BUDAPEST TO BELGRADE
“Past wooded isles, and cornlands fair,
By fields of ancient wars
The river through the Alföld plain
Its mighty volume pours.”
_From the Magyar_
The long stretch of the Danube, where it flows south and then
south-easterly from Budapest to Belgrade, contrasts greatly with the
more beautiful scenic portion of the river’s course above Budapest.
From the ever-varying mountains and valleys, the rocks and vineyards,
we pass at once into the great Hungarian plain, through which the river
finds its tortuous way for hundreds of miles. In the downward steamer
the journey is one of about twenty-four hours, and those travellers who
cannot reconcile themselves to a thoroughly restful day of progress,
are recommended--even in Budapest itself--to “skip” this portion of the
river and journey by railway to Zimony.
There is, however, a fascination in a flat country, though a river
rarely affords the best point from which to experience it. Properly
speaking, the Alföld, or great Hungarian plain, of about thirty-seven
thousand square miles, lies to the left as we go down the Danube. Its
main river--the chief river entirely Hungarian--is the Tisza (Theiss),
which for nearly three hundred miles runs roughly parallel, at a
distance of about sixty miles, with the greater stream into which it
flows.
This great Alföld which is at an average height of between three
hundred and three hundred and fifty feet above sea-level, is the most
extensive plain in Europe, and passing over parts of its surface,
unbroken but by groups of trees, occasional villages, or clusters of
farm buildings, with far-stretching expanses of maize, wheat, or other
crops, one who knows the western continent is reminded again and again
of the settled prairies of Golden Canada. Differences are, of course,
noticeable as soon as we study details, but the general impression is
the same.
Mile after mile we journey through this richly cultivated country,
but the railway journey right across it, or the glimpses of it which
we get from the river, give but an inadequate impression. It is
necessary to leave the neighbourhood of the railway, to visit remote
villages or isolated farms, to gain an adequate idea of it; and to
come in touch with the people to learn something of the fascination
which their country possesses for them. That fascination is, however,
widely reflected in Hungarian literature, as Mr. Louis Felbermann has
abundantly shown in his history and description of Hungary. In the work
of one of the leading lyrical poets of the country, Charles Kisfaludy,
we have a pathetic expression of the _nostalgia_ felt by the exiled
Alfölder--
“Oh! lovely boundaries of my native plain,
Shall I behold thee, dearest spot, again?
Where’er I turn my steps, o’er vale or hill,
My longing glances turn towards thee still.
I fain would ask the bird upon the wing
Dost thou some memory from my country bring?
I fain would ask the flying clouds the same;
The whisp’ring zephyrs seem to breathe its name.
Can they console me? No, they only start
The brooding sadness in my lonely heart;
Like a poor orphan do I wander now,
O’er wither’d grass upon the mountain’s brow.
Belovèd cot, where I beheld the light,
How can I live when thou art not in sight?
Just like a leaf that whirls upon the wind,
My body drifts--but leaves my soul behind!”[15]
The national poet of Hungary, Alexander Petófi, has sung of the charms
of the Alföld, too, and the following is Mr. Felbermann’s literal
rendering of a part of his tribute--
“I love the plains! It is only there that I feel free!
My eyes can wander as they please, quite unconstrained!
One is not confined by barriers.
The mountain cliffs do not frown down at one like threatening objects,
Throwing about their loudly trickling rivulets as though they hold in
their grasp a group of noisy chains!
Let no one say the plains are not beautiful.
They have their charm. They are like a shy maiden who covers her face
with a thick veil,
Though she unveils herself before her friends.
And the eye is lost in wonder, for it sees a fairy standing before it.
I love the plains! I wandered about them on my fiery horse.”
And again from Petófi may be quoted the following prose version as
rendered by the same translator--
“What are to me the wild Carpathian mountains with their pine trees? I
may admire them but not love them. Nor does my imagination wander down
into their valleys. Down in the interior of the vast and ocean-like
plains, _there_ I am at home, and _that_ is my world. If I look at the
endless plains my thoughts fly far away, and near to the clouds. I see
between the Danube and the Tisza the smiling picture of the plains.
Under the Fata Morgana sky the herds of the Kuns are grazing near the
wells. I hear the tramp of the furious-riding csikós (cowboys) and the
clacking of their whips. Near the puszta, in the lap of the breeze,
the corn ears are rocking, and with their bright emerald tint they
joyfully crown the land. Here come at twilight the wild ducks, which
are driven away from their rest among the reeds by the swaying of the
wind. Beyond the farms, in the depths of the puszta, stands a lonely
Csárda (inn). It is visited by the thirsty _betyars_ (tramps), who go
to the fair of Kecskemét. Near to the groves of the birches you see
the melons glittering in the sands. Here, close by, nestles the bird,
undisturbed by the children; here is cultivated the maidenhair plant
and the blue cornflower, and the lizards come to take shelter from the
broiling sun under their roots. Far away, where the sky touches the
earth in mist, the blue orchards are to be seen. Behind them the spires
of the churches of the distant towns stand out in dim fog-like streaks.
You are beautiful, Alföld! At least you are beautiful to me. Here I was
born and cradled, and here I would have my eyelids closed, and my tomb
raised.”
The poet’s wish was not realized, for he fell at the battle of Segesvár
(Schassburg) in Transylvania, in 1849, and was buried in an unnamed
grave. Of the Alföld which he loved, we get, as has been said, but
glimpses passing down the Danube. In the autumn when the maize is being
harvested we may see great mounds of the cobs, already husked before
leaving the field, like hillocks of gold awaiting removal, or may see
long wagons, drawn by wide-horned oxen, bearing golden loads to the
granaries.
Again and again, too, we shall see the curious poles which mark the
wells, and form a common characteristic feature of this lowland
scenery. On the top of a tall perpendicular pole is another, placed
transversely; from the thin end hangs a bucket, while the other end
has either the trimmed stump of the tree of which the pole is formed,
or else something heavy bound to it, to afford a counterbalancing
weight when the bucket is drawn up full. A well of this kind is seen by
each of the low white cottages or tiny farmsteads that we pass, and by
them, too, are frequently seen little “granaries,” of the same size and
shape as those to be seen in the north of Spain, but plainer in design.
If, however, there is a certain sameness about the river scenery from
Budapest to Zimony (Semlin) and the neighbourhood of Belgrade, it is
by no means unattractive; and on the journey we pass some places that
are intimately bound up with the fortunes of the Hungarian kingdom,
including a spot at which that kingdom received a crushing blow in
one century and avenged it in the next. Just below Budapest the river
branches, forming two streams along the island of Csepel, which is
about thirty miles in length. Numerous water-mills are again seen on
the river, both here and lower down--largely used, presumably, for the
grain grown on that rich long strip of the Alföld, that lies between
the Danube and the Tisza (Theiss). The steamer stops at several places
not calling for special mention.
A little below Budapest we pass on the right a château, once the
property of Prince Eugène--presumably part of the great inheritance
which that celebrated “Mars without a Venus” bequeathed to a niece.
Below this, at Nagytétény, are some ruins; while further along, at
Erd, is a relic of the Turkish occupation, in the form of a strong
tower. Some distance below the southern end of the Csepel island
is Dunaföldvár on high ground, and beyond here the Danube, though
maintaining its southerly course, winds tortuously through broad marsh
lands. About forty miles west of the Danube, as we near Dunaföldvár,
lies the great lake Balaton (Platten See).
From Kalocsa, some distance inland from Nszód, on the left bank is a
short branch railway line to Kis Körös, the birthplace of Alexander
Petófi.
When Lady Mary Wortley Montagu journeyed with her husband to the near
East, they went from Vienna to Budapest and thence to Belgrade by the
land route, refusing to wait until the Danube had thawed that they
might travel by boat. “Almost everybody I see frights me with some new
difficulty. Prince Eugène has been so good as to say all the things
he could to persuade me to stay till the Danube is thawed, that I may
have the conveniency of going by water, assuring me that the houses
in Hungary are such as are no defence against the weather, and that I
shall be obliged to travel three or four days between Buda and Esseek,
without finding any house at all, through desart plains covered with
snow; where the cold is so violent, many have been killed by it.” After
she had passed over this stage of her journey, she wrote, “this part of
the country is very much overgrown with wood, and little frequented.
’Tis incredible what vast numbers of wildfowl we saw, which often live
here to a good old age--and undisturbed by guns in quiet sleep.”
It must be remembered that the “desart” through which she passed was
part of the track of the conquering Turks, and though some time had
elapsed since their final expulsion, the country had by no means
recovered. Now the “desart” is largely settled, and away on the left we
have some of the richest corn lands of the kingdom, but still in the
marsh lands we have evidence of the continued abundance of wildfowl.
Indeed parts of the river below here are regarded as a happy hunting
ground for sportsmen and naturalists. A careful botanist, by the way,
has pointed out that while only forty-four per cent. of the flowers of
the Danubian plains are perennials, there are as many as ninety-six
per cent. in the Alps. If we are able to leave the river-side, we shall
see in autumn about the roads of the Alföld--frequently mere cart-ways
worn across the flat land--an abundance of fine giant mulleins, white
daturas, bright blue chicory, and yellow toadflax, while from above
the stretching acres of maize will be frequently seen great sunflower
disks, suggesting that the plant has become acclimatized to the point
of self sowing.
The principal town of importance on this long south-running portion of
the river from Budapest to Zimony is Mohacs--the most important, at
once in point of size and as a centre of historic significance. Here,
on 29 August, 1526, was fought the disastrous battle which made the
Turks masters of Hungary; and here the Turks were finally defeated, and
so driven out of the kingdom, on 12 August, 1687.
When the Turks threatened invasion in the first-named year, King
Louis of Hungary sought in vain to get foreign assistance, for
his neighbours were all too busily engaged in defending their own
interests. Louis then ordered a general rising to arms of all people
“by sending round a bloody sabre to every house, in accordance with
the ancient Scythian custom.” The gathering place was named as Tolna,
some distance further up the river, near the right bank, and thither
the prelates and nobles brought such forces as they could gather.
When King Louis came to marshal his troops, he found that he could
command but about twenty-six thousand men, and those but ill-armed
and badly equipped. And the Turkish army, led by Solyman, was two
hundred thousand strong and flushed with victories further east. It is
said that the Hungarians--heroic in the circumstances to the point of
foolhardiness--made light of the odds against them, though some of his
cooler advisers suggested that King Louis should retire to the citadel
of Buda. The archbishop Tomori, who was one of the leaders, thought
that battle should be joined at once, and after the two armies had
confronted each other on the plain by Mohacs for three days, he ordered
the advance, having placed the king, surrounded by a chosen bodyguard,
in the rear. The charging cavalry routed the first of the enemy’s
battalions, and the king was at once told that the Turks were flying,
and recommended to bring up his reserve to the pursuit. Louis galloped
forward only to find the chief part of his army broken by the main body
of the Turks under Solyman himself.
The Hungarians fought heroically, but their army was practically
annihilated. Over twenty-two thousand men were left dead upon the
field, including the ecclesiastic general Tomori, seven bishops and
twenty-eight of the highest nobility of the land. All was lost, and
the brave young king had to gallop off with a few friends. Crossing a
marshy stream, his heavily caparisoned horse sank in the morass, and
struggling to get to the bank, fell back upon its rider. A nobleman
who had led the way, turned back to his sovereign’s assistance, drew
him from the marsh and unbuckled his armour--but the defeated king
was mortally injured and died shortly after. Before his disconsolate
followers could bury Louis, the pursuing Turks came up with them, and
they had to flee. Two months later the corpse was found and interred at
Székes-Fehérvár (Stuhlweissenburg), an old royal town between Buda and
the lake of Balaton (Platten See).
The conquering Turks swept the country after this decisive
battle--“such was the terror inspired by their atrocities, that mothers
killed their children and husbands their wives, to prevent them falling
into their hands alive. Wherever they passed they left nothing behind
but a howling waste, without food or shelter for living creature.” The
battle of Mohacs has been described as even more disastrous to Hungary
than was that of Flodden Field to Scotland. It decided her fate, not
only in the sense of placing much of the land under Turkish dominion
for generations, but in placing her also at the mercy of her Austrian
neighbours. Not only did the country lose the flower of her manhood on
these Mohacs plains, but the conquerors are said to have carried away
over a hundred thousand prisoners. At the second battle of Mohacs,
following on the recapture of Buda, the Turks were finally defeated,
leaving on the field, it is said, sixty-eight guns, six hundred tents,
and dead “sufficient to form quite a hill.”
The town of Mohacs lies on the right bank of the Danube, and has little
beyond its battle associations to claim attention. The fact that it is
a centre of the Hungarian coal industry and a river-port, gives it its
modern importance. Unless we have time and opportunities for journeying
inland, there are few places on the long stretch of the river which
we are now following that specially invite the traveller to stay.
The journey continues on through low country, now between reeds and
rushes, past woodlands or willow-grown banks, with occasional glimpses
of villages, but nothing that, in the broad view which we have here
to take, calls for special notice. Again and again branches of the
river go off, enclosing islands of various size--opposite Mohacs is
one of these, about twenty-five miles in length, known as the Margaret
Island, and near the further end of it, at Bezdán is the beginning
of the seventy-four mile canal, which connects the Danube with the
Tisza (Theiss) and forms a short-cut waterway between Budapest and
Szegedin--the Alföld town to which the gondola-prowed grain barges that
we saw at the capital belong. From that canal a branch goes off to
Ujvidek (Neusatz.)
[Illustration: 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.
From the fortress is to be had an extensive view over the low-lying
country through which the Danube here flows, of its broad stream, and
of the wooded islands formed by its branchings, while to the south are
the beautiful hills and woodlands of the Fruska-Gora. After the river
has turned southwards again, looking back over the winding course
of the stream, the Gibraltar of the Danube remains long visible.
Karlowitz, the next stopping place, on the right bank, is not only
celebrated as having given its name to the wine of the district,
but is a point of historical importance as that where the Treaty of
Karlowitz was signed in 1699. That treaty, which removed the Turkish
frontier to Servia, and by which Austria acquired the greater part of
Hungary and Transylvania, was signed in a building above the town,
where now stands the chapel of Mariafried.
The scenery here is pleasantly diversified, with its wooded and
vine-grown hills, while the river is broken up by many islands. At
Slankamen, on the right, is an obelisk commemorating a defeat of the
Turks in 1691; a little beyond, on the left Tisza (Theisseck), is
situated at the confluence of the Danube with the greatest of its
tributaries--the Tisza (Theiss), which, rising in the Carpathians,
flows for about seven hundred and fifty miles west and south, through
the great Hungarian plain of the Alföld to its junction here with the
Danube. As we approach Zimony (Semlin), its Millenary monument and
castle remains are to be seen on the hill above it, while beyond we get
a glimpse of the towers of Belgrade.
At Zimony (Semlin) we reach the last Hungarian town on the right bank
of the Danube--a town which as a frontier station has been, and is, a
place of some importance. From where the Drave flows into the Danube
to where the Save comes in just below Zimony (Semlin), is the eastern
boundary of the old kingdom of Croatia, now incorporated with that of
Hungary. Largely masked by trees, much of the town is hidden from the
water, and when we get into it we find in its low white houses, its
shops and larger buildings a blending, as it were, of east and west.
Two-thirds of its inhabitants are described as German, and the rest are
mainly Croatian and Servian. Its small market square, a little distance
from the quay, with its booths on which clothes, beads, and cheap
jewellery, fruit, vegetables and meat are exposed, offers an animated
scene. Here, too, are said to be many gipsies, and here, in the hotel
court-yard, is one of the few places in which I heard one of the gipsy
bands for which Hungary has long been famous.
The gipsies (zigeuner) have given their name to the lofty hill, the
Zigeunersberg by the Danube side, on which are the ruins of the castle
of Hungary’s chief national hero, John Hunyadi (whose name in its
Hungarian form, Hunyadi Janos, is familiar all the world over as that
of a medicinal mineral water!). The hill should be climbed for the view
it affords far over the Danubian plain; of the broad flowing Danube,
where it is joined by the seemingly greater Save; of the valleys of
these two rivers; and of the towns and roofs of the “White City” of
Servia--Belgrade. It is a magnificent view, and while contemplating
it we may well remember something of the famous hero who lived in the
old-time castle hundreds of years ago--within sight of the town before
which he had repeatedly shown his prowess in fighting the Turks in days
when the Crescent threatened to dominate a large part of Europe.
Though the historians tell us that Hunyadi was the son of a small
landowner, popular tradition gives him a more romantic origin, for the
story runs that his father was no less a person than King Sigismund.
It is said that the king, being in Transylvania, became enamoured of
a beautiful young woman, Elizabeth Morsiani, to whom he presented a
ring, saying that if she ever brought it to the palace, he would fulfil
the promises which he had made “to load their child with honours.”
Some months later Elizabeth married a Wallachian nobleman, and soon
after gave birth to a son, to whom was given the name of Janos or
John. When King Sigismund had his camp in the neighbourhood, Elizabeth
visited him, showing the child and the ring, on which occasion the
king renewed his promises, and told her to go to Buda, which, after
her husband’s death, she did. One day little John was playing with
his mother’s ring, when a crow flew down and carried it off. The boy,
we may be sure, cried out, when the king, who happened opportunely to
be passing, heard him, shot the bird, and was greatly astonished to
recognize the token which he had given the Transylvanian maiden some
years before. On finding out who the boy was, the monarch adopted him,
gave him a military education, and when he grew up, gave him the estate
of Hunyadi, in Transylvania, and many villages, and granted him as his
coat-of-arms a crow carrying a ring in its beak. Thus it was that John
acquired his surname, and also the nickname of Corvinus, which is most
frequently associated with his son Matthias. This is one of several
versions of the romantic story which has grown up about the fame of
Hungary’s national hero--the man who in the fifteenth century saved
the kingdom again and again, who again and again drove back the tide
of Turkish conquest. Gibbon says of him that “the idea of a consummate
general is not delineated in his campaigns. The White Knight [Philip de
Commines calls him the White Knight of Wallachia] fought with the hand
rather than the head, as the chief of desultory Barbarians, who attack
without fear, and fly without shame; and his military life is composed
of a romantic alternation of victories and escapes. By the Turks, who
employed his name to frighten their perverse children, he was corruptly
denominated Jancus Lain, or the wicked; their hatred is the proof of
their esteem; the kingdom which he guarded was inaccessible to their
arms.”
Though divided from each other but by a short branch of the Danube,
which here forks round the large War Island, and the broad Save, Zimony
(Semlin) and Belgrade differ greatly in appearance and character. From
the tree-surrounded Croatian town at the foot of its green hill, we
pass on to the Servian city with the pleasantest of anticipations,
for Belgrade from the Zigeunersberg is remarkably picturesque with its
fortifications and other buildings on the river-side hill, and the
towers and roofs of the main part of the town showing beyond. But our
anticipations are not altogether realized, and it is with something
of disappointment that we wander about the town of warlike and tragic
memories.
Arriving at Belgrade, we are for the first time made aware of the
necessity of carrying passports. To be exact, passport formalities have
to be gone through twice--once on the quay at Zimony before we are
allowed to embark, and secondly at Belgrade, before we are permitted
to get any further than the police office. Leaving the quayside on the
Save, to which the steamer has brought us, we may take one or other
of the steep streets up into the central part of the town; perhaps
the best method is to follow the road to the left, and so reach the
Kalemegdan Park, on the citadel hill, whence we get good views over
the two rivers and the town, and may recall the distant times when the
citadel of Belgrade was a kind of key fortress in the long struggle
between the Turks and their northern neighbours; when it was occupied
now by Turks and now by Magyars.
Here Hunyadi Janos for a time was commandant, and here when the Moslems
held it, he fought for its recovery; here, too, when a huge Turkish
army encompassed the place, came Hunyadi again with the warlike monk
Capistran, and with a much inferior force, compelled the investing
army to raise the siege and retire to the south. The Sultan, Mahomet
II. had attacked the place with an army of two hundred thousand men on
the land sides, and with a powerful flotilla from the river, and the
Christian population had given up all hope, when Hunyadi appeared with
such a force as the preaching of Capistran could bring to the task of
upholding the Cross and expelling the hated Turk. So fiercely did the
Hungarian army attack the Turkish boats, that they seemed to carry all
before them, and the waters of the Danube are described as having run
red with blood. Before the day ended thirty thousand Turks are said to
have been slain, Belgrade was relieved and the besiegers in retreat.
The importance of the strategic position at the junction of two great
rivers, and with an outlook towards the great plain on the north, seems
to have been recognized in early times, for the Celts are said to have
first raised fortifications on this rocky summit in the third century
before our era. By them it was named, and for a thousand years it
remained, Singidunum--during which period it was successively in the
possession of the Romans, the Huns, Sarmatians, Goths and Gepids, and
then again in that of the Romans. In the eighth century the Franks,
and in the ninth the Bulgarians, secured it, and held it until the
eleventh, when they were evicted by the Byzantine Emperor Basil II.
The Hungarians, under King Stephen, conquered it, to be followed by
Greeks, Bulgarians and Hungarians again. In the fourteenth century it
seems first to have fallen into the hands of the Servians, who later
ceded it to Hungary. Then it was alternately occupied by Hungarians and
Turks during the long period of their intermittent warfare, while later
Austria and Turkey held it by turn for brief periods. Austria captured
it in 1688 to lose it two years later, again in 1717 to hold it until
1739, and yet again in 1789 to lose it in 1792. Then it was Servians
and Turks who alternately disputed the mastership, and it was only in
1866 that the Turks finally gave up the citadel. It was presumably
the Austrian attack of 1789 which was commemorated in the wonderful
alliterative verses, the opening lines of which have become so popular
that they almost deserve inclusion among our nursery rhymes. The
lines, which were written in 1828 by the Rev. B. Poulter, Prebendary of
Winchester, are not widely familiar _in extenso_, and may therefore be
appropriately quoted when we are regarding Belgrade as a much-besieged
city:--
“An Austrian army, awfully arrayed,
Boldly by battery besieged Belgrade.
Cossack, commander, cannonading come,
Deal devastation! dire destructive doom;
Every endeavour engineers essay,
For fame, for freedom fight fierce furious fray;
Gen’rals ’gainst gen’rals grapple--gracious God!
How honours heav’n heroic hardihood;
Infuriate, indiscriminate in ill,
Just Jesus, instant innocence instill!
Kinsmen kill kinsmen, kindred kindred kill.
Labour low levels longest, loftiest, lines;
Men march midst mounds, motes, mountains, murd’rous mines.
Now noisy noxious numbers notice nought,
Of outward obstacles o’ercoming ought;
Poor patriots perish, persecutions pest!
Quite quiet Quakers, ‘quarter! quarter!’ quest.
Reason returns, religion, right redounds,
Suwarrow stop such sanguinary sounds!
Truce to thee, Turkey, terror to thy train!
Unwise, unjust, unmerciful Ukraine!
Vanish vile vengeance, vanish victory vain.
Why wish we warfare? Wherefore welcome won
Xerxes, Xantippus, Xavier, Xenophon?
Yield ye, young Yaghier yeomen, yield your yell.
Zimmermann’s, Zoroaster’s, Zeno’s zeal
Again attracts; arts against arms appeal.
All, all ambition’s aims, avaunt, away!
Et cætera, et cætera, et cætera.”
[Illustration: BELGRADE]
The town which may thus be regarded as one of those which have been
most often besieged--I cannot say if it holds a “record” in this
respect!--has little to show of its varied past. Its important
buildings are comparatively few and modern, and though the capital
of a kingdom, it has something of a provincial air about even the
broadest and busiest of its ill-made thoroughfares, with their many
little shops, their small old houses close neighbouring less small
new ones. The white baggy trousers, the white coat, and the conical
black Astrakhan caps of many of the people, give something of a new
character to the place, and the market with the women with their bright
head kerchiefs, the men with their conical caps and sheepskin coats,
the swarthy gipsies, and the abundance of colour supplied by fruit and
vegetables, form one of the pleasantest memory pictures of the Servian
capital.
Yet somehow there seems a want of cheerfulness about Belgrade, as
though the sense of tragedy yet remained from the murder of King
Alexander and Queen Draga eight years ago. The palace in which that
dynastic crime was perpetrated has been pulled down and a new residence
for the present ruler erected near its site.
An incident recorded in the letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
suggests that there is something in the air which leads to such tragic
coups. She says that shortly before her arrival at Belgrade the pasha
had fallen under the displeasure of his soldiers “for no other reason,
but restraining their incursions on the Germans. They took it into
their heads from that mildness, that he had intelligence with the
enemy, and sent such information to the grand Signior at Adrianople;
but, redress not coming quick enough from thence, they assembled
themselves in a tumultuous manner, and by force dragged their Bassa
before the Cadi and Mufti, and there demanded justice in a mutinous
way; one crying out, Why he protected the Infidels? Another, Why he
squeezed them of their money? The Bassa, easily guessing their purpose,
calmly replied to them, that they asked him too many questions,
and that he had but one life which must answer for all. They then
immediately fell upon him with their scymitars (without waiting the
sentence of the heads of the law) and in a few moments cut him in
pieces. The present Bassa has not dared to punish the murder; on the
contrary, he affected to applaud the actors of it as brave fellows.”
It was but a short stay that I made in Belgrade--possibly with a longer
sojourn it might “grow” upon one, and the chief impression retained is
that of its wonderful situation at the confluence of the two rivers.
To that situation it owed its past importance as a strategic point
and therefore its prominent position in the military annals of the
neighbouring countries, and to it it will owe no small share of its
probable future importance as a commercial city. Those visitors who are
not the victims of a holiday time-table would probably find Belgrade a
delightful centre for excursions into the very beautiful country which
lies within easy reach of it both in Servia and Croatia.
From where the Inn joins the Danube at Passau to where the Save comes
in between Zimony and Belgrade, we have had on the right bank the
frontier of the Roman provinces of Noricum and Pannonia--provinces
which, according to Gibbon, embraced the great stretch of country more
or less enclosed by the three rivers named, and later became divided up
into Austria, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, Lower Hungary, and Slavonia.
FOOTNOTES:
[15] “Hungary and its People,” by Louis Felbermann.