18th Century reenactment in Alba Iulia

Recently in the city of Alba Iulia was inaugurated a new tourist objective: “ The route of the three fortifications”. On this route the tourists could visit the archeological site of the “castrum” of the 13th “Gemina” Roman Legion (one of the gates will be restored), a part of the medieval fortress of “Balgrad” and a “Vauban” style bastion of 18th century.

During the inauguration a guard composed of about 30 “imperial” soldiers, wearing early 18th century Austrian uniforms, make some demonstrations of that period warfare, including an assault against the fortress walls, firing three canons (see below)


( http://expres.ro/article.php?artid=261325).


This detachment of reenactors is coordinated by Colonel Dumitru Ghete, former commander of the 52nd “Apulum” Engineer Regiment. It seems that every Saturday will be presented this kind of demonstrations. The organizers hope that the number of reenactors will increase in the future and they will use muskets.

I think is better if they will commemorate the traditions of a particularly unit, not any austrian regiment, and this should be the 51st Infantry Regiment, also known as the Transylvanian National Regiment (Siebenburgisches National-Regiment), the oldest of the Hungarian infantry regiments, raised in 1702. Even if it was officially known as “Gyulai” after the name of its “Inhaber” (proprietor), the majority of the rank and file was Romanian. This regiment bravely fought in all the campaigns of the Austrian army , until 1918. From 1851, in Alba Iulia was garrisoned the 50th KuK Infantry Regiment, that bore the traditions of the 2nd Wallachian Frontier Regiment of Nasaud.

Can we have contact or cooperation with them in the reenacting field?

Kepi, would you elaborate a bit on this unit? I couldn't find any pertinent information about it.
Similarily, I couldn't find anything on the Transylvanian National Regiment (Siebenbürgisches National-Regiment).

What I found was that initially, the Regiment was "owned" by the Gyulai family of career officers, namely k.u.k. Gen. Ferencz Gyulai (between 1707-1729) and k.u.k. Gen. István Gyulai III. (between 1735-59).
In mid-XIXth Century, the k.u.k. 51st Infantry Regiment (Charles Ferdinand) was headquartered in Kolozsvár (Cluj, Klausenburg).

Gen. Dénes

This post has been edited by Dénes on June 23, 2006 07:02 pm

I just learned that they will officially inaugurate their activity as a reenacting group on Sunday evening, at the end of the city of Alba Iulia festivities. I hope they will have a lot of success and will impress the public. “Living history” demonstrations are widely used by museums and historical sites to attract visitors.


http://www.romanialibera.ro/editie/index.p...7062006&idx=134

I’m very curious to know how are they dealing with fire arms. In the West old times reenactors use black powder for their muskets and guns. This is not so simple in Romania as for flintlock muskets you need a police licence and black powder is almost impossible to find.

I would like to see their show, and I hope that one Saturday I could go in Alba Iulia. The reconstruction groups of the 6th Dorobantzes and 4th Artillery regiments are reenacting later periods (1877-47), but a multi period show (this happened in other countries) could gather all the reenactors in Romania (including the 1848-49 Szeckler revolutionary groups who perform in Transylvania during their traditional events).

I have just come back from a trip to Alba Iulia, during witch I managed to speak with our fellow reenactors, and especially with Mr Marius Moga, marketing director for the “Corint Group”, the firm responsible for the “Route of the Three Fortifications”.
Initially, the group was set up as an “extra” to give some life to the “Saint Steven Bastion” after its reconstruction, but one month after being open to the public, the reenactment has become a tourist attraction in its own right.
So far, the cast comprises almost 20 people, some of them paid employees, the rest volunteers, and on a typical day are made up of several (normally 2) foot soldiers that regularly patrol the route grounds and a few cooks and barmaids in period costumes to run the “camp” buffet.
However, every Saturday there is a parade of the whole group, at the end of which a volley is fired using the three guns stationed on the artillery platform.
As the restoration of both the gunroom, the Roman Castrum and the 18th century barracks adjacent to the site are progressing, there are plans to increase the number of reenactors by a cavalry unit of 7 horsemen, as well as make provisions for several roman soldiers to guard the reconstructed south gate of the roman fort.
The only major problem the group seems to have run into so far is the lack of working reproduction weapons for all the reenactors- what they have are non-firing replicas manufactured by a Spanish firm (the kind of things you can find in most shops around Covaci street), and although they look quite well from a distance, the illusion is shattered as soon as you look at one close up. But Mr Moga assured me they were going to remedy this in due time, and quite soon the whole cast would be armed with more authentic armament.
As far as the uniforms are concerned, they are obviously modern replicas designed for ease of operation rather than historical accuracy, and they also took a bit of artistic license in the colors used (although period Austro-Hungarian uniforms would have been white and those of Romanian troops enlisted in the KuK army would have had dark blue jackets, they also have red jackets on some of their soldiers to create a bit of diversity) but the overall effect is very good, as you can judge from the pictures.







As for the route itself, very little was done in the way of modifications to the bastion, the only notable interventions being stone paths, stairs and several lookout platforms, placed strategically at the corner of the fort and just above the artillery platform, a good vantage point to observe the salvo. A further addition is that of a semi permanent buffet set up as a sort of camp, with two wagons serving for storage, and the meals cooked up in a pot suspended over an open flame. Beverages are served in reproduction pottery jugs bearing the stamp “Alba Carolina 1714”. Another notable attraction is the partially finished gunroom that will display actual weapons found at the site as well as replicas.
The only thing of the whole setup I didn’t like was the use of green spray paint on the wooden pieces to simulate age, but what’s done is one, and we can only hope it will look better once some actual age begins so set in….

Very nice photo report, WoW.

What kind of flags are fluttering in the wind? I see a red one and a white one.

Gen. Dénes

Pity you were busy saturday morning and couldn’t see the reenactment...

The guns are original, as the barrels seem to be in very good condition.

In my opinion not only they have to change there weapons but more historically accurate uniforms wouldn’t hurt.

Denes: Thank you.
The red flag is one for the "Three fortifications", and shows the shape of the fortress below the words "Alba Carolina 1714"
The white one has a double headed Hapsburg eagle on it, but that is quite wrong, because the K.u.K. flag for the period should have been yellow.
Also, there is another white flag (not in the pictures) with the Alba Iulia coat of arms (or maybe I'm mistaking and the flag on the artillery platform is that of Alba Iulia?)
Mihnea: they told me the guns are repros, but fully functional ones, and are built locally.
Well, they do have some more "historically acuccurate" uniforms, but they decided blue was too dull for the whole lot, so they made some of them wear red jackets.... their decision, not mine to question...

This post has been edited by Wings_of_wrath on August 29, 2006 03:15 pm

Is this the flag of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy you were referring to?


[Photo from the web site of a reenacting group located at Trieste, 'the Cultural Association "General Peter Giraldi", dedicated to the 97th k.u.k. Infanterieregiment: www.kuk-ir97.com/97today.html]

Gen. Dénes

Yes, that's exactly the one that should be hanging on the fortification.
But instead of that, they have the same eagle on a white background and without the that edge made out of coloured triangles.

Photo found on Mediafax web site of a recent re-enactment in Alba-Iulia:


Gen. Dénes

I think these chaps belong to the same group:-

http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showt...ian+Re-enactors

Kevin in Deva.

Unfortunatelly, they are not real reenactors. They are paid employees of a SRL (Ltd) company from Alba Iulia and their equipment has nothing to do with the historical reality of the XVIIIth century period, not for Transylvania and also not for other countries. Their uniforms are pure fantasy, they are paid only to atract people, in order to make money for their boss and for the Alba Iulia townhall. In the photo above they were demonstrating in front of tourism minister Elena Udrea who visited Alba Iulia these days and shortly after that they were also presenting uniforms in front of romanian president Traian Basescu who also visited the same city.