Slovakia - System of Fortifications at the Confluence of the Rivers Danube and Váh in Komárno - Komárom

The fortress is situated on the advantageous strategic place - the confluence of the rivers Váh and Danube with a ford, on the crossroads of the merchant roads. The strategic importance of the respective locality was supposedly appraised by the Romans, who had built the fortifications along the Danube Limes Romanus. The location of the present fortress Komárno, its settlement or use for the defensive purposes is mentioned in Anonymous work Gesta Hungarorum, from the time of the rule of Belo Ill. During the Tartar invasions, when a great part of this territory was plundered, only a few strong castles were able to defend themselves. They also included Komárno, that is mentioned by one of the letters of Belo IV from the year 1245. After the retreat of the Tartars from Hungary, the king, supporting the flourish of the medieval towns, in a short time granted to the 25 towns great privileges. In the year of 1265 the privileged were granted to Komárno as well. The rebuilding during the rule of Matej Korvin, made by the Italian masters, gave the representative look of the renaissance palace to the Komárno castle. Bastion fortifications in Komárno were being built from the half of the 16th century until the end of the century. The first fortress of this type in the Central Europe was the so-called Old Fortress that was extended with the so-called New Fortress. Both of them, together with the pushed out bridgeheads of St. Nicolaus and St. Peter, formed an undivided system, resisting to the Turkish conquering wars. Under the influence of the Napoleon wars, in the beginning of the 19th-century, the fortification system of Komárno was started to be rebuilt - the fortifications had be extended and the builders began to build the ramparts and the redoubts from Danube to V6h, 3 km far to the west from the central fortress.