Talk:Siege of Trsat

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The only useful English source I can find on any battle here is [1] and that says "It was last mentioned as a small coastal settlement in 799 when its inhabitants killed the Friulian army leader, margrave Eric, in an ambush on the road near the church of St. Lawrence. The following year Tarsatika was burned down in a raid of revenge, and the surviving inhabitants moved to a more protected hill where they established a new settlement called Trsat."

That is no siege, not even a battle.

a good Croatian source http://www.hrvatski-vojnik.hr/hrvatski-vojnik/0712006/podlistak.asp gives two versions: one source (Ksaver Šandor Gjalski) says, attack by the citizens (followed by the Frankish assault on them and the subsequent defeat) and another (Vita Caroli Magni, Einhard), an ambush. Both may be propaganda :) --TheFEARgod (Ч) 17:08, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

As for " Eric himself was among the killed, and his death and defeat proved to be a great blow for the Carolingian Empire" allegedly from Einhard's Charlemagne, what Einhard actually wrote [2] was "Only two of the chief men of the Franks fell in this war - Eric, Duke of Friuli, who was killed in Tarsatch [799], a town on the coast of Liburnia by the treachery of the inhabitants; and Gerold,Governor of Bavaria, who met his death in Pannonia, slain [799], with two men that were accompanying him, by an unknown hand while he was marshaling his forces for battle against the Huns, and riding up and down the line encouraging his men. This war was otherwise almost a bloodless one so far as the Franks were concerned, and ended most satisfactorily, although by reason of its magnitude it was long protracted."

So why does the article claim Eric's 'death and defeat' was a great blow? Doug Weller (talk) 10:32, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

the same web site says Eric's death was shocking to the Franks. Paulinus, patriarch of Aquileia (776.-802.) even cursed the land in which he died, confirming the part in the article. --TheFEARgod (Ч) 17:08, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, that is very helpful. I can imagine that his death was shocking to the Franks. 'Great blow' in English idiom can imply something that damaged the Carolingian empire, maybe the article should say shocking and of course we have the quote from Paulinus?

What we still don't seem to have is a siege. The article says "Upon arriving at the foot of the settlement, Eric begun besieging and charging the city, but was repelled" but sources mention 'ambush' and 'treachery' (which could be an ambush).

We have another problem, the town was called Tarsatica at the time. We can't call the article Battle of Tarsatica either, because (besides the fact there may have been other battles) it hardly seems a battle and the important battle was the one in wich the town was destroyed.

Add to this the fact that the article on Trsat is less than one and a half lines long, pathetic compared to the Croatian wikipedia article, I'm wondering if this shouldn't be merged into the Trsat article and that should be then worked on to improve it so it includes its history from pre-Roman times onwards.--Doug Weller (talk) 18:18, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

yeah, merger would be good--TheFEARgod (Ч) 12:27, 9 June 2008 (UTC)