Vlad the Impaler

Actually Vlad was not defeated in battle in that campaign. The campaign Mehmed II pursued through Wallachia in the summer of 1462 was of little success as most of the land was scorched ahead of him. The only significant battle of the campaign was the so-called Night Attack from June 17, 1462 which turned to be a Wallachian victory. After this defeat Mehmed II advanced to the capital which he found deserted and nearby the sources say he found 20,000 impaled Muslims and among them the ex-bey of Nicopolis, Hamza Pasha. The next thing the Ottoman army returned. Probably not because of what they saw, but mostly because of famine and disease and the summed casualties. The direct achievements of the campaign were some burnt cities and probably enslaved inhabitants along their way.

Vlad ruled in the time when the Bzyantine Empire vanished and was replaced by the Ottoman Empire. In such conditions, the treat was seeming to need drastic measures.

Between 1442 and 1448 Vlad and his brother Radu the Beautiful have been prisoners at Turks, from political reasons (his brother will remain prisoner until 1462).

He conquered the throne from his precedesor in 1456 by attacking him with a Turkish group of army (Vladislav II was the assasin of his father). He was 17 years old. In 1459 he arested all the boyars (and their families) responsible for the assasination of his father and brother. The older boyars have been empaled and the younger have been forced to walk 100 km by foot and to built the Poenari fortress.

He was preoccupied that all the inhabitants of Wallachia to work and be useful for community.


In 1462 he lanced a campaign against the Turks from Bulgaria, killing 38.000. Mehmed II was infuried because his two messengers have been humiliated and attacked Wallachia with an army three times larger than Vlad's. When the sultan approached the capital, T�rgoviste, he was terrified by the sight of 20.000 Turkish skulls on pales. This had the pursued psychological effect, the sultan recognising himself defeated and turning back to Istanbul.

An image less known of him:





Edited by Menumorut - 30-Sep-2007 at 20:30

His father was assassinated and his brother buried alive; some sources even say that the young Vlad may have been forced to watch the burial. This leads most to come to the conclusion that his early acts of cruelty may have been motivated by the need to avenge his family. And thanks to the boyars, we do know that he felt the need to solidify his power, especially since the boyars tended to "make" or "break" Wallachian princes.

Edited by Penelope - 30-Sep-2007 at 16:05

In Romania, Vlad the Impaler is seen by many as a national hero who batted Turkish agression and even thwarted an invasion by Mehmet the Conqueror after the fall of Constantinople.  However, as his name suggests, he was prone to impaling people, often for minor crimes, a tactic that supposedly led to an eventual absence of crime in medieval Romania (Vlad was actually prince of Wallachia, part of modern-day Romania), and also was used as a fear-inspiring tactic against the Ottomans.  My question is, how do you all view this intriguing figure who served as the basis for Bram Stoker's infamous vampire count.