Vlad the Impaler: The True Story of Dracula (History Documentary)

In June 1462 a vast ottoman Army under Sultan memed II Advanced on the city of Taro Vish in bakia after weeks of grueling ambushes and pitched battles resulting in thousands of Turkish deaths the Ottomans were preparing for a Siege of the vacan capital but when a Detachment of Ottoman Cavalry were sent ahead of the main Force they encountered a site that shook them to their core they discovered a forest of impaled Bodies there were over 20,000 ottoman captives rotting in the summer heat before the walls of tago Vish The Forest of stakes stretched for two

miles in a vast Cresent up to half a mile wide this maab sight was more than the Ottomans could take the scale of the horror the astonishing extremism of it broke their Spirit and the sultan and his army retreating from Taro Vish the architect of this horrific victory was Vlad III Dracula his cunning his military Brilliance and above all his extremism had saved his country and his people but these very traits the extremism of Lum Pala his willingness to do anything to go further than anyone else to achieve Victory and his refusal to compromise would

ultimately mean his downfall this is the incredible story of Vlad the [Music] impal Vlad was born sometime between 1428 and 1431 the son of Vlad II dracul he was born into a time of great Conflict between the Christian kingdoms of the bulans and Central Europe and the ottoman Turks who were determined to conquer them Vlad was born into a vacan aristocracy called the boar the social structure of vakia was quite simple there were the free peasants who worked the land the boars who ruled over them and above them all was a prince known as the

vode there was no simple succession between the vodes of vakia legitimate rulers had to be of the Royal Line Ultimately descended from basarab the first but none served for very long and there were many usurpations by Brothers cousins and bastard sons of the two main factions the great enemy of the draculesti faction was the danesi the succession was in practice about who was the strongest and this often came down to who could retain the support of external allies because vakia was squeezed between larger more powerful kingdoms vlad's father as vode of vakia Simply had to

submit to one one Overlord or another namely his mighty neighbors the kingdom of Hungary to the North or the ottoman Turks to the South to understand Vlad the Impaler we must first look at the actions of his father the choices of Vlad II dracul his allies and enemies and the horrific manner of his death would all have a profound impact on the character of his son Vlad III Dracula and the often extreme actions that he took in his life To become VOD Vlad II had courted the powers of Central Europe especially the kingdom of Hungary

in fact this was where the famous name of dracul meaning Dragon came from the order of the Dragon was a chalc order created by sigismond of Luxembourg who was king of Hungary and eventually Holy Roman Emperor its primary purpose was to defend Christendom from the ottoman Turks and Vlad II as an ally of Sigman was welcomed into the order becoming known As dracul this name was extended to his sons in the form of Dracula and his clan his descendants would become known as the draculesti but when Sigman died in 1437 and Hungary was weakened fled

II sought instead to Ally with the ottoman Turks to the South the Ottomans always threatened Invasion across the danu and without Hungarian support the valakians had no hope of resisting and so Vlad II traveled to the ottoman Capital at ad formerly the Byzantine city of Adrian Opal to pay homage to Sultan Murad II and where he agreed to pay an annual tribute and to provide Military Support to the Ottomans in their coming attack on Hungary allying with the Ottomans seems rather to go against his Oaths to defend Christendom from the Muslim Turks but this was

the reality of ruling vakia protecting your own position keeping enough of the boyars on your side and ensuring your peasants were not wiped out in an invasion was a balancing Act where every decision had potentially terrible consequences to openly defy the sultan would have meant the invasion of wakia thousands of vakans killed and taken as slaves and vlad's own death and replacement as vood by a boar rival who was willing to make peace and so Vlad II tried to play Both Sides as best he could but after supporting an ottoman attack on Hungarian Transylvania he

was paid a visit by one of the Great Men of The age John hunadi the Transylvanian hunyadi as one of the most powerful Nobles of Hungary was the leading opponent to ottoman expansion and would be at different times a terrible enemy and a staunch Ally to both vad II and Ved II and now in 1440 PADI who would soon be regarded as the greatest military commander in the bulans and was already a noble of great influence in Hungary decided to bring vac are back under Hungarian control using both the Carrot and the stick in the

next ottoman invasion of Transylvania Vlad II supported hunari and when the Ottomans were crushed the sultan demanded Vlad come to ader to explain himself to defy the Sultan's order would have invited an invasion of vakia and so in 1442 Vlad went down to ader where he was immediately seized and imprisoned by the sultan along with his two young Sons Vlad who was between 11 and 14 years old and Ru who was about 7 years old now Vlad II had been well aware of the risks of putting himself in the Sultan's hands and so he left

his eldest son behind to rule in his absence merchia II was only about 15 years old and as his father and younger brothers were now ottoman captives he could not side with hungry against the sultan because of this hunari invaded vakia deposed Young Amia II and made Vlad II's cousin basarab into the vood of vakia in return for his support of Hungary after about a year Vlad II was released by the Ottomans and he returned to retake vakia making himself voo once more with the support of his son meria and the Boya faction that had

remained loyal to them but Vlad was forced to leave his two young Sons behind as hostages of the sultan and they would remain there for about five more years Vlad the Impaler the great and terrible enemy of the Turks was in fact partly raised by them and educated and instructed by ottoman Shooters but What was his life like as a hostage of the sultan before his time in ottoman captivity vlad's childhood had been perfectly Pleasant he had joined his mother his two legitimate brothers and his father when they all went to the vacan capital to

viste in 1437 and there young Vlad began his training as a knight he was taught how to fight with the sword the bow and the Lance and he excelled especially at horsemanship he Also learned Italian French and Hungarian as well as Latin for international diplomacy the religion of the boar was Orthodox Christianity but Roman Catholicism had an influence too and because of the influence of Catholic Hungary on his father young Vlad was also in constructed in the Catholic faith at an early age the Schism between Catholic and Orthodox Christians in Europe was for some people

a greater concern than the struggle between Christianity and Islam and this Schism was extremely important in the politics of the region when Vlad and Radu were raised by the Ottomans their education as princes continued because the Turks intended for them to be potential vassals when they came of age there was therefore no attempted conversion to Islam Islam that would have been counterproductive the Turks wanted to produce tame Christian princes who would deliver a principality along with its Taxes produce and slaves for the sultan Vlad did become fluent in Turkish and he had contact with the

future Sultan and his great enemy Meed II who was just a few years younger than Vlad we can only imagine the details of their relationship in some ways they had a similar character and both would become life long soldiers both would attempt to centralize ever more Authority under themselves at the expense of their nobles although the future Sultan would Have a vast Empire to command in his endless Wars of Conquest while Vlad would have to fight repeatedly for his throne and in defense of his people Vlad chafed under his Turkish captors and was whipped frequently

as punishment no doubt this along with the frustrations of his captivity had a lasting emotional impact it was rather different for his younger brother Ru who in later life would be known as Ru the handsome due to his exceptional good looks and by all Accounts he had a far more accommodating nature than did Vlad and he became a favorite of Meed II who was a few years older than Radu as Sultan Meed II would have five wives and four children and he maintained a royal Harum of other women as was the custom but there are

accounts that he also loved and lay with boys and that he did the same to the young Ru the handsome to what extent these accounts are true is hard to say perhaps they helped to fuel the hatred Vlad had for The Turks and the sultan and whatever happened it seems that this period of captivity was when Vlad and Ru began to fall out and as men they would be great enemies and whatever Horrors were inflicted upon them in their captivity Vlad would turn against the Turks while Ru turned entirely towards them their father negotiated with

Sultan mured II in the summer of 1447 and no doubt the fate of the boys was a bargaining chip that encouraged Vlad dracul to make Favorable terms unhappy at this renewed close relationship John hunadi invaded vakia intending to remove Vlad II and replace him with a more pro- Hungarian vode and this was when the faction of aian boas who were opposed to vlad's faction decided to Rebel the danesi clan captured Vlad dracul's oldest son meria II they burned out his eyes with Hot Irons and then they buried him alive Vlad dracul managed to make it

out of tago Vish and fled South towards the Danu perhaps intending to reach the Turks but he was caught and killed by vladislav II of the danesi John hunyadi momentarily claimed vakia for for himself but thought better of it he rewarded the pro- Hungarian boar factions who had supported him by making vladislav II of the danesi clan into the vood of vakia there is a story a legend perhaps that a loyal retainer of Vlad II named Kazan carried the dead Prince's sword and his collar with the Insignia Of the order of the Dragon to Young

Vlad Dracula at ader this Kazan also related in graphic detail the murders of his brother and father at the hands of the danesi and it is said that Dracula now swore to kill vladislav II in person in early 1448 Sultan Murad II released young Vlad Dracula so that he might take the vacan throne and bring his people back under ottoman control now this was highly unlikely because he had few soldiers little money and no Power he was between 17 and 20 years old and he had not been in vakia for 5 or 6 years so

he did not have the network of political influences necessary to make a move on the throne but there was an opportunity in October 1448 the hungarians clashed with the Ottomans in a huge battle on the plane of Kosovo with the hungarians were Germans and Bohemians and valakians under vladislav II it was a great throw of the dice by hunyadi to crush the ottoman forces and Throw back the endless invas Asians but the Christians lost the battle and so while the vood was still 200 Mi away Dracula reached tarov Vish with a small force of Horsemen

supplied by or at least paid for by the Ottomans there he claimed the throne he also tried to have vladislav II seized on his return but Dracula's men failed vladislav then rounded up the vacan troops returning peacemeal to vakia and rode against the Young serper vastly outmatched Dracula Was defeated in battle and he fled his first period of rule was just two or 3 months long and where else could he flee to but back to Ider however vladislav II's overlords the hungarians had been defeated and the vood of vakia sought terms with the Turks moving

into the ottoman orbit Dracula sensed that his life was in danger from hosts who might no longer need him to be their pet vood so he fled to malavia he was safe there from Hungarian and ottoman interference and soon Bogdan II would become the vood of malavia Bogdan was related to Dracula by marriage and young Vlad grew close to bogdan's son who would go on to become Steven the great during this period Dracula fought with Steven and Bogdan II against the forces of Poland Dracula's stay ended when Bogdan II second was murdered and usurped by

his brother Petra Aaron in October 1451 Vlad and Steven fled across the border to Transylvania which was dangerous because that land was ruled by hunyadi but they had few options left from there they fled to the Saxon colony town of brov but hunadi and vladislav had word that Dracula was in the area and so he ran again to SIU another Saxon town that would give him Sanctuary John hunyadi became increasingly suspicious of vladislav II's growing closeness with the Turks when vladislav sent a delegation of boar to congratulate the New Sultan memed II on his Ascension

to the throne hyari seized the dutches of fagar and amlash from the valachian prince these were key entrance points into and across Transylvania and hunyadi believed he had a ready-made replacement for vladislav in the Young Dracula and now he took him into his service dra was even taken to Buddha where he was present at ladislas I's coronation so that the exiled vacan prince in Waiting could swear allegiance to the new king Of Hungary perhaps it seems astonishing that Dracula would make peace with hyar the architect behind the deposition and murder of his father and brother

but Dracula wanted the throne and he wanted to get his hands on vladislav II and the other boyar who had actually done these terrible deeds and if he was ever to rest vakia away from the Ottomans he needed Hungarian support so for once he swallowed his pride and accepted from the king of Hungary responsibility for Defense of the Transylvanian Frontier this was a role his father Vlad II had once fulfilled for Hungary but now in 1451 the Transylvanian border was about to become a far more dangerous place because Sultan mad II had died from a

stroke and his son Meed II was now on the otoman throne and for good reason he would become known to history as Meed II the Conqueror in May 1453 the 21-year-old Sultan conquered Constantinople and then he turned his Attention to the rest of the Balkans in the face of the Unstoppable might of the Ottomans vladislav II turned even more towards the Turks and made further overtures to the sultan agreeing that meed's armies could March through vakia by 1455 mmed was mustering men and Supplies on the southern banks of the danu meed's forces already had control

of Southern Serbia but now his Target would be Belgrade its strategic position was vital once Belgrade fell the danub Would be open for an ottoman Fleet and army to attack Buddha and eventually even Vienna hunadi led the organization for the defense of Belgrade pulling in every ship and every man he could but the vakans under vladislav now Allied to the Turks were raiding across the border into Transylvania tying down troops that were desperately needed in Serbia negotiations between hunyadi and vladislav failed when the vakans stirred up a rebellion against Hungary in fagar In April 1456

finally hunadi agreed to give Vlad Dracula what he had long been waiting for Hungarian support to retake the vacan throne in June 1456 Dracula set out through the pass over the carpathians at bran with a small force of exiled boars and Hungarian mercenaries determined to take the throne and to take his [Applause] [Music] Revenge Dracula set to work gaining the support of the valachian boyar especially those of his father's faction and all those disaffected with vladislav II's increasing support for the Ottomans it took him less than a month of traveling from Valley to Valley stronghold

to stronghold from the mountains and foothills of the north to The Plains of the South before he was strong enough to move against the murderer of his father and elder brother Dracula finally caught up with vladislav II somewhere near Taro Vish and cornered his enemy before the two armies Dracula made vladislav an offer to fight him in a duel to the death single combat with the vict winning all of aaka now Dracula had no need to do this he could have had his men kill vladislav or he could have taken him prisoner and had him

executed he could have done anything he liked instead of risking his own life and risking complete failure in His life's Mission but as far as Vlad Dracula was concerned honor demanded that he face his enemy man to man what is more victory in a jeel would prove to all that God was on his side and it was a bold statement to the watching boas that Vlad was not a weakling who had men to do his killing for him it showed also that he was a warrior not a politician and that he was willing and able

to get his hands dirty and of course vad Dracula cut down his enemy and so Avenged the murders of his father and brother vakia would now be vlads but the sultan was still coming for Serbia and so Dracula returned to his duty of guarding the Transylvanian passes against ottoman attacks because with vakia now Allied to Hungary John hunyadi could move his Transylvanian forces to Belgrade while Meed II would need to keep some of his own forces guarding the danu against vacan raids but while this was going on the Turks had begun the siege of Belgrade

and were battering the walls with an enormous number of guns hunyadi gathered an army and a fleet and attacked the ottoman Fleet on the danu winning a magnificent Victory before reinforcing the city mem II launched an assault on the breached walls but they were thrown back and routed in a spectacular and unlikely Victory M II retreated all the way back to Sophia and in his rage had several of his generals executed this Glorious victory was marred however by the death of John huni a plague a common occurrence in sieges ravaged The Battered City in the

days after to the Victory and hunari was one of its victims so Hungary lost its greatest Soldier and Christendom lost its stest Champion while Vlad Dracula lost the great Lord who had once been his enemy but who had become his strongest Ally in August 1456 Dracula was formerly elected by the high Boya Council and confirmed In the Cathedral of tago Vish with the title of Prince Vlad son of Vlad the great Sovereign and ruler of angro vakia and the duches of amlash and faragh as vood Dracula set out to work on international relations he wrote

to the mays of the important towns of Transylvania to Hy's son llo and to the boas who were still not aligned with him he also worked to undermine the rule of the mavian usurper Petra Aaron intending his cousin Steven who was still with him In tago Vish for the mavian throne this was not merely repaying the favor for a relative it was in valachian interest to pull mavia away from the Ottomans as they were under Petra Aaron and away from Poland where they had been traditionally and into the Hungarian sphere along with vakia and in

1457 at the head of 6,000 vacan soldiers courtesy of Dracula Steven took on and defeated his uncle the murderer and usurper of his father in two battles and Steven was crowned as moldavia's Prince at the time it looked like Dracula's first great success and of course it was but Steven would go on to have a far longer and far greater Reign than his cousin and Dracula had done well but Hungary was still reeling from Hy's death and the danger of further ottoman attacks and vakia could not afford open Defiance of the Turks when Meed II

sent ambassadors to tago Vish Vlad had to agree to a yearly tribute of 2,000 gold To cats which was no small sum but even worse was the agreement to allow the passage of Ottoman armies through vakia so that they might assault the hungarians in Transylvania in return the Ottomans recognized Dracula as the rightful ruler in effect promising not to undermine his rule or invade in an attempt to place another vaki and boar on the throne that was the power the Ottomans held over him still when they asked him to come to Constantinople to Pay homage

to the sultan Dracula refused perhaps he remembered well what had happened to his father under the previous Sultan perhaps he could not bring himself to stoop so low thus buying himself time through diplomatic agreements with his neighbors Hungary malavia and the Ottomans Vlad set to work on vakia he repaired and extended panari Castle a potential bolt hole perched high on a steep Rock precipice in the mountains the rules of his Agreements with the hungarians and Turks stated that he could not build such a fortress but Vlad did it anyway he needed safe places and he

was willing to push his luck with the overlords who both needed him at least for the time being he also had to project his power into the lowland Plains and so he founded the Fortress of Bucharest in June 1458 building on and linking several villages in the area of course this would go on to become an important City he also fortified the nearby Monastery of snagov and built a line of small forts along the plain and River it should be said that fortifying monasteries in the Balkans was not in the least bit unusual these defenses

were built of course to defend vakia from the Ottomans on the other side of the danu but he needed them against internal enemies too vakia like many mountain Kingdoms in history was fundamentally divided in preceding Centuries each steep-sided narrow Valley was ruled by a different Clan and its Chief ruled his lands and people like a king by the late Medieval Era these Lords thrived as boar under the vood they elected but those ancient divisions were still there below the surface over the previous 40 years there had been 12 vodes despite the foreign powers sponsoring candidates

the boar were where the real power lay in vakia anytime the sitting voo displeased them They could choose to back another of the Royal Blood including vlad's younger brother Ru who still served the Ottomans this fundamental instability at the heart of vacan politics kept the vood in check and so it kept vakia weak in the face of its more powerful neighbors Dracula did not wish to be another short-lived ruler he did not want to leave vakia in the hands of a puppet of the Ottomans or the hungarians and in fact there had been rebellions against

His rule from the start there were still partisans of ladislav II working against Dracula and The Powerful Oar Chief ALU the great had organized an unsuccessful Revolt in the months after Dracula took power and still ALU maintained a private Army agitating for vlad's removal and controlling parts of the country and so Dracula began a Great Purge of the boars they say a tyrant should commit all his atrocities at once and put them behind him rather than dragging them out over His entire Reign and certainly Vlad did his best in that regard it was now when

he first carried out the acts that would give him his famous so first of all his men ambushed ALU the great and then impaled him and his entire family only alu's brother escaped he fled to the town of brov which would become the main refuge for vaki and dissident during vlad's Reign this was an extreme act but the boyar understood ALU had maintained a force against Vlad and the voivod had Attacked and defeated it it seemed to them that the fighting was over and when Vlad invited them to Easter celebrations at the capital 200 boards

attended with their families just as the guests finished their meal in the banqueting Hall of the palace the boyar and their wives were seized by Dracula's men they were dragged out through the gates and impaled on mass beyond the city walls the act of impalement itself Required a very long sturdy pole with a sharpened end this point would sometimes be greased with lard to Aid its entry into and through the body which began at the victim's rectum and ended with an exit through the mouth or throat by which point the victim should have mercifully expired

the sheer horror of this method of execution is of course what makes flad the Impaler into the legendary figure he is today what drove him to commit such appalling acts Against not only his own boyar Lords but their wives while slaughtering his enemies by by sword or beheading or hanging might have had the same result in terms of removing them from the field but Mass impalement was a means to terrorize the survivors his enemies and even his allies it was a message sent loud and clear that Vlad Dracula was not to be trifled with he

did not impale The Boar's children but their fate was hardly much better as they were marched To ponari Castle where they slaved away firing bricks and carrying them up the slopes to build the towers and keeps no doubt these children were ultimately worked to death and Vlad the impal was not done in fact he was just getting started Vlad replaced much of the old aristocracy with new men who had been loyal to him granting confiscated boyar land to lowborn followers he created a new Institution above the boyar council that would be responsible for carrying Out

his will and he filled it with loyal men he also created a new military officer class drawn from the free peasant soldiers who had performed well on the battlefield men who could be relied on in battle but who also owed their newly elevated social status to Vlad III and he created a small standing army a royal Bodyguard by these and other reforms and his purges Vlad was in some ways seeking to emulate the centralization he had witnessed at the Ottoman Court he intended to make himself as much of an autocrat as the sultan was he

also generously supported that other power in his realm the Romanian Orthodox Church granting them tax immunities and other privileges especially to monasteries and he extended Church properties in return he expected them to be his voice amongst the common people he especially supported the monastery of snagov on an island in a lake a few miles from Bucharest this place is rumored to be the location of vlad's body although no one knows for sure certainly though he trusted the monks and they trusted him enough that they guarded his Royal treasure here at snagov during the Ottoman invasion

of vakia in 1462 his relationship with the Catholic church in vakia was not so close during the early part of his reign in fact there is evidence of him directly attacking Catholic monasteries and even Impaling Catholic priests but only when they defied him mainly though he replaced foreign Catholic Abbotts with Romanian ones with his external allies secured his internal enemies purged and repressed and his reforms begun Vlad in 1459 suddenly refused to pay the agreed tribute to M II in return for ottoman peace the valakians had to pay a carefully calculated monetary some and specific

amounts of grain and animals to Constantinople the L lands especially were so productive that the Turks saw vakia primarily as a vast Granary there was also the dev Sher the blood tax although forcing slaves into military service had a more ancient origin the ottoman system was perhaps formalized by Murad the first the Conqueror of Adrien opal and much of the Southern Balkans they took young Christian boys from the conquered lands and pressed them into military service Under the sultan they were given the name yaneri meaning new troops and they came to be known as janissaries

this was a way for the sultan to centralize his own military power rather than being Reliant only on his Regional Lords for raising troops of course the dev sh was a terrible evil Christian boys between 8 and 10 years old were taken from their families in the lands subject to ottoman power and Not only would they be lost to their families forever they would also Be made into soldiers and turned against their own people and all the enemies of the Turks and in 1459 Vlad Dracula said enough Hungary was now ruled by John Hun's son

Matias kinus he was supported by his uncle by marriage Michael silagi a longtime Ally and friend of Draculas and it was this relationship that led to further atrocities by Dracula this time committed against the Saxon towns of Transylvania it perhaps seems strange that Saxons Were here at all but these German colonies had been founded Generations earlier along the vacan Transylvanian border to provide an economic boost to the region the valakians and transylvanians were populated by free peasants and their overlords and they had few Merchants skilled Craftsmen and Artisans and no real towns the rulers of

these lands looked at more modernized kingdoms and realized they were missing out on potenti tax revenue from the kind Of economic activity that generated actual cash instead of just crops and livestock so they invited Saxons to set up colonies in their lands and awarded them favorable incentives in taxation and political Freedom during vlad's early Reign he had maintained a positive relationship with the Saxon towns and many had supported his war against vladislav thei in return he had given them a commercial treaty promising to protect them against the Ottomans and The right to unimpeded trade across

Transylvania and vakia but this close relationship changed when the hungarians squeezed the towns for more revenue and the town of bistri revolted and Michael gagi called on Dracula to bring the region to heal and Dracula brought his soldiers stormed the walls of bish and looted and burned the town the ring leaders fled to the towns of brov and cibu and far from stamping it out the Rebellion spread the Saxons clever Merchants rather than noblemen soldiers at once began a propaganda campaign against Dracula spreading rumors that he was a secret vassel to meed II they also

Now supported Dracula's rival Boya faction the danesi and Dan III brother of the deposed vladislav II established himself in the Saxon town of brov and claimed the Throne of vakia after being elected by a group of danesi boar and other Lords who had fled Dracula's earlier purges another rival claimant Was declared in the Saxon town of CBU Vlad Dracula's half brother known as Vlad the monk was funded by the Saxon merchants and supported by more unhappy boars and a third candidate emerged from the denes clan a son of Dan the second called basarab also had

the backing of Boar's alarmed by Dracula's reforms and he was also supported by Saxon funding all of Dracula's hard work was coming undone all the blood he had spilled to secure his throne and centralize power And now it seemed it was not enough there were still so many enemies and they had moved just after he had cut off the Turks clearly he had not gone far enough with his purges and punishments first he stripped the Saxon towns of their trade protections and encouraged the merchants of vakia and the Italian republics with favorable tariffs this had

the benefit of bringing the small but important bakian Merchant class over to his side against the other claimants And then Vlad moved against them militarily this campaign waged between 1458 and 1460 would lead to Dracula's infamy being spread across Europe by Saxon propaganda that's not to say their claims were untrue but they certainly intended to Rally the support of Catholic Europe especially in Germany against their enemy their pamphlets and woodcuts made Vlad into an inhuman monster the later nernberg Chronicle of 1488 says the following quote both women And men young and old perished some he

brought home with him to vakia and impaled them there he declared a peace and during the same he had many merchants and wagoners from werland impaled he also had a large family extinguished and impaled ambassadors numbering 55 were sent from the kingdom of Hungary and Saxony and Transylvania into vakia Dracula kept them waiting for five weeks and had Stakes made for their impalement meanwhile he went into Verland and destroyed the Grain and had all the crops burned and he had the populace led into captivity then Dracula rested near St Jacob's Chapel he had the outskirts

burned also when the day came early in the morning he had women and men young and old impaled around the hill by the chapel and sat down among them and ate his breakfast with enjoyment end quote SIU and Brasov were within the duches of fagaras and amlash which were possessions of the prince of Vakia within Transylvania cibu was ordered to give up its support of Vlad the Monk and brof was told to do the same with Dan III neither Town responded to the ultimatums and so they had to be destroyed it's fair to say that

vad Dracula was not a man inclined to compromise he was also a brilliant and brutal soldier at the head of a small Cavalry Force he surprised the Saxons with a lightning raid through the passes to burn the lands that supported cibu And Brasov slaughtering and impaling Villages and burning their homes and Fields sax and Merchants abroad in the country were tortured and impaled these acts would be Amplified through later propaganda in German pamphlets that describ Dracula boiling 600 Saxon Merchants alive which although true to the spirit of the campaign would have been impractical in reality

but the campaign of Terror worked the Saxons of brasia begged Michael shagi to call Dracula off and offered to hand over Dan III and his supporters and to pay 10,000 Florin for war damages but shaji's nephew Matias kinus the king of Hungary arrested shaji and brov renaged on its promises the king went one step further and through his support behind Dan III against vad Dracula once again the tables had turned on Dracula his extremism was almost successful but it also made him more enemies still compromise was not in his Nature and he went back to

work burning and slaughtering until he smashed through the suburbs of brov itself here is where he is said to have dined beneath a forest of the impaled and their hacked off limbs in sight of the town's folk on the walls Saxon propaganda tells us he happily dipped the bread of his breakfast into the blood of his victims and in 1460 Dracula that captured Dan III he had a grave duug for his rival While Dan waited beside it and even had to listen to his own funeral service before Vlad beheaded him and then unsurprisingly he had

Dan the third's supporters impaled Dracula killed thousands of the Transylvanian Germans but eventually Bas kinus organized a fragile piece Dracula would pay for some of the damages his campaign had caused while the sax were required to pay an annual sum to Dracula to maintain a 4,000 strong mercenary Army in theory to help Dracula defend them against the Ottomans because war against the Turks was coming in the face of continued ottoman expansion through Serbia and the Sultan's plans to cross the danub to take vakia and mavia the Christian kingdoms declared and organized a crusade and now

Dracula would go to war against the Turks [Music] as the forces of Christendom Reed for Action Dracula's old friend and Ally Micha shaji was captured by the Ottomans while on reconnaissance in Bulgaria they tortured him for information on hungary's Military preparations but presumably they were not happy with his answers or lack thereof because shaji was executed by being sorn in half now comes another legendary moment in Dracula's life during a visit by ottoman envoys they had come to discover the vacan intentions in the coming Crusade and to make a final attempt to bring the Voivode

back on side that must have been a faint hope Dracula had stopped paying tribute and the Turks had ever since been launching raids on vakia across the danu for plunder and to take fakan peasants especially children for the ottoman slave markets when these Raiders were captured Dracula had been having them impaled and now the sultan had EX executed one of Dracula's few allies in a deliberately brutal fashion so tension was running High when the envoys came to Dracula's Court the prince's men instructed the diplomats to remove their turbin as a sign of respect the envoy

explained that the turban was not the equivalent of a Christian's hat and that their custom demanded that the turbin never be removed Dracula then strengthened their custom by having three spikes driven through each of their heads pinning the turbin in place forever Coming to Terms at this point Was highly unlikely but communication was still ongoing between vode and Sultan and Meed II decided to use this correspondence to trick Dracula into putting himself in danger so he could be seized and killed Hamza Pasha the Bay of nicopolis and a Greek in his service Thomas cavalinos offered

to meet Dracula at jeru an important fortress on the danu when Dracula was almost at the Fortress the Ottomans sprung their trap and ambushed the vakans but Dracula was A step ahead of them the Turks had in fact ambushed a decoy party and the valakians in turn ambushed the Turks Dracula then rode on to XU with a select group of his men all dressed as ottoman soldiers at the gates of the Fortress Dracula presented himself as an ottoman officer and influen Turkish demanded they let him in once inside his men attacked and started killing the

Garrison and until the stunned Turks surrendered Dracula had in effect Declared war and he did not sit back and wait for the ottoman Invasion instead during the winter of 1461 to 62 he led his Horsemen back and forth across the danu raiding deep into ottoman Bulgaria at phenomenal speed attacking Turkish forces from Serbia all the way to the Black Sea he divided his cavalrymen into small raiding parties that moved quickly and lived off the land to cause havoc and disorder while Dracula sought to capture or destroy all the fortresses Along the danu that the Turks

meant to use for their invasion of vakia in February 1462 Dracula wrote The Following in a letter to Maas corvinus in Buddha quote I have killed men and women old and young who lived at obla at novasel where the danu flows into the sea up to rova which is located near chilia in the lower danu up to places such as sovit and Xian we killed kill [Music] je were forc marched to tago Vish and Impaled two especially tall Stakes were made for the treacherous hams ofasa and Thomas cavalinos Dracula hoped to have done so much

damage to the ottoman preparations that their Invasion would be delayed giving him more time to prepare vakia however the resources of the Ottoman Empire were truly vast the grand wiir mmud with an army of 18,000 men rushed to capture Brea a port on the valachian side side of the danu after taking it Mahmud struck North into vakia On a vast raiding Mission doing to vakia what Vlad had done to Bulgaria but when the Turks returned loaded with booty to recross the danu Dracula attacked and won a great Victory it was recorded that Dracula killed 10,000

of the Ottoman Army this Victory brought Meed II into the field in 1462 with a vast Army designed to conquer vakia once and for all and to turn it into a province of the Empire there were at least 60,000 regular troops and 30,000 auxiliaries Including bulgarians serbians and anatolians and they brought with them 120 Cannon there was essentially no hope for vakia they were vastly outnumbered and outmatched in terms of troop quality after all of vlad's purges of the boar and his organizational reforms vakia had lost much of its Elite and even more of those

boyards opposed to Dracula fled for Transylvania at this critical time this left vakia a core of Horsemen 10,000 strong while the rest of Dracula's forces were peasant soldiers raised through a mass Levy of 20,000 infantry clearly if there was to be any hope at all vakia needed allies unfortunately none were forthcoming and vakia was on its own the Turks brought a fleet from the Black Sea up the danu to Ferry their vast Army across Dracula fought hard to stop the river crossing contesting the probing attacks before a massive battle at turnu what made the difference

more even than the huge Numbers and the excellent soldiers of the Ottomans was their artillery pounding the vakin positions on the North Bank the Ottomans then fed across light artillery in their first wave the Turkish soldiers dug trenches after they crossed to help defend against the Relentless fakan Cavalry assaults that were striving to throw them back into the river inspired by the hites in Bohemia and previously employed against the Turks by hunyadi Dracula also Employed War wagons with men shooting from inside with early Firearms by all accounts it was a close run thing and the

difference was certainly the barrages from those 120 cannons eventually though all the ottoman infantry including the Janis series had been fed cross and the vast Army Advanced into vakia Meed II had also brought with him his replacement puppet vood vlad's younger brother Ru the handsome rode at the head of 4,000 Horsemen of his own the ottoman Army moved relentlessly towards the capital of tago Vish Dracula had no hope of defeating the Turks in a pitched battle and instead he began a Guerilla War grain stores and crops were burned livestock and peasants were driven away to

the north and most importantly Wells were poisoned and small rivers were damned and diverted to create marshes and bogland it was June and the problem of getting enough water for the vast Horde slowed the ottoman Advance as they moved slowly through the dense forests the Turks were ambushed repeatedly Dracula's peasant Army even dug huge man traps and covered them with Timber and leaves the Ottomans were soon suffering from severe dehydration in the scorching summer heat and every night the Army had to stop and dig massive Earthworks to defend from the Relentless night assaults foraging parties

guards and anyone outside the defensive camps were Taken by the valakians in the darkness and impaled what's more a terrible Camp sickness soon spread through the ottoman Army and their Advance slowed further the Turks were deeply affected by these torments and yet the weight of their numbers and the will of their Sultan drove them on through the scorched Earth towards the highlands and Taro Vish Dracula had grown up with the Turks and he knew memed II personally he understood the mind of his enemy he knew That he could not kill them all but he could

perhaps break their spirit and make the cost of conquering vakia too great to stand and so as the ottoman Army made camp in the lands around his Capital Dracula tortured captive ottoman officers until they revealed the location of Meed II's camp and then he gathered all his best remaining Cavalry perhaps 7even to 10,000 troops and went to kill the sultan on the night of the 17th of June Dracula led the assault known as the night attack at tago Vish they came in with flaming torches shooting arrows and slashing through the Turks with their swords penetrating

deeper and deeper toward the Sultan's magnificent great tent it was torn down by raging bakian Horsemen and the residents dragged out into the torch light it was not the tent of the sultan but of two wiers who were immediately executed when Dracula Finally found meed's tent it was surrounded by the Sultan's janissaries who stood shoulder toh shoulder and shot their firearms and arrows into the vakans driving them away to get past the outer guards at the start of the attack Vlad and his men had posed as Turks calling out the password in Turkish that they

had tortured from ottoman prisoners and now they continued to sew confusion amongst their enemies shouting out false orders in Turkish to disrupt the ottoman Response but with the element of surprise fading momentum stalling and the far greater numbers of the Turks beginning to tell the valakians were forced to withdraw the Ottomans lost perhaps 15,000 men while the vakans around 5,000 most of them in the fighting retreat Vlad had come very close but it wasn't enough and eventually memed II Advanced to the walls of tavish its defenses had been made formidable by Dracula and the Sultan

was perhaps already considering returning home instead of losing more men to thirst and disease in a prolonged Siege but when his men found the forest of 20,000 impaled Turks stretching for 2 miles outside the city they had finally had as much as they could take as the Ottomans retreated Dracula scored another Victory driving the enemy back across the danu but his country was reeling from the assault and his people were on the verge of collapse but what The Ottomans could not do by force they would complete by cunning and it would lead to Dracula's [Music]

downfall when he retreated from vakia M II left vlad's little brother Ry behind Dracula had saved people from Conquest but at terrible cost the land was burned the waters poisoned families left fatherless now Ru was here backed by a small ottoman contingent to offer them peace and prosperity under his Leadership all the disaffected vacan factions that Vlad had offended over the years soon flocked to Ru helped no doubt by bottomless bags of Ottoman coin the Saxon towns of the north especially through their political and financial weight behind him where Vlad was an extremist vladu the

handsome knew nothing but compromise he had the backing of the Ottomans and with him in charge the Ottomans would not invade again A desperate people welcomed would Only he could offer them the Turning tide became a torrent and vlad's political support swiftly vanished and he had no forces with which to contest ru's growing Army by the end of the year of his victory over the Turks Vlad Dracula fled across the mountains of Transylvania and Ru III began his rule as vode of vakia ru's army chased Dracula from Castle to fortrus but Vlad Got Away in

Transylvania he had word from Matas Corvinus that he would meet him and perhaps provide him with Hungarian forces to retake his throne A desperate Vlad had few other options but it was a trick and Dracula was captured in the king's name he would not suffer a terrible captivity however far from it the hungarians found it useful to hold a rival for the vacan throne in their possession to encourage the current one to remain on his best behavior Dracula was further honored by a position in the Hungarian Army and he was even offered marriage into the

Hungarian royal family in exchange for converting from Orthodox to the Catholic faith in the coming years the Ottomans continued to chip away at the bulans especially Albania under scand and an ottoman backed vakia under Radu the third began to clash with malavia under Steven the great Steven defeated Radu in battle and the handsome coward ran away leaving his treasure his magnificent clothes his standards and Astonishingly his wife and daughter the defeated humiliated Ru died of disease and basarab III supported by the Ottomans took the throne of alakia back in Hungary Dracula's time was coming again

to secure Hungarian support he married Ilona the daughter of vlad's old Ally Michael chaji she was the king's cousin and so Vlad was now part of the hunyadi clan he had two sons with her and along with an older illegitimate son they lived together at the Hungarian Court the extremist had become rehabilitated and even respectable in the eyes of the European nobility when the Ottomans moved to conquer malavia in 1474 they were supported by 177,000 vacan troops under basarab III the Turks had an enormous force of 120,000 men but they were brilliantly defeated by Steven

ad vaju in January 1475 in the face of this stunning defeat the vacan forces not only fled they turned on the Ottomans they attacked Them and sieged Turkish battle standards this was intended to prove basarab loyalty to Steven and to the hungarians it did not work and Steven St now one of the great Heroes of Christendom moved to have basarab replaced by Steven's cousin Vlad Dracula before that could happen Dracula was required by the hungarians to assist in a campaign in Bosnia where he was tasked with capturing shre runicha from the Ottomans this newly reformed

Respectable Vlad had lost none of his cunning however and he disguised his Hungarian troops as Turks and rode into shinich during Market Day taking the Enemy by complete prize he then burned the city to the ground plundered everything of value and impaled every Turk that he found it seems then that Vlad had not changed in his essential character but that did not put off the Christians fighting against ottoman aggression far from it a Papal legot Wrote The Following quote he tore the limbs off the Turkish prisoners and placed their parts on stakes and displayed the

private parts of his victims so that when the Turks see these they will run away in fear end quote although the peasants had always loved Dracula the boyards of vakia must have wondered what awaited them when Vlad rode back into their lands in 1476 to claim the throne for the third and final time by overthrowing basarab III this Time Vlad had Allied soldiers from Hungary Transylvania Serbia and vakia and vlad's invasion was coordinated with the mavian Army under Steven at attacking from the East basarab however had the support of 18,000 ottoman troops and a bloody

battle was fought that could have gone either way but a defeated basarab fled for the Turks and Vlad Dracula was crowned vood in late November 1476 it was an incredibly unlikely Return to power and Europe rejoiced at the news one of chrom's most famous soldiers would now alongside his cousin Steven stop the Relentless advance of the Turks and perhaps even turn back the tide but less than a month later Dracula would be dead the exact circumstances of his death are shrouded in mystery but he was likely killed in a battle near Bucharest The Story Goes

that vlad's 2,000 men were ambushed by basarab returned from the Turks with 4,000 Ottomans another story is that Vlad was assassinated in Camp by a Turkish assassin before the Skirmish took place another story says it was a case of mistaken identity and he was accidentally killed by his mavian soldiers in the confusion of battle mistaking him for an ottoman one version has him so killed because he was in Disguise as a Turk a victim of his own cunning of course the legend of Dracula demands that something poetic or tragic Occurred at the end but the

death in battle of a lifelong Soldier and Knight is hardly unusual or surprising whatever really happened after he died his head was claimed by janissaries and sent back to meed II who ultimately impaled it on a spike in Constantinople whether this story also is a little too perfect is hard to say the final resting place of his body is also a mystery The Story Goes that it was found by local monks and buried in The chapel of the monastery at snagov Vlad III Dracula was contemporaries with greater and more successful men than he had been

John hunyady Ste the great scanderbeg and his great enemy The warmonger Sultan Meed II all held more power for longer and won more battles than Dracula but even in this era of the most horrific Bloodshed his willingness to go so far beyond the limits of conventional conduct has helped turn his story and not theirs into Legend vad features in my novel vampire Impala book six of my historical fantasy series The Immortal KN Chronicles it features many of the great battles of the era like Vana Kosovo the fall of Constantinople the Battle of Belgrade and the

night attack at tago Vish there's a link to this series and all my books in the video description thank you to my patrons for making this video possible if you enjoy these long videos and want to see more like it please Support the channel on patreon there's a link in the video description now please watch this video on the life of Richard The Lion Heart I'm sure you'll like it thank you for watching