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The 1462 letter to Corvinus

Posted by ForSaKeN on July 1, 2017
Posted in: Vlad "Dracula" the Impaler. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

On February 11, 1462, Vlad the Impaler sent a letter to the Hungarian king – Matthias Corvinus. It is kept to this day and gives us many interesting details about the relationship between Corvinus and his vassal along with plans for a war against the Conqueror of Constantinople.
There is no mention of the 500 young men the sultan requested in 1459, the year in which Vlad refused to pay tribute; this detail was later found in the chronicles of Chalkokondyles – he was close to the Sultan witnessed many wars of the latter, often writing his chronicles from the front!
The catalyst for the war between Wallachia and the Ottoman Empire is presented as being the refusal to pay tribute. Another chronicler of the time – Doukas – specified the amount of 10,000 gold ducats, representing the tribute for three years plus interest.
Some of the things that jump into attention after a careful reading of the letter are:
§ Over the years Vlad had provided information to his neighbors, so we can assume that Matthias could focus on his internal political struggles for the imperial crown, feeling protected from the SE.
During the reign of Vlad the Impaler, the Turks did not have free passage on Wallachian territory, so they could not do incursions in Transylvania.
§ Vlad was not obliged to marry during captivity, as some historians have assumed. The prince agreed to the union and discussions on the subject with the Hungarian king started as early as 1461.
Turkish spies had informed the sultan, and he feared such a possibility because at that time arranged marriages among aristocrats were still considered to be sustainable alliances. The sultan feared such an union would mean embedding Wallachia in the Austro-Hungarian Empire [at least in a not so distant future].
We know that the ceremony took place in 1463, most likely in Buda, but do not know the exact circumstances and the identity of the bride. It was speculated that she was either a cousin of Corvinus, or an influent aristocrat [the daughter of a Hungarian magnate from the extremely exclusive entourage of the king].
§ Vlad counted about 24,000 casualties [Turks and Bulgarians], not to mention people who perished in their homes that were set ablaze.
Chronicles that included the testimony or the Wallachian army chiefs mention they had received orders from Dracula to spare Christians from those settlements.
§ The prince knew that the sultan had to turn against him so he asked Matthias to send at least part of his army. He also highlights that if Wallachia was conquered by the Ottoman army they would have the enemy at their doorstep.
§ Dracula said that the war had already started anyway and asked for help no matter how insignificant [as number] before St. George [23 April].
The formulation of the letter is reminiscent of the Crusades that the papacy was trying to start.

๑۞๑ Related:๑۞๑
† Vlad the Impaler
† Count Dracula

The beginning of the war with the sultan

Posted by ForSaKeN on July 1, 2017
Posted in: Vlad "Dracula" the Impaler. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

The sultan was busy on Asian war front, so Vlad did not suffer immediate consequences for refusing to pay tribute in 1459. But in early 1461, the sultan could focus onWallachia.

Fearing it would not take long until he would have to face him on the front and knowing Vlad`s temper, at first Mahomed tried to lure him to his court, using the same trick his father used on Vlad Dracul .
Hoping that history would repeat itself, Thomas Katabolenos was sent to bring Vlad to Constantinople [later renamed Istanbul]. He put his faith in the Greek`s diplomatic talent and planned for one of his subjects [Hamza, who ruled the territory near the border with Wallachia] to meet Vlad while they would cross the Danube.
Katabolenos was supposed to collect 10,000 gold coins – three years tribute plus interest.
Vlad pretended to obey the sultan and left Targoviste with only a few men, leaving personal instructions to his personal army that they were to follow remaining on the inner roads known only to them [forests covering half or more of the country as I stated in a previous article].
He did not hesitate to massacre the men sent to capture him and launched a campaign on the Turkish bank of the Danube. He burned all the settlements he found in his way and killed all the pagans [including women, elders and children].
Following an ingenious strategy, a group was dressed in Turkish robes and simulated a withdrawal to the [fortified] city of Giurgiu. When defenders of the city opened, the group turned against them and the rest of Vlad’s army took advantage of the confusion General and slaughtered the enemy troops without suffering many casualties.

Vlad took a lot of victims and ordered the lifting of the famous Forest of the Impaled, reserving a silver stake for Hamza [the prince that was supposed to capture him and take him to the sultan], so that he could ‘admire’ his subjects freely.
Contrary to urban legend, the forest was not built palace near Targoviste, but on a nearby road.
Some say that the count of 20,000 stakes is probably exaggerated in pamphlets, but even Vlad gives us the number of corpses in a letter to Matthias Corvinus in early 1462 – he counted 23,884. So the forest that stretched nearly 3km and and was about 1km wide is in fact a historical reality!

๑۞๑ Related:๑۞๑
† Vlad the Impaler
† Count Dracula

Vlad`s external strategy

Posted by ForSaKeN on July 1, 2017
Posted in: Vlad "Dracula" the Impaler. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

In 1457 Vlad helped his cousin take Moldavia, thus ending an alliance with Stephen the Great. History proves, however, that Vlad was to be betrayed by his cousin in one of the hardest moments.
In an attempt to help Wallachian merchants increase their income, he decided to close the roads for the foreigners that enjoyed free pass until then. He allowed them to participate with their goods [but only in large volumes] in three exhibitions at the border; called in documents “store cities” : Targoviste, Campulung and Targsor.
Hence commerce in Wallachia would be made only by local vendors.
Accustomed with frequent changes of rulers, of which in fact they were not estranged, the Germans decided to ignore these orders, so Vlad sent his personal army on their trail.
This type of army was something new and represented the Wallachian prince’s personal guard. Because he had noticed how those in job for the sultan acted, he adapted this new form of organization and hired mercenaries that answered directly to him. These soldiers were hardened in the “art” of war and made up the military elite. To ensure that it will not betray him, Vlad allowed them to steal from the enemy when they attacked settlements at his command.
The Germans captured on Wallachian roads were impaled and their possessions confiscated.
Shortly after this episode, Matthias received letters from the desperate Saxons of Brasov and Sibiu; they complained that they had been attacked by Vlad. What they “forgot” to mention, however, is that he had previously asked them to stop aiding the pretenders to his throne. In fact he was banished himself from Brasov in 1452 because of the same reason.
The refusal to have his opponents banished led to raids in a couple of regions near Brasov and Sibiu! There were many casualties and property damage.
Vlad continued to pay tribute up until 1459 when the sultan asked for 500 of his young for his contingents of janissaries.
This was unprecedented for the Romanian Country because this requirement was specific only to regions under Turkish occupancy and Wallachia retain its autonomy. Vlad paid only a sum calculated according to annual production.
If he had “delivered” the young boys it would have been equivalent to him accepting the integration into the Ottoman political and administrative structures – so occupation.
But even if Wallachia paid tribute it kept its internal autonomy, landowners had the right to choose the ruler, and people practice their own religion without restriction. The Turks had no right to settle permanently [by in possession of houses, buy land or build mosques on the territory]. The only foreigners were tolerated Catholics, but they lived in closed communities and were forbidden to practice any religious rituals in public. Instead, the Orthodox were welcome. Gypsies had slave status and adopted the religion of the majority.
Three years would still pass until the outbreak of war between Vlad the Impaler and the Conqueror of Constantinople.

๑۞๑ Related:๑۞๑
† Vlad the Impaler
† Count Dracula

Captivity and wanderings

Posted by ForSaKeN on June 30, 2017
Posted in: Vlad "Dracula" the Impaler. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

When Vlad Dracul grew apart from John Hunyadi and started to pay tribute to the Sultan he gained an additional foe in the person of his former brother in arms.
The sultan never trusted him, but Vlad realized the futility of the war and decided to retire as not to endanger the economy of Wallachia more than it had already been.
Knowing that the wallachian would betray him at any moment if Hunyadi rebuild his forces, the sultan set a trap and demanded that the tribute from 1442 be paid in person. Vlad Dracul was captured and not allowed to return to Wallachia until two of his sons were brought to Adrianople [Edinet]: Vlad and Radu.
Unfortunately Vlad Dracul returned home only to be killed at the command of John Hunyadi.

Young Vlad was sent with his younger brother in a city from Minor Asia [near Bursa], where he spent several years not in prison as historians previously thought but in a manor. They were treated as princes and had the opportunity to learn the Turkish language and customs.
While Vlad developed a deep hatred for the Turks and studied their military organization [knowledge that was to be extremely useful in developing future strategies in the war], Radu became an intimate of the sultan Mehmet and converted to Islam.
Although after his father died Vlad managed to reclaim the throne in Targoviste [helped by some landowners] he was banished shortly afterwards. This first rule in 1448 lasted at least 2 weeks within a maximum of 3 months.

Over the next eight years would be a ranger, taking refuge first in Moldova with his uncle Bogdan and then in Transylvania taking his cousin Stephen with him [he would later become Stephen the Great].
In the three years spent in Moldova [before Bogdan was overthrown and killed], Vlad reunited with his father`s widow and his step-sister. There are many documents attesting that Alexandra returned to Wallachia at one point after her brother took the throne in his second reign and we find some of her descendants in the following centuries in important families from the areas around Targoviste.
Vlad the Impaler was received in Transylvania for a very short period – Vlad and Hunyadi were not as close as we’d imagined … at least at the beginning, perhaps because Vlad knew that his father died at the command of the Transylvanian governor.
More than likely Hunyadi received him in one of his cities [Brasov or Sighisoara] for fear that he would otherwise resort to using help from the new Turkish sultan, Mehmed the 2nd, who remained recorded in history as the Conqueror of Constantinople.
Just because they were focusing on the siege of the imperial city, in November 1451 an armistice was signed on a minimum of three years, which included Wallahia. Hungary couldn`t intervene in Wallachia in any way, and Vladislav the 2nd was protected from any actions that would remove him from the throne.
Authorities in Brasov had to remove Vlad from the city because of this treaty, after receiving a letter from John Hunyadi, dated February 6, 1452.

The next four years remain a mystery.
We can not know exactly where Vlad Dracula fled, but in 1456 he was already among the protégées of John Hunyadi, and the latter was planning to put him on the wallachian throne.

๑۞๑ Related:๑۞๑
† Vlad the Impaler
† Count Dracula

Vlad Dracul and the Order of the Dragon

Posted by ForSaKeN on June 30, 2017
Posted in: Vlad "Dracula" the Impaler. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

One couldn`t try to understand Vlad the Impaler without taking into account the love he felt for his father, Vlad Dracul, from which he inherited the love for his country, the hatred for Turks [augmented in the period of captivity], but also military, political and organizational talents.
In many texts we can find a parallel between the two as they are considered the most skillful Wallachian rulers who managed to withstand the Turks by various methods, whether by false submission or war.
Vlad Dracul, son of Mircea the Elder, had the esteem of Sigismund of Luxembourg, so in February of 1431, in a ceremony officiated at Nuremberg, he was received in the order of chivalry founded by the Hungarian ruler – even before he become the ruler of Wallachia.
Along with the effigy of the Order, Vlad Dracul received one of the highest distinctions of the Hungarian Empire.
The Order of the Dragon was composed almost exclusively of very influential Hungarian magnates [who donated large amounts of goods and money in support of the war against the Turks], and at that time among the members there were only two other foreigners: the kings of Poland and Serbia.
The seal was a ring representing a dragon coiled around a cross that could be seen engraved these words:

O quam misericors Deus east,
Justus et Pius.

[Oh, how merciful God is, how good and just.]

Although he was received in the order in 1431, Vlad Dracul did not come to ascend the throne of Targoviste until 1437.
Meanwhile Vlad Dracul was established in Schassburg [Sighisoara] where he received the right to run a monetary. The coins had a dragon symbol.
In that house it is supposed that his second son, Vlad Dracula, was born!
Though protected by treaties signed by Sigismund with the noblemen and the Wallachian ruler of that time, Vlad Dracul could only stay in Transylvania and it must have seemed more of an exile for him!
About Members of the Order we know that they were very good strategists, they wore black on Fridays and if one was killed on the battlefield his widow and heirs could count on the other members for support.
Membership in the Order of the Dragon was inherited on the male line and we know that Vlad Dracul had 4 children from his two marriages, three boys and one girl.
§ Mircea, born in 1428 or 1429 of his first wife [an aristocrat at the court of Sigismund of Luxembourg] he is known for the lifelong fight alongside his father and died with it in 1447, probably buried alive.
§ Vlad, born of his first wife in 1429 or 1430 most likely in Sighisoara, the one who would later become the dreaded Vlad the Impaler
§ Radu, born in 1438 or 1439 with of second wife [Marina of Moldavia], he was hostage along with Vlad and converted to Islam, then toppled his brother in 1462 and ruled until 1475; known as Radu the Handsome
§ Alexandra, born shortly before the death of Vlad Dracul, was to meet again in Moldova with her older brother and returned in Targoviste after Vlad took the throne the second time.

When he was finally able to get the throne of his country Vlad Dracul went to war with Hunyadi and other members of the Order of the Dragon, but recognizing that the battle was a lost chose to pay tribute to the sultan.
He was attracted to the court and forced by the Sultan to give his two sons as a guarantee of his fidelity. So Vlad and Radu became prisoners.
When Vlad Dracul returned to his court he was killed along with his eldest son, Mircea, presumably by orders of John Hunyadi. The latter had been fooled by Wallachian boyars into thinking that his former comrade in arms betray him and was preparing to join the Ottoman army.
If Vlad would have been in Targoviste in 1447 he probably would have been killed!

๑۞๑ Related:๑۞๑
† Vlad the Impaler
† Count Dracula