by G. Jack Urso
Continued
from: Vlad Dracula:
The Dragon’s Shadow, 1431-1460
This Land is My Land
You
have to reflect . . . when a prince is powerful and brave, he can make peace as
he wishes. If, however, he is powerless, some more powerful than he will
conquer him and dictate as he pleases.
— Dracula, in a letter to the elders of Brasov,
September 10, 1456 (McNally and Florescu 46)
Dracula had paid tribute to the Ottoman
Empire for the first three years of his second reign, 1456-1459; however,
beginning in 1459 he was consumed with the campaign against the Transylvanian
Saxons and the flow of tribute stopped. Mandatory visits to the sultan’s court
by Dracula also ceased, and the Turks, already uneasy about Dracula due to his
support from the Hungarian crown, were at a breaking point in their relations
with Wallachia (McNally and Florescu 46).
Dracula attempted to balance his competing
oaths of fealty to both Hungarian and Ottoman rulers, yet he was no more
successful than Vlad III Danesti, nor any other Wallachian ruler. Their
position, politically, militarily, and geographically was simply untenable; however,
whereas Vlad III ended up fighting for his Turkish overlords, Dracula fought
against them.
The breaking point in Ottoman-Wallachian
relations occurred when the Turks began demanding an annual tribute of five
hundred boys for their elite Janissary corps. These children would be
indoctrinated into Islam and then sent to fight against Christians. Tensions
further increased when Turkish army recruiters sent to Wallachia for the
purpose of identifying candidates were summarily impaled (McNally and
Florescu 46).
Still, negotiations between the two sides
continued and Sultan Mehmed II, with whom Dracula and his brother Radu knew
from their youth as hostages in the Ottoman court, made a final demand. In
order to keep the peace, Mehmed II demanded Dracula present himself in court
and make his tribute, including the youthful recruits for the Janissaries, in
person. Knowing that the Sultan would likely seize him and put his brother
Radu, a member of the sultan’s court, on the throne, Dracula refused (McNally
and Florescu 47).
Mehmed II, in one final attempt to end Dracula’s
reign, hatched a plan to send two envoys to meet with Dracula under the
pretense of negotiations, but instead were to capture him and bring him to the
Turkish court. The wily Wallachian, however, was too clever and the envoys soon
found themselves on the short end of the stake (McNally and Florescu 47).
 |
| Fig 1: “Vlad the Impaler and the Turkish Envoys,” by Theodore Aman. |
In that one stroke, the war was on and a tiny
principality would dare defy an entire empire.
Against the Wind
I
have killed men and women, old and young . . . [we killed] 23,884 Turks and
Bulgars without counting those whom we burned in homes or whose heads were not
cut by our soldiers . . . thus Your Highness must know that I have broken the
peace with the sultan.
—
Dracula, in a letter to Hungarian King
Matthias Corvinus,
February 11, 1462 (McNally and Florescu 48)
Radu, who was rumored to have been the
sultan’s lover in his youth, now served the Ottomans as a willing as a convert
to both Islam and the Ottoman agenda of sovereignty over the Balkans in
general, and specifically Wallachia. Dracula not only learned how the Turks
fought from his long years as a hostage in the court of the sultan, but under
John Hunyadi he learned effective tactics to battle the Turks, including
amphibious warfare and the use of mobile battle wagons. The combination of both
gave Dracula a deep understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the Ottomans,
which he exploited to his full advantage (McNally and Florescu 48).
Dracula kicked off his campaign with a
thunderous blow against the Turks, as noted in the above passage where he
details his initial successes to King Matthias Corvinus in a letter dated
February 1, 1462. To prove his body count to the king, Dracula sent along two
bags of severed heads, noses, and ears (McNally and Florescu 49).
 |
| Fig. 2: Sultan Mehmed II ("Mehmed II). |
Sultan Mehmed II responded to Dracula’s
winter campaign against the Turks along the Danube River in 1462 that spring by
invading Wallachia with approximately 60,000 troops (Florescu and McNally 139).
Dracula had no more than 30,900 men, according to Slavic chronicles. To bolster
his numbers, Dracula called all able-bodied males 12 years of age and older to
join his campaign. Even women were pressed into service (McNally and
Florescu 49).
Unable to resist the crushing numbers of the
Ottoman army, Dracula resorted to asymmetrical warfare, engaging in guerrilla
tactics to delay, disorganize, and demoralize the enemy. He withdrew from the
Wallachian plains in the south to the Transylvanian mountains, burning what he
could not carry. Crops and food stores were burned, livestock killed, wells
poisoned, and whole villages razed to the ground (McNally and Florescu 51).
In a time before refrigeration, C-rations,
and meals ready-to-eat (MREs), armies had to live off the land and forage for
their food and water, and 60,000 men get very hungry and very thirsty very
fast. The summer of 1462 was the hottest on record to date, and under the hot
blazing summer sun, with dwindling supplies, harried by attacks against their
supplies lines and chasing an elusive prey, Turkish moral began to waver, but
the worst was yet to come (McNally and Florescu 51-52).
Dracula released criminals to attack the
Turkish stragglers. Those infected with various diseases, such as the plague,
were sent in disguise into Turkish camps to spread their disease. Many notable
actions took place between the Turks and Wallachian forces, but two events that
stand out include the Night of Terror (July 17, 1462), and the march on Tȋrgovişte
itself (McNally and Florescu 51).
Despite Dracula’s harassing actions, Mehmed
II continued steadily towards Tȋrgovişte. Knowing that a traditional field
battle would totally destroy his forces, Dracula devised a bold plan to attack
the Turk’s camp at night and kill the sultan – cutting the head off the snake
in his den. Such a move could potentially rout the slowly demoralizing Turks. Using
his intimate knowledge of the land, Dracula would be able to move his forces up
through hidden paths into the camp itself (McNally and Florescu 52).
The attack was a masterstroke and thousands
of Turks, perhaps up to 15,000, were brutally murdered as they slept, cut down
as they went for their weapons, or as they cowered in fear. Dracula got within
sight of the sultan’s tent, but was driven back. The attack was a total
surprise and terror spread through the Ottoman ranks (McNally and
Florescu 53).
 |
| Fig. 3: A depiction of the Night of Terror: The Battle with Torches, by Theodore Aman. |
Dracula, who was being surrounded by the
rallying Turkish forces, eventually retreated. According to a letter by papal
legate Niccolo Modrussa reporting a conversation he had with Dracula, Mehmed
II, did initially flee after the battle, but was compelled by his advisers to
return and claim a tactical victory as Dracula’s forces withdrew (Florescu and
McNally 145-146).
Despite their overwhelming surprise, the
Wallachians had reportedly lost about 5,000 soldiers it could ill-afford to
lose. Knowing he could not confront the Sultan again, Dracula fled north,
leaving the Turks to approach Tirgovste unchallenged (McNally and
Florescu 53).
 |
| Fig. 4: Dracula's Romania: Mid-15th Century Wallachia (McNally and Florescu 187). |
The Forest of the Impaled
Attempting to discover Dracula’s plans, a Wallachian
soldier was captured but did not speak. Though sawed in half, the dying
Wallachian feared Dracula more than the Turks. This small story symbolizes the
fear Dracula held over his own people, and which extended towards his enemies
(McNally and Florescu 53).
Marching towards Tȋrgovişte, Mehmed II found
the gates shut and city prepared to defend itself. Rather than put his already
demoralized army into a long siege with few supplies, Mehmed marched around the
city, tracking Dracula’s movements until they came to a small gorge about sixty
miles north. There, the Turks found some 20,000 men, women, and children –
mostly Turkish prisoners and some traitorous Wallachians — impaled in a
semi-circle approximately a mile in diameter. The two highest stakes contained
the bodies of the two envoys Mehmed II had sent earlier that year to secretly capture
Dracula (Florescu and McNally 145-146).
The stench must have reached the noses of
the Turks long before they set eyes on the gruesome scene. Bloated bodies rotting
in the hot summer sun, birds nesting in body cavities — it was an image of hell
that even Old Testament fire and brimstone prophets could not have dreamed.
That night, Mehmed ordered a trench dug around his encampment and in the
morning they retreated back to the Ottoman Empire (Florescu and McNally 147-148).
The Dragon in Chains
At the height of his great victory,
Dracula’s boyers still plotted against him. They had suffered greatly, and when
Dracula’s brother Radu called on the Wallachian people to accept the
inevitability of Turkish rule and escape his brother’s cruelty by accepting him
as their new ruler (Florescu and McNally 151-152). Despite Dracula’s victory,
the fall of Constantinople weighed heavily on the minds of the Wallachians. As
with the Sioux after their great victory over the U.S. Army at the Battle of
the Little Bighorn, they knew their victory was short-lived.
 |
| Fig. 5: Radu, Dracula's brother. 19th Century portrait (“Radu al III”). |
Radu’s call quickly began to deplete
Dracula’s ranks and he moved to take the throne for himself. Fleeing towards
the Carpathian Mountains, Dracula sought support from Hungarian King Matthias
Corvinus. After weeks of negotiations, Corvinus gave Dracula a unit of soldiers
to complement his dwindling ranks. In reality, the king was arranging for his
men to separate Dracula from the Wallachian troops and bring him under arrest to
the Hungarian court (McNally and Florescu 95). The conflict in the border region had to cease and with Radu in power
the Turkish beast would be held at bay, for now.
As Dracula learned, no good deed goes
unpunished.
Imprisonment and Death
Dracula proved to be popular in European
courts for his successful campaigning against the Turks, so Corvinus embarked
on a PR campaign to justify his arrest of the Impaler Prince. Popular opinion
sided with Dracula, but war is always a brutal experience, and even more so
during the twilight of Medieval Europe. The prospect of peace, however
obtained, eventually placated opposition (Florescu and McNally 161-162).
For twelve years, between 1462 and 1474
Dracula languished as a prisoner of the Hungarian king. Occasionally, he would
be trotted out for state occasions as an object of intimidation, such as when a
Turkish delegation arrived at the Hungarian court to conclude a peace treaty (Florescu
and McNally 163).
Two independent accounts of Dracula during
this time reveal a truly disturbed mind. The Russian ambassador Fedor Kuritsyn
reported Dracula’s “. . . evil habit of catching mice and having birds bought
at the marketplace, so that he could punish them by impalement.” A separate
account by Gabriele, Bishop of Erlau to Pope Sixtus IV in 1476 said, “. . . he
caught mice and, cutting them up into pieces, stuck them on small pieces of
wood, just as he had stuck men on stakes” (Florescu and McNally 163).
The connection today between animal abuse
and serial killers is well known, so it is remarkable that two separate
contemporary accounts would note this behavior. Dracula’s socio-psychopathic
behavior was so extreme that it stood out in a time when violence was commonplace
and brutality an accepted part of life.
In January 1475, Radu died, reportedly of
syphilis, giving Dracula an opportunity once again to take the Wallachian
throne for a third time. Corvinus, who had long plotted to move against the
Turks, now saw his opportunity and pledge Dracula his support to return him to
power. The catch was Dracula would have to abandon his Eastern Orthodox
Christian faith and become a Catholic. This would allow Dracula to marry within
the Hungarian ruling family, providing a direct link between the Hungarian
crown and the Wallachian principality, securing it as a buffer state against
the Ottoman Empire (Florescu and McNally 163).
By the summer of 1476, Dracula, with Corvinus’
support gathered an army In Transylvania, working with his cousin Stephen the
Great to move against the Turks in Moldavia and return the crown to Stephen’s
hands. Now, ready to return the favor, Stephen gathered his troops to restore
Dracula to power in Wallachia, and in early November 1476 they began their
campaign. The battles against the latest Wallachian voivode, Basaarb Laiotă
were bloody, but by the end of month Dracula was back in control of the nation (Florescu
and McNally 171-172). This third reign though was not to last.
Basarab quickly joined forces with the Turks
and moved against Dracula in December 1476. By the end of the month, the Son of
the Dragon met his death not far from the monastery at Snagov; perhaps at the
hands of an assassin, perhaps at the hands of his own men who mistook Dracula
for a Turk — owing to his habit of disguising himself as such to spy on their
forces. Whatever the case may be, Dracula was beheaded and his head sent to the
Sultan to assure him that the Impaler Prince was indeed finally dead;
As we all know, however, Dracula never
really died, did he?
Legacy
Despite Dracula’s success on the battlefield
against the Ottomans, he only slowed them down. They continued their push
through the Balkans until they finally lay siege to Vienna itself in 1529 and again
in 1683, before finally being turned back.
With Dracula, we see that the desire for
power was absolute. He was willing to do what it took to stay in power: change
faiths, shift allegiances, and torture and kill to a degree that staggers the
imagination to this day.
The religious conflicts between Christian
and Muslim in the Balkans continued to be played out during the 1990s following
the breakup of the former Yugoslav Republic. Death camps and torture returned.
Ancient enmities were played out in regions were both Dracula and his father
once battled the Turks.
Dracula cast a shadow that stretched long
beyond his time, revealing the terrible nature of man that endures to this day.
The dragon would be proud.
Related Content
This classic 1977 episode of In Search of . . . , narrated by Leonard Nimoy, first peeked
my interest in the real-life Dracula. Footage from Transylvania during the
communist-era Romanian government makes this episode unique. From my
personal archives.
From the Aeolus 13 Umbra ISO YouTube channel.
Works Cited
Aman, Theodore. The Battle with Torches. Pure Romania.
Imgur.com, 2013. Web. 29 Oct. 2013. <http://imgur.com/
r/BattlePaintings/4YbDmPI>.
Aman, Theodore. Vlad the Impaler and the Turkish Envoys. Pure
Romania. Pure-Romania.com, 2013. Web. 29 Oct. 2013.
<http://pure-romania.com/landmarks/land-of-dracula/>.
Forescu, Radu, R., and Raymond T. McNally. Dracula, Prince of Many
Faces: His Life and Times. Boston: Little, Brown and Company,
1989. Print
McNally, Raymond T, and Radu R. Forescu, In Search of Dracula: The
History of Dracula and Vampires. Boston and New York:
Houghton Mifflin Company, 1994. Print.
“Mehmed II.” FloGlobe. FloGlobe.com, 2012. Web. 29 October
2013. <http://foglobe.com/mehmed-ii.html>.
“Radu al III-lea cel Frumos.” Secole.ro. Secole.ro, 2013, Web. 29
Oct. 2013. <http://secole.ro/radu-al-iii-lea-cel-frumos>.
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