak (Ilok), on a rocky height, one of the most picturesquely situated places along this part of the river, is interesting as being on the site of the Roman Cuctium, and possessing remains of that distant past. Since then it has been occupied by the Quadii, the Magyars, and the Turks. In the monastery here lived the warrior-monk, John Capistran, who fought under the banner of John Hunyadi at the siege of Belgrade; here, too, he was buried, “his body being lowered into an almost bottomless well by the monks, in order that his remains might never, in any future incursions of the Turks, be disturbed and dishonoured by his enemies the infidels.” Opposite, on the left bank, is Palánka. As the river nears the foot of the hills on the right, the scenery becomes more attractive and more varied. Soon is seen ahead the famous fortress of Pétervárad (Peterwardein). After passing Kamenitz on the right, we soon reach Ujvidek (Neusatz), a large and pleasant old town, which is an important centre of the Alföld trade. Here the Danube has turned northerly to sweep round the little peninsula on which stands the fortress that has for some time formed a notable object in the view. Here the Danube is crossed by a bridge of boats (eight hundred feet long), such as was, well on into the nineteenth century, the ordinary means of communication between towns on opposite sides of the river.
Pétervárad (Peterwardein) which, from its situation, has been dubbed the Gibraltar of the Danube, consists of a large fortress on a rock about two hundred feet above the river, with a small town below it. It owes its importance to its strong, isolated situation and its position at the end of the old military frontier established or revived by “King” Maria Theresa, a frontier tract, all the male population of which had for three weeks out of every month to take military duty in guarding the land from any attack on the part of Turkish neighbours.
The town owes its present name—it is believed to have been the Acuminicum of the Romans—to the fact that it was here that Peter the Hermit marshalled the people whom he had gathered together in 1096 to take part in the first of the Crusades. The picturesque story which tells of Peter wandering through Europe riding on an ass and preaching the Crusade—as being, indeed, the originator of the great religious movement of the Middle Ages—is doubted by modern historians, but it is one that tradition will not willingly let die.
Gibbon tells us how, about twenty years after the Turks had taken Jerusalem, Peter visited the holy sepulchre and, moved by the position of the Christians in the holy city, exclaimed, “I will rouse the martial nations of Europe in your cause.” The historian tells us of the Hermit that “his stature was small, his appearance contemptible; but his eye was keen and lively; and he possessed that vehemence of speech, which seldom fails to impart the persuasion of the soul.... From Jerusalem the pilgrim returned an accomplished fanatic; but as he excelled in the popular madness of the times, Pope Urban the Second received him as a prophet, applauded his glorious design, promised to support it in a general council, and encouraged him to proclaim the deliverance of the Holy Land. Invigorated by the approbation of the Pontiff, his zealous missionary traversed, with speed and success, the provinces of Italy and France. His diet was abstemious, his prayers long and fervent, and the alms which he received with one hand he distributed with the other; his head was bare, his feet naked, his meagre body was wrapped in a coarse garment; he bore and displayed a weighty crucifix; and the ass on which he rode was sanctified in the public eye by the service of the man of God. He preached to innumerable crowds in the churches, the streets, and the highways; the hermit entered with equal confidence the palace and the cottage; and the people, for all were people, were impetuously moved by his call to repentance and arms.” The first Crusade was known as the People’s Crusade, and it was probably a motley mass that the Hermit gathered together here before his numerous company set out on its disastrous enterprise. Most of those who did not fall en route, in plundering raids and other wayside troubles, left their bones to bleach on the soil of Palestine. All that we have of that tragic episode here at the Danube fortress, is the memory of the Hermit enshrined in the name of the place.
As a military centre Pétervárad (Peterwardein) has seen its share of fighting. In that unhappy year, 1626, it was captured by the Turks, and remained in their possession until after the second battle of Mohacs.
Between Pétervárad and Karlowitz on 5 August, 1716, Prince Eugène won a signal victory over the Turks, who had broken the Treaty of Karlowitz, made some years before. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu crossed the battlefield some months later, and writing to Alexander Pope, said, “The marks of that glorious and bloody day are yet recent, the field being yet strewed with the skulls and carcases of unburied men, horses, and camels. I could not look, without horror, on such numbers of mangled human bodies, nor without reflecting on the injustice of war, that makes murder not only necessary, but meritorious.” It is said that thirty thousand Turks were slain in this battle.