Deák Antal András: A Duna fölfedezése

Tartalom - III.A DANUBIUS PANNONICO-MYSICUS, 1726

T II E DISCOVERY OF THE DANUBE delivered (1688), which suggests that Marsigli's person was a guarantee for the Turks. In his free time, he studied Roman monuments along the Lower Danube. On one of his excursions he discovered Emperor Trajan's bridge. In his Danubius, he provides a detailed description of the piers, which could be seen in the low water, the inscriptions on the bank, and its structure reconstructed from the depiction of the bridge in Rome. He admired the cataracts of the Lower Danube and was awed by the mighty strength of the huge river flowing through the Kazan straights. While I was gazing with delight at the straits of the Danube at Marecobila, which are estimated at 30-40 fathoms, and examined the steepness and solidity of the rocks on both banks, I was often filled with awe to see how the rocks forced the huge mass of the river into those narrow straits.

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0 He also examined the rocks that formed the bed of the river and learned about the fishes from the fishermen. He even made notes on the plants that grew along the river banks as he assiduously collected material for his Danubius. The diplomat In 1691, he travelled on a boat to Constantinople to negotiate peace, facing the menacing whirlpools of the Lower Danube, including the renown reefs and whirlpools of the Iron Gates. The notes and sketches he took on the journey show us that the boats had to cross the dangerous cataracts in the middle of the river at high water and near the left bank at low water.

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1 The peace negotiations did not bring the expected results. The debilitating fight dragged on between the two armies. As if acted out of a script, each spring the Ottoman armies would march along the Danube towards Belgrade and the allied troops would advance southwards, also along the Danube. The Turks took the initiative so that the war mostly caused devastation in Hungarian lands. And the Turks always avoided decisive battles. When they were going to lose a battle, they abandoned the relatively easily replaceable war machinery and retreated, thus, preserving the lives of their soldiers to initiate new attacks the following spring. Finally in 1697, Eugene of Savoye

42 caught the Turkish army, led personally by the Turkish sultan, unawares while they were crossing the Tisza and annihilated the troops that had already crossed over to the left bank of the river. It was such a great rout that from this point the Turkish military leaders became more inclined to make peace. On October 18, 1689 an agreement was signed concerning a cease-fire, and peace negotiations got underway at Karlovic on the 13

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h of November in the same year. In the meantime, Marsigli had been promoted to the rank of general and charged with important diplomatic missions as the emperor's golden-keyed treasurer and confidant. He had visited the previously mentioned territories both as soldier and diplomat. They included the Danube region, the southern and southeastern parts of Hungary, Transylvania and the Balkans, the latter territory more than once. He used the involuntary winter breaks for reading, studying, the organisation of his notes and research. He made good use of his education and military achievements in his diplomatic missions as well. As an envoy of Vienna, he twice visited Constantinople and the sultan's camp while travelling on the Danube and on land. On his journeys he made notes and drafted maps: At the time, when I studied the Danube ... I decided after the surrender of Belgrade in 1690 that I would make more observations so that they could help not only in compiling a hydrographic map of the Danube but also in drafting and drawing the map of the territories adjacentt to the river. Thus, I pondered and devised how it 4

0 DPM Vol. I. Pars III. 4

1 DPM Vol. II. Tab. 7. 4

2 Eugene de Savoie-Carignan (Paris 1663 - Vienna 1736) was one of the greatest generals in modern history. In 1696, Leopold I appointed him supreme commander of the Hungarian army against the Turks. He won his greatest victory at Zenta, smashing the Turkish army while they were crossing the Tisza (September 11, 1697). The fruit of this victory was the peace treaty signed at Karlovic (January 26, 1699). 102