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whatmenfear
GENERAL INFORMATION
Full name: Vlad III Drăculea
Known aliases: Stephen Harker
Maker: Unknown
Status: Active
Current location: Unknown. Last sighted in Budapest, Hungary.
Sex: Male
Nationality: Wallachian/Romanian
Age: 582 – 583
Species: Hominus Nocturna (“vampire” )
Genus: Carpathia
Sub-class: Unknown
Common name: Carpathian vampire
Date of birth: Exact date unknown. Sources indicate somewhere between November and December 1431.
Place of birth: Sighișoara, Transylvania
Date of death: Exact date unknown. Sources indicate somewhere between December 1476 and January 1477.
Age at death: 44 - 45
Resting place: Exact location unknown. Early sources favor Snagov monastery, however, recent information points to Comana monastery.
Manner of death: Exact manner unknown. Early sources indicate that he was assassinated by his political rival, Basarab Laiotă, at the behest of the Ottomans.
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
Father: Vlad II Dracul
Mother: Cneajna of Moldavia, eldest daughter of Alexander I of Moldavia. Sources indicate a possible link between Cneajna and the Székely line of witches native to the Mureș region, however, this has yet to be proven.
Siblings: Mircea II (half-brother, elder); Vlad IV Călugărul (half-brother, elder); Radu cel Frumos (brother, younger)
Wives: Unknown Transylvanian noblewoman*; Ilona Szilágyi.
Children: Mihnea cel Rău; Vlad IV; Mircea (disputed name)*
Vlad was born in Sighișoara, Transylvania, in the winter of 1431 to Vlad II Dracul, future voivode of Wallachia. Vlad's father was the son of the celebrated Voivode Mircea the Elder.
In the year of his birth, Vlad's father traveled to Nuremberg, where he was then vested into the Order of the Dragon, a fellowship of knights sworn to defend Christendom against the encroaching Ottomans and European heresies, such as the Hussites. During his initiation, he was given the epithet Dracul, or dragon, by the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund.
Vlad and Radu spent their early formative years in Sighișoara. During the first reign of their father, Vlad II Dracul, the Voivode brought his young sons to Târgoviște, the capital of Wallachia at that time.
The Byzantine chancellor Mikhail Doukas showed that, at Târgoviște, the sons of boyars and ruling princes were well-educated by Romanian or Greek scholars commissioned from Constantinople. Vlad is believed to have learned combat skills, geography, mathematics, science, languages (Old Church Slavonic, German, Latin), and the classical arts and philosophy.
In 1436, Vlad II Dracul ascended the throne of Wallachia. He was ousted in 1442 by rival factions in league with Hungary, but secured Ottoman support for his return by agreeing to pay the Tribute to the Sultan.
At 13, Vlad and his brother Radu were held as political hostages by the Ottoman Turks. During his years as hostage, Vlad was educated in logic, the Quran, and the Turkish language and works of literature. He would speak this language fluently in his later years. He and his brother were also trained in warfare and horsemanship.
Despite increasing his cultural capital with the Ottomans, Vlad was not at all pleased to be in Turkish hands. He was resentful and incredibly jealous of his little brother, who soon earned the nickname Radu cel Frumos, or Radu the Handsome. Radu was well behaved and quickly earned the friendship of Sultan Murad's son, Mehmet. Conversely, Vlad was defiant and constantly punished for his impudence. It has been suggested that his traumatic experiences among the Ottomans may have molded him into the sadistic man he grew up to be, especially in regards to his penchant for impaling
In 1459, Pope Pius II called for a new crusade against the Ottomans, at the Congress of Mantua. In this crusade, the main role was to be played by Matthias Corvinus, son of John Hunyadi (János Hunyadi), the King of Hungary. To this effect, Matthias Corvinus received from the Pope 40,000 golden coins, an amount that was thought to be enough to gather an army of 12,000 men and purchase 10 Danube warships. In this context, Vlad allied himself with Matthias Corvinus, with the hope of keeping the Ottomans out of the country (Wallachia was claimed as a part of the Ottoman Empire by Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror).
Later that year, in 1459, Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II sent envoys to Vlad to urge him to pay a delayed tribute of 10,000 ducats and 500 recruits into the Ottoman forces. Vlad refused, because if he had paid the 'tribute', as the tax was called at the time, it would have meant a public acceptance of Wallachia as part of the Ottoman Empire. Vlad, like most of his predecessors and successors, maintained the goal of keeping Wallachia independent. Vlad had the Turkish envoys killed on the pretext that they had refused to raise their "hats" to him, by nailing their turbans to their heads.
Meanwhile, the Sultan received intelligence reports that revealed Vlad's domination of the Danube. He sent the Bey of Nicopolis, Hamza Bey (also known as Hamza Ceakirdjiba), to make peace and, if necessary, eliminate Vlad III.
Vlad Țepeș planned to set an ambush. Hamza Bey, the Bey of Nicopolis, brought with him 1000 cavalry and when passing through a narrow pass north of Giurgiu, Vlad launched a surprise attack. The Wallachians had the Turks surrounded and defeated. The Turks' plans were thwarted and almost all of them caught and impaled, with Hamza Bey impaled on the highest stake to show his rank.
In the winter of 1462, Vlad crossed the Danube and devastated the entire Bulgarian land in the area between Serbia and the Black Sea. Disguising himself as a Turkish Sipahi and utilizing the fluent Turkish he had learned as a hostage, he infiltrated and destroyed Ottoman camps.
In response to this, Sultan Mehmed II raised an army of around 60,000 troops and 30,000 irregulars, and in spring of 1462 headed towards Wallachia. This army was under the Ottoman general Mahmut Pasha and in its ranks was Radu the Handsome. Vlad was unable to stop the Ottomans from crossing the Danube on June 4, 1462 and entering Wallachia. He constantly organized small attacks and ambushes on the Turks, such as The Night Attack when 15,000 Ottomans were killed. This infuriated Mehmed II, who then crossed the Danube. Radu the Handsome, brother of Vlad III and ingratiate of the Ottoman Empire, was left behind in Târgoviște with the hope that he would be able to gather an anti-Vlad clique in Wallachia that would ultimately establish Radu the Handsome as the new Voivode of the region. Vlad's rule falls entirely within the three decades of the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans, conquering the entire Balkans peninsula.
Vlad the Impaler's attack was celebrated by the Saxon cities of Transylvania, the Italian states and the Pope. A Venetian envoy, upon hearing about the news at the court of Corvinus on 4 March, expressed great joy and said that the whole of Christianity should celebrate Vlad Țepeș's successful campaign. The Genoese from Caffa also thanked Vlad, for his campaign had saved them from an attack of some 300 ships that the sultan planned to send against them.
Vlad's initial victory against the Ottomans was short-lived and he soon withdrew to Moldavia leaving behind detachments in Wallachia that were overrun by the Ottoman Sipahi commander Turhanoghlu Omer Bey, who was rewarded by being appointed governor of Thessaly.
Vlad's younger brother Radu cel Frumos and his Janissary battalions were given the task by the Ottoman administrator Mihaloghlu Ali Bey on behalf of the Sultan, of leading the Ottoman Empire to victory. As the war raged on, Radu and his formidable Janissary battalions were well supplied with a steady flow of gunpowder and dinars; this allowed them to push deeper into the realm of Vlad III. Radu and his well-equipped forces finally besieged Poenari Castle, the famed lair of Vlad III. After his difficult victory Radu was given the title Bey of Wallachia by Sultan Mehmed II.
Vlad III's defeat at Poenari was due in part to the fact that the Boyars, who had been alienated by Vlad's policy of undermining their authority, had joined Radu under the assurance that they would regain their privileges. They may have also believed that Ottoman protection was better than Hungarian.
By September 8, Vlad had won another three victories, but continuous war had left him without any money and he could no longer pay his mercenaries.
In autumn of 1462, Vlad and Matthias Corvinus spent five weeks negotiating alliances and battle plans at Braşov. After believing he had gained Hungarian support for his crusade against the Ottomans, a confident Vlad started on his way home to Wallachia. Unbeknownst to him, there was an ambush waiting for him at Castle King's Rock, a fortress about six kilometers north of Ručar, barely inside the Wallachian state. On November 26, Vlad was captured by Matthias Corvinus' own men and spirited away to Hungary.
Neither his contemporaries nor modern day scholars can say why exactly Matthias Corvinus shifted his loyalties and betrayed Vlad. Relatively recent research volunteers a possible explanation, though: In the early 1460s, the Hungarian king became distracted by the possibility of receiving the title of Holy Roman Emperor, and effectively tried to end the anti-Ottoman crusades in Eastern Europe. To focus on gaining power in Central Europe, he abandoned the Balkans to the Turks, a hasty and incriminating move for a supposed crusader-king. In order to justify his actions, he ordered Vlad's arrest, claiming that the Wallachian prince was actually in league with the Turks; therefore, the entire area was undeserving of his protection.
Vlad was imprisoned at the Oratea Fortress located at today's Podu Dâmboviței village. A period of imprisonment in Visegrád near Buda followed.
The exact length of Vlad's period of captivity is open to some debate, though indications are that it was from 1462 until 1470. Diplomatic correspondence from Buda seems to indicate that the period of Vlad's effective confinement was relatively short, his release occurring around 1466 when he married Ilona Szilágyi. Radu's openly pro-Ottoman policy as voivode probably contributed to Vlad's rehabilitation. Moreover, Ștefan cel Mare, Voivode of Moldavia and relative of Vlad intervened on his behalf to be released from prison as the Ottoman pressure on the territories north of the Danube was increasing.
Around 1475 Vlad began preparations for the reconquest of Wallachia with István Báthory of Transylvania, mixed forces of Transylvanians, Hungarian support, some dissatisfied Wallachian boyars, and Moldavians sent by Prince Stephen III of Moldavia, Vlad's cousin. Vlad's brother, Radu the Handsome, died many years earlier and had been replaced on the Wallachian throne by another Turkish candidate, Prince Basarab the Elder, a member of the Dăneşti clan. When Vlad's army arrived, Prince Basarab's army fled, some to the Turks, others in the mountains. After placing Vlad on the throne, Stephen Báthory and his forces returned to Transylvania, leaving Vlad in a very weak position. Vlad had little time to get support before a large Turkish army entered Wallachia to put Prince Basarab back on the throne. Vlad had to meet the Turks with the small forces at his disposal, which were made up of fewer than four thousand men. Vlad III declared his third reign in 26 November 1476, where it had lasted little more than two months and thereafter he was killed. According to profs. McNally & Florescu, Vlad Dracula was killed in battle.
There is some speculation as to the cause of his death, as well as the exact location, however sources seem to indicate somewhere along the road between Bucharest and Giurgiu.
According to Bonfinius (Antonio Bonfini) and a Turkish chronicler, Vlad was decapitated by the Turks as a trophy, and his head was sent to Constantinople (now Istanbul) preserved in honey. After, the head was displayed on a stake as proof that he was dead.
Vlad's body was buried unceremoniously by his rival, Basarab Laiota, possibly at Comana, a monastery founded by Vlad in 1461. The Comana monastery was demolished and rebuilt from scratch in 1589.
BIOGRAPHER'S NOTES:
- So far it has yet to be conclusively proven that there is a link between Drăculea and the Székely line. However, many speculate that it is one possible source of the subject's abnormal characteristics. This is of concern to several members as to date such a combination of traits has not been known to exist outside of lore. Whether Drăculea himself is aware of the possible connection remains unknown.
- Some sources give the name of Drăculea's first wife as Mirena, and first born son, Inegras. This has yet to be conclusively proven.
