Three Turks

On pages 11 through 14 in The True Travels, Smith recalls events and locations in the Transylvanian region of modern Romania. His army had driven the Turks into a fortress overlooking the “Plaines of Regall” and laid siege.

As the siege dragged on, he was chosen by lot to meet a Turkish champion in single combat by sword and pistol, defeated him and defeated two more challenges by the Turk’s buddies.

Victory brought him his promotion to sergeant major (= major*), the gift of a horse “richly furnished” and a scimitar by his commander, Moses Szekely. Added to this was a belt of ducats, and a coat of arms awarded by his prince, Sigismund Bathory, duke of Transylvania, having “three Turks heads in a shield for his arms, by patent, under his hand and seal, with an oath ever to wear them in his colors, his picture in gold.” 

Naturally this had all been pronounced doubtful by generations of historians into the mid-twentieth century until the work of Dr. Polanyi Striker. In an appendix to Bradford Smith’s biography she identified the so-called siege of Regall as the battle of Torocko (Hungarian name), but the question has remained: Where was Torocko?  

Smith’s physical description at least is a likely fit for the Aiud River valley in the Munţii Trascăului (mountains), a few miles south of the town of Rimetea. There beside the hamlet of Colţeşti, atop a pinnacle with an “unuseful mountain” behind it sits the ruins of a small stone fortress. Colţeşti once had the German name Eisenberg (Smith’s Esenberg?) and Eisenberg bore the Hungarian name Torocko. The valley floor can be called a plain. Moreover, the southern outlet of the valley is through the magnificent “cheile Aiudului,” the deep and narrow Aiud gorge of the stream that in 9 miles emerges into the Mureş River at the town of Aiud. Aiud is 18 miles upstream from Alba Iulia (Smith’s Regall, or royal city?). Is this enough to place the combats at Colţeşti and the prince’s palace in Alba Iulia?  

Perhaps if Smith’s details were not so puzzling. He says twice in English the place of the combats is called Regall, and for good measure includes a woodcut illustrating “the siege of Regall,” as if Regall is a name and not the adjective “regal.”. Notwithstanding, his Latin version reads  “ad urbem regalem,” meaning “on the way to the royal city.” Research is ongoing. 

*Sergeant major ranked above a captain, below a lieutenant colonel. Nonetheless Smith, seems to have preferred being called “Captain”. 

For those who want to tackle the problem, the following criteria are extracted from The True Travels, Smith’s account written 30 years later:

1. In early spring (1602) 

2. In the land of Zarkam among rocky mountains 

3. City in the Plains of Regall occupied by Turks 

4. Environed with mountains making passages to it difficult 

5. Approach through a narrow valley between two mountains 

6. Six days for 6000 pioneers to bring ordnance through the pass 

7. Sconce forts in the passage

8.  Moses Szekely (Zachel Moyses) in command of 8000 in the forces of Henry Volda, Earl of Meldritch.

9. Turks in a strong fortress on a fair promontory, perhaps in the city

10. On one side of the fortress an “un-useful” mountain, on the other a fair plain

11.  Besieged fortress breached by ordnance and taken by storm

12.  Following his victory, Moses Szekely proceeds to sack Veratio (Varatzo), Solmos, and Kupronka

13.  He then comes to Esenberg, not far from the prince’s palace

Solmos (Soimuş), Veratio (Orăştie), and Kupronka (Căpruţa), are readily identified on the modern map along the Mureş River, well downstream from Alba Iulia. The land of Zarkam could be either the Zarandului mountains, north of the river, or could be the region of Zarkany (Purchas’ and Hungarian spelling = Romanian town Sercaia) a few miles west of Braşov, where Meldritch’s forces, joined with Bathory, were encamped before beginning the spring campaign.