"SZIGETVAR" a Szigetvar Travel Page by croisbeauty

Szigetvar is a small town with only 12000 inhabitants situate about 30 km west of the town of Pecs. What makes this place worth to see, it is the glorious history, and in particularly wide world well known battle against the Turks back in 1566.
Szigetvar's importance as a fortress gradually increased as the Turkish army penetrated deeper and deeper to the country.The Turks first laid siege to the town in 1556, but their attacks was repelled. The second siege took place in 1566. The Captain, Miklos Zrinyi (his full name was Nikola Subic Zrinski and he was a Croat noble man from the famous Zrinski family) though aware of the fact that his detachment numering only 2500 men was hopelessly outnumbered by the wast Turkish army approaching, decided to hold out until the bitter end. .......

...... The fortress was attacked by Suleyman's I, the Magnificient 800.000 troops. The ultimate goal of the sultan was to capture Vienna, but first he had to take Sziget. The fighting, however dragged on for a months........

...... On 7 September, in a last ditch attempt to at least die gloriously, Zrinski and a handfull of his remaining soldiers (Croats and Hungarians) sallied fort from the inner castle and were killed to the last men. But the Turks had very little reason to rejoice over their victory; the old sultan had been dead for days and the winter was approaching and that discouraged them in plan to march on towards Vienna. Siget's doomm saved Vienna.