Ada Kale

Ada Kale is a small island in the Danube, now in Romania, about four kilometres above the Iron Gates and half a kilometre below Orsova. Its population was Turkish. It was an Ottoman fortress from the 18th century, and after 1878 it remained an isolated Ottoman possession until the Treaty of Trianon gave it to Romania in 1920.

The Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd ed.), unsigned, says the Ottomans held the strategic points of the river in this region, though the island is first mentioned only when the vizier Dursun Mehmed Pasha took the little island in the straits of Orsova, then held by 400 soldiers and called Ada-si. In 1716 the first durable fortifications were built by Cerkes Mehmed Pasha, muhafiz of the Iron Gates. After an Austrian occupation, 'Ali Pasha retook it in 1738, when the name Ada Kale first appears. The island then depended on the wali of Vidin. ¹

In 1788, during the expedition of the grand vizier Koca Yusuf Pasha against Laudon, Ada Kale served as a river base, and Yusuf Pasha built a large bridge between Orsova and Tekija and reinforced the fortress of the Great Island. During the Serbian revolt the island became an important Ottoman stronghold: the Dayi who surrendered at Belgrade were executed there in 1809 by Recep Agha, who later rebelled and was himself executed. His brothers held Fethislam (Kladovo) and then retired to the island, until Weli Pasha, son of Ali Tepedelenli, pardoned them and they surrendered it. After 1867 the garrisons left Serbia, and the island lost direct contact with the capital. It was forgotten at the Congress of Berlin (1878), was administered by a nahiye mudiri, and its inhabitants elected deputies to the Turkish parliament. The Treaty of Trianon (1920) incorporated it with the Banat into Romania. In the article's day it had 640 Turkish inhabitants, and its red-brick fortifications and the mosque built by Selim III were notable. ¹