- 2 months ago
Dr Bob shows you what it was really like to live during the reign of Vlad the Impaler. Beyond the romanticized myths of vampires and gothic legends lies a gritty, harrowing reality of betrayal, vengeance, and unimaginable brutality.
In this immersive historical story, we follow the journey of a captive prince who transformed his traumatic childhood as an Ottoman hostage into a bloody crusade to reclaim his stolen throne. From the ruthless assassination of his father and brother to the brutal scorched-earth campaigns that brought a superpower to its knees, discover the true, unvarnished history of the warlord who terrified Eastern Europe.
Witness the devastating purges of the Wallachian nobility, the grueling guerrilla warfare against the Ottoman war machine, the tactical brilliance of his daring night attacks, and his absolute refusal to surrender.
00:00 Prologue: The Order of the Dragon
01:20 Prisoners of the Ottoman Empire
05:12 Betrayal and the Murder of the Draculesti
10:46 A Deal With the Devil: Reclaiming Wallachia
13:30 The Easter Massacre & Rise of the Impaler
17:07 The Transylvanian Campaigns of Terror
21:21 War Against the Sultan: The Night Attack
24:42 The Forest of the Impaled & The Dragon's End
Watch ALL of DrBob's SCP videos including SCP 150 The Body Stealing Parasite and SCP 3700 Tides of War here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHxBeJ7z3xRleoXfcoFZxHgqji3jKgWwV
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Join the DR. BOB SQUAD and become an Honorary Member of the Dr. Bob Research Staff!
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Narrated by Joe Cliff Thompson
In this immersive historical story, we follow the journey of a captive prince who transformed his traumatic childhood as an Ottoman hostage into a bloody crusade to reclaim his stolen throne. From the ruthless assassination of his father and brother to the brutal scorched-earth campaigns that brought a superpower to its knees, discover the true, unvarnished history of the warlord who terrified Eastern Europe.
Witness the devastating purges of the Wallachian nobility, the grueling guerrilla warfare against the Ottoman war machine, the tactical brilliance of his daring night attacks, and his absolute refusal to surrender.
00:00 Prologue: The Order of the Dragon
01:20 Prisoners of the Ottoman Empire
05:12 Betrayal and the Murder of the Draculesti
10:46 A Deal With the Devil: Reclaiming Wallachia
13:30 The Easter Massacre & Rise of the Impaler
17:07 The Transylvanian Campaigns of Terror
21:21 War Against the Sultan: The Night Attack
24:42 The Forest of the Impaled & The Dragon's End
Watch ALL of DrBob's SCP videos including SCP 150 The Body Stealing Parasite and SCP 3700 Tides of War here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHxBeJ7z3xRleoXfcoFZxHgqji3jKgWwV
Support the Research
Join the DR. BOB SQUAD and become an Honorary Member of the Dr. Bob Research Staff!
https://www.patreon.com/DrBob
Narrated by Joe Cliff Thompson
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00This is the brutal truth about the life of Vlad the Impaler.
00:04Vlad III's story begins during the rule of his father, Vlad II, also known as Vlad Dracul.
00:09This name means Vlad the Dragon, and he earned it from his membership in the Order of the Dragon,
00:15a monarchical order founded by Sigismund of Luxembourg in 1408.
00:19The Order of the Dragon might sound demonic by modern standards,
00:23especially considering that Dracul also means devil in modern Romanian.
00:27But the Order is actually a Christian alliance.
00:30Their membership is made up of Christian monarchs,
00:33and their intent is to protect their subjects from both foreign invaders and homegrown heretics.
00:38Vlad II joins this Order in the same year of Vlad III's birth.
00:42Fitting, given how much its values will shape the young prince's own as he reaches adulthood.
00:48Vlad II is the voivode of Wallachia, an autonomous principality now part of present-day Romania,
00:54located in the southern Carpathian Mountains.
00:56It and the neighboring Transylvania are incredibly strategically important in Eastern Europe,
01:01as they're some of the only chunks of territory separating the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary.
01:07The problem with being a small country in between two great powers is that if those countries are enemies,
01:12you're expected to pick a side.
01:14This means that when Vlad II tries to remain neutral, it creates major problems.
01:20After a meeting with his Transylvanian counterpart, John Hunyadi, in March 1442,
01:25Vlad Dracul decides that he's not going to support the planned Ottoman invasion of Transylvania.
01:30Sultan Murad II, leader of the Ottomans, gets news of this decision
01:34and demands that Dracul come to see him in Gallipoli to prove his loyalty.
01:38Vlad agrees to make the journey and brings with him his two sons,
01:42Vlad III and Radu III, also called Radu the Handsome.
01:46Vlad III is about 11 or 12 years old.
01:48Radu is about 7.
01:50The two of them will grow up to be voivodes themselves one day,
01:53and it's never too early to start learning the ins and outs of ruling the country.
01:57But what's supposed to be a normal diplomatic visit quickly takes a turn for the worse,
02:02as the Sultan orders the Wallachian voivode and his two sons to be imprisoned.
02:07During Vlad II's absence, his oldest son, 14-year-old Mersha II, is left to rule in the interim.
02:14Mersha's rule lasts only a few months, however,
02:17as John Hunyadi invades and installs Basarab II on the throne,
02:21hoping this will secure him more influence in Wallachia.
02:24While Vlad II is let go, the young princes Vlad III and Radu are kept by the Ottoman
02:29as collateral to ensure their father's loyalty.
02:32The father returns home to Wallachia, where he deposes Basarab II,
02:36causing friction between himself and John Hunyadi.
02:40The sons are held at the fortress of Egregoz,
02:42and accounts differ on how humanely the two boys were treated while hostages of the Ottomans.
02:47It's generally accepted that their captors give them an education befitting their royal status,
02:53teaching them lessons on science, philosophy, history, and warfare.
02:57The Ottomans treat them well by most accounts,
02:59but it isn't out of the goodness of the Sultan's heart.
03:02Murad II is an expansionist, looking to build further inroads into Europe.
03:07If he can mold the future voivodes and do sympathetic allies while they're still young and impressionable,
03:12it'll be easier to claim their territory in the future.
03:15Vlad, older and less impressionable, is harder to get on side.
03:19He acts out, argues with his instructors,
03:22and is prone to tantrums for which his captors whip him as punishment.
03:30But still, for both Vlad and Radu, death always looms over them as a potential threat.
03:36If their father acts out of line, something terrible might befall them.
03:40Despite this, Vlad Dracul makes the choice to support Vladislaus,
03:44king of Poland and Hungary, against the Ottoman Empire during the Hungarian-Ottoman War in 1444.
03:49He makes this decision even though he's convinced that the Sultan will have his sons killed.
03:53But he's more concerned about maintaining alliances with Wallachia's neighboring Christian nations.
03:59His sons are a worthy sacrifice for stability in what has, to that point, been an incredibly unstable region.
04:06While the two princes are imprisoned, the Hungarians and Ottomans sign a peace treaty at Seged.
04:11Vladislaus III, then king of Poland and Hungary, immediately violates this by sending men to invade Ottoman territory,
04:18launching what would become the Crusade of Varna.
04:21John Hunyadi, who has already faced the Ottomans enough times to have earned the nickname
04:25Turk Buster, fights alongside Vladislaus.
04:28Both of their armies are soundly defeated by the Ottomans.
04:31Hunyadi escapes following his defeat, and is briefly imprisoned in Wallachia.
04:35The victory apparently leaves the Sultan feeling unusually generous,
04:39because even though Vlad Dracul had sided with Hungary at Varna,
04:43the Sultan doesn't kill either Vlad II or Radu.
04:46Dracul tries again to appease the Ottomans in exchange for his son's freedom.
04:49In 1446, he returns to the Sultan to pay homage to him, agreeing to pay an annual tribute.
04:56This enrages John Hunyadi, whose feelings on Dracul had already begun to sour after Vlad II's ousting of Basarab,
05:03and Hunyadi's imprisonment in Wallachia.
05:05Hunyadi slanders Vlad II to anyone who will listen, calling him a turncoat and an Ottoman sympathizer.
05:12In 1447, Hunyadi travels across the Carpathians to Targovist, where he meets with Vladislav II, one of Vlad Dracul's cousins.
05:19He's a member of the rival House of Dynasty, another noble with a claim to the throne of Wallachia.
05:24The two of them come up with a plan to seize the throne from Vlad Dracul.
05:29Supported by an army of Saxons, boyars, and other Targovista citizens who have sworn their loyalty to House Dynasty,
05:35John and Vladislaus attack the palace.
05:36Vlad Dracul prepares to fight against the siege, but his preparations aren't enough, and the palace guards are easily overwhelmed.
05:43Dracul has no other choice but to run, and flees the city.
05:47Mercer II isn't so lucky.
05:49While fighting the revolt alongside his father, the townspeople manage to capture him.
05:53First, he is blinded with red-hot pokers.
05:56Then, they bury the 19-year-old alive.
05:59Vlad Dracul doesn't survive his oldest son for very long.
06:02He makes a beeline for the Danube, hoping to make it to Bucharest, but is captured to the village of
06:07Baltany and murdered by Vladislav II.
06:09His body is unceremoniously dumped in the marshes on the outskirts of town.
06:14John Hunyadi wastes no time in claiming Targovist as his own.
06:18Though he initially calls himself the new voivode, he soon transfers the throne over to Vladislav II.
06:24Unbeknownst to either of them, though, their actions have opened the gates of hell.
06:29Vlad Dracul's other two sons are still alive, living in Ottoman territory, and soon they will receive the news of
06:35their father's death.
06:36Radu will remain behind, going on to serve as a knight in Sultan Murad's court for another 20 years.
06:41But Vlad III, now 16 years old, will return to his homeland and embark on a bloody campaign of revenge.
06:48The news of Dracul and Murs' deaths are relayed to Vlad III by a man named Kazan, a loyal retainer
06:54of his late father's, who had been instructed by Dracul directly to find Vlad in the event of his death.
06:59Vlad II inherits his father's place in the order and gains the new name for which he will become infamous.
07:06Vlad Dracula, the son of the dragon.
07:09When the Ottomans give Dracul permission to leave after his father's death, they make it clear to him that they
07:14consider him the rightful ruler of Wallachia.
07:17They would also support him in his attempts to reclaim the throne.
07:20He does so in November of 1448, leveraging the fact that Hunyadi's men have been weakened by an ongoing conflict
07:27in Kosovo.
07:28Most importantly of all, he knows that in Kosovo, Vladislav II will be leading the Wallachian army.
07:33When Kazan told Dracul the details of his father and brother's murders, he didn't leave out any details, especially not
07:40the name of the man responsible.
07:42Naturally, Dracul has made a vow that one way or another, Vladislav II will die by his hand.
07:49With a small force of Ottoman horsemen supplied by Murad II, Dracul sets out for Kosovo to seize the throne.
07:56Despite his youth, Dracul carries himself with confidence and purpose.
08:00He calls Vladislav out and officially announces that he will be making a claim to the throne.
08:06With his small army of Ottoman soldiers, he mounts an attack against Vladislav's men, but they fail the captured Vladislav.
08:13Dracul and his men fight tooth and nail, but are simply outnumbered and ill-prepared.
08:17Dracul is soundly defeated. The whole thing is over before Christmas.
08:22Disgraced, Dracul flees back to Turkey, to the city of Edirne, but Vladislav would cross paths with him again very
08:29soon.
08:29At this point, John Hunyadi is essentially out of the picture.
08:33Not happy to just install a puppet government in one principality, he has now shifted his focus to backing Peter
08:39III, a pretender to the throne of Moldavia.
08:43He has promised to install a Hungarian garrison on the Moldavian side of the Lower Danube in exchange.
08:48This has left Vladislav to run Wallachia on his own, however he sees fit.
08:53He sets his sights on the Ottomans, looking to secure his land against reprisals by forming an alliance.
08:59Dracul knows that this will put him in serious danger, should Murad accept Vladislav's overtures.
09:04This leads Dracul to Moldavia, far away from the Ottoman borders, where he lays low among the royal court, staying
09:10there from December 1449 to October 1451.
09:14Bogdan II, a man who will soon ascend to the throne of Moldavia, is Dracula's maternal uncle, and is more
09:20than willing to provide him with refuge.
09:22Many years ago, he had sought protection from Vlad Dracul, and sees this as returning the favor.
09:27While living with Bogdan, Dracula owns his skills on the battlefield by joining his uncle at the Battle of Krasna
09:33in the Polish-Moldavian War.
09:34He becomes close with Bogdan's son, a man named Stephen, who fights alongside him, another future ruler who history will
09:41remember as Stephen the Great of Moldavia.
09:43But this period of relative peace and safety can't last long.
09:47After only two years on the throne, Bogdan is murdered by his brother, Peter Arun.
09:52Dracula is once again forced to flee, with Stephen joining him on his journey.
09:56They have very few options where to go next, so they head in the direction of Transylvania, through the Borgo
10:02Pass across the Carpathians.
10:04Dracula leads them to Brazov by way of Sigizora, the town where he was born.
10:08He knows the boyars, that is, the nobles of the region, were loyal to his father's house.
10:13Dracula hopes that he can rally them to support his attempts to reclaim the throne.
10:17However, word quickly gets out that the son of Vlad Dracul is in town.
10:21The two princes attract the attention of John Hunyadi, who for all his politicking and campaigning, still maintains his seat
10:27as the voivode of Transylvania.
10:30Hunyadi orders that Vlad Dracul must be apprehended at once, and that no citizen of Transylvania should provide him with
10:36refuge.
10:36So, Dracula keeps his head low, using fake names and never wearing his Order of the Dragon Collar.
10:42Lest anyone recognize the symbol, and flees again, this time to Sibiu.
10:46But what Dracula doesn't know is that John Hunyadi doesn't want to bring him in to kill him or throw
10:51him in jail.
10:52He wants to try and cut a deal.
10:55Vladislav II has been getting increasingly friendly with the Ottomans,
10:58even going so far as to send a delegation of boyars to congratulate the new Sultan, Mehmed II, on his
11:03ascension.
11:04To Hunyadi, this is as good as a betrayal.
11:07The two voivodes, once allies, are now in direct conflict.
11:12Vladislav II leads Ottoman troops on raids into Transylvanian territory.
11:16If they successfully gain ground, that puts them dangerously close to the Hungarian border.
11:21So, when Hunyadi is finally face to face with Dracula, he gives him an offer.
11:25Join my army and defend Transylvania's borders, and I will ensure that you return to the throne of Olashia.
11:31Despite the support that the Ottomans had previously given him,
11:34Dracula still hasn't forgiven them for keeping him captive for all those years.
11:38And despite the bad blood between Hunyadi and his family, before anything else, Dracula is a Christian.
11:44His very name is a sign of his commitment to what he considers a sacred and holy order.
11:49He takes the deal, but adds one condition, that he gets to kill Vladislav II himself.
11:55In June 1456, Dracula sets out across the mountains with a small army of exiled Wallachian boyars and Hungarian mercenaries.
12:03Their destination is Targovista Palace.
12:07Vladislav II tries to leave with his army, but they're intercepted at Tarkzor.
12:11Dracula again calls Vladislav out, challenging him for the throne of Olashia.
12:15He's not going to make the same mistake he did last time, though.
12:18This time, the playing field will be level.
12:20He's challenging Vladislav to single combat.
12:24Vladislav agrees, but Dracula isn't a child anymore.
12:27He's 25 years old, battle-hardened from fighting alongside his uncle and cousin in Poland,
12:32fueled by an unquenchable thirst for revenge.
12:35The two men clash, but Dracula is able to get the upper hand and slaughters his enemy.
12:40Whether he does it with his father's steel sword or with his bare hands depends on who's telling the story.
12:46When Vlad Dracula returns to Olashia and takes the throne,
12:49Haley's Comet is visible in the skies over Europe.
12:52Dracula takes this as a sign of great things to come.
12:55Others see it as an omen of certain death.
12:59Dracula knows that if he doesn't strike fast and strike hard,
13:02he could be deposed just as easily as he disposed Vladislav.
13:05So he begins his reign with two years of bloodshed,
13:08violently killing any Boyer families who supported Vladislav's uprising against his father.
13:13The Boyer Albu the Great, for example, tries to stage a coup a few months after Dracula comes to power.
13:19Even after this attempt fails, Albu continues to agitate for Dracula's removal.
13:23Dracula's men apprehend him, along with his entire family,
13:26but Dracula doesn't want to execute them in the typical fashion.
13:30He wants to send a message.
13:32He recalls a torture he's seen on the battlefield,
13:35a method used by both Ottomans and Saxons.
13:37The enemy soldiers are raised onto wooden spikes
13:40and displayed outside the city walls as a warning against invaders.
13:44This is done while the victim is still alive,
13:46with gravity pulling them further down the spike
13:49as they slowly die from ruptured organs and internal bleeding.
13:53Albu's entire family is killed this way.
13:55The only survivor is his brother, left alive to flee to Brazov
13:59and spread tales of the horrors that he'd just witnessed.
14:02Even in this brutal period of history,
14:04where gruesome public executions are commonplace across Europe,
14:08Dracula's methods are seen as exceptionally cruel and unusual.
14:11It doesn't take Dracula long to earn his new nickname, Vlad the Impaler.
14:16When Easter rolls around,
14:17Dracula invites a number of Boyers and their families to the palace for a banquet,
14:21a tradition in the city that went back generations.
14:24The guest list for the feast is 200, including women and children.
14:28They enjoy the festivities and spirits are high
14:31until after the main course is finished
14:33and the guests all realize that they can't leave.
14:36Panic erupts as Dracula's men split the children from their parents.
14:40The adults are impaled outside the city wall.
14:42The children are shackled together
14:44and marched up the river to the former site of Ponari Castle,
14:47which they are forced to rebuild as Dracula's slaves.
14:51Volashia's noble class is decimated almost overnight.
14:54Only the Boyers who had sworn their loyalty to the house of Dracula
14:57and accompanied him to Volashia from Brazov are spared.
15:00Dracula seizes the ancestral lands of the families he's wiped out
15:03and gifts them to new families,
15:05people of low birth who have no other hope of owning land.
15:08This strategic act of kindness ensures that they will always feel indebted to him
15:13because they know he can take things away just as easily as he can give them.
15:18To further consolidate his own power,
15:20Dracula also restructures the Wallashian government,
15:23adding a new class of military enforcers above the Council of Boyers called the Armazi.
15:27It exists mainly to kneecap any decisions made by the council
15:30and make it easier for Dracula to enforce his own will over theirs.
15:34When it comes to foreign policy, Dracula proves to be volatile and capricious.
15:39After the King of Hungary dies without an heir in 1457,
15:42one of John Hunyadi's relatives is elected to the throne.
15:46Dracula immediately starts working to strengthen alliances with Hungary
15:49and cut ties with the Ottomans.
15:51He stops paying his yearly tribute,
15:53which makes him immediately popular with the Wallashian peasantry,
15:56who are tired of seeing such huge portions of their grain and livestock taken away every year.
16:01But this change also disrupts trade routes
16:03and incites the Ottomans to retaliate with military action.
16:06Dracula initially signs a mutual defense agreement with the Saxons,
16:10but very quickly changes his mind when the Saxon population of Brazov
16:13attempts to stage coups against him.
16:15The people of Brazov support Don III, brother of Vladislav II,
16:19while Brazov supports Dracula's own half-brother, Vlad the Monk.
16:23In response to this disloyalty,
16:25Dracula withdraws all protection of trade from German cities
16:28and requires them to sell at lower prices to Wallashian merchants.
16:32Any German who tries to avoid the border checkpoints or circumvent the new laws
16:35is swiftly added to the growing forest of dead bodies along the Targovista city walls.
16:40A German pamphlet from 1500 describes Dracula's brutality in great detail,
16:46saying,
16:46Ambassadors numbering 55 were sent from the Kingdom of Hungary and Saxony and Transylvania into Wallashia.
16:52Dracula kept them waiting for five weeks as he had stakes made for their impalement.
16:56Those who he didn't impale were boiled alive.
16:59Dracula may be sadistic,
17:01and his policy decisions are often short-sighted and poorly judged,
17:05but on the battlefield,
17:06he's a genius.
17:07In the spring of 1458,
17:09he takes a small cavalry force across the mountains
17:11to defend a place known locally as Red Tower from invading Ottomans.
17:15He rains hell down on any Saxon settlement he travels through,
17:19burning crops, destroying buildings,
17:20and enslaving the few residents he doesn't kill.
17:23This continues until November,
17:25when the town elders of Brazov finally agree to surrender Don III
17:29and pay 10,000 florins in war damages.
17:32But this treaty is never ratified.
17:34Brazov reneges on their promise
17:35when Matthias Korvinus Hunyadi,
17:37the King of Hungary,
17:38announces his public support for Don III's claim to the Wallashian throne.
17:42Vlad's response is swift and violent,
17:45as are most of his decisions.
17:46In the first months of 1459,
17:48he raids the river Prahova in Transylvania,
17:51wiping every neighboring village to Brazov off the map,
17:54isolating the city in a radius of burnt farmland and impaled bodies.
17:57It's during this period when rumors of Dracula's brutality spread.
18:01When he eats his breakfast among his dead and dying enemies,
18:04he's said to let the blood drip onto his plate
18:06so that he can mop it up with his bread.
18:09Dracula's attacks against Brazov are highly effective
18:11in cutting off trade into the city,
18:13and if Don III had been hiding there,
18:15it would be a brilliant strategy to smoke him out.
18:17But Don III isn't in Brazov.
18:19He never was.
18:20And Dracula's open sadism against the city and its surrounds
18:23only serve to further worsen relations between Transylvania and Wallachia.
18:27Then, in 1460, Don III finally comes out of hiding and rides for Wallachia,
18:33commanding an army of his Transylvanian Saxon supporters.
18:35They're swiftly defeated and captured by Dracula's army at Rukar.
18:39Don's supporters are impaled,
18:41while Don himself is forced to watch
18:43as Dracula and his men dig his grave and read his funeral rites.
18:47When it's done, Don is led to the fresh hole and decapitated.
18:51Now that Don III is out of the picture,
18:53Dracula can focus his attention on the other pretender to the throne,
18:57his half-brother, Vlad the Monk.
18:59Dracula plunders Brazov in his search for Vlad the Monk,
19:02and despite the Saxons' attempts to make peace with him,
19:04Dracula refuses to any agreements until Vlad the Monk is in custody.
19:08Dracula spends the better part of 1460 ransacking Transylvania,
19:12searching for the monk.
19:13He sets the town of Amlas on fire,
19:15then rounds up the village's populace and slaughters them.
19:18Some are impaled, others are forced to dig their own graves.
19:21Still more are hung from metal butcher's hooks and hacked into pieces.
19:25In his campaign of terror against the Transylvanian Saxons,
19:28it's estimated by some sources that Dracula kills 30,000 people.
19:32In desperation, the survivors go to King Matthias Corvinus
19:35and plead with him to broker a peace deal between Dracula and the Saxons.
19:39In autumn of 1460, they manage to reach an agreement.
19:42Dracula will return commercial privileges to Saxon merchants
19:45and pay compensation towards rebuilding the cities which he had destroyed.
19:48In return, all Saxon townships are to surrender any dissidents
19:52and pay Dracula an annual tribute of enough livestock
19:55to feed an army of 4,000 men.
19:57The peace agreement is fragile, but it holds.
20:00Outside of Wallachia, Dracula is seen as an unrepentant monster.
20:04Within Wallachia, he's well-liked,
20:06because at least at home he leaves the peasantry alone.
20:09He reserves his worst atrocities for those who were considered
20:12undesirables in wider society, namely vagrants and the Romani
20:16who travel through and camp in the area.
20:18One story has him inviting the city's unhoused to dine in his palace,
20:22only to lock them all in a room and set it alight afterwards.
20:26Another tells of him capturing a Romani caravan,
20:29boiling their leader alive,
20:30then forcing the rest of the clan to eat his cooked flesh.
20:33Dracula makes no effort to disguise his brutality here,
20:36justifying it thusly.
20:38These men live off the sweat of others,
20:40so they are useless to humanity.
20:42Ottoman raids into Wallachia continue
20:44as retaliation for Dracula's continued refusal
20:47to pay tribute to the sultan.
20:49Merchant caravans are attacked,
20:50resources are plundered,
20:52children are kidnapped and sold as slaves.
20:54In 1460, one of Dracula's close allies,
20:57Michael Selagyi,
20:58who previously fought with him in his campaign against the Saxons,
21:01is captured and tortured by the Ottoman army.
21:03When he refuses to give up any secrets,
21:06his captors saw him in half.
21:08Dracula doesn't take the news of Michael's death well.
21:11He refuses to attend the sultan in the new Ottoman capital of Istanbul.
21:15The next time an Ottoman envoy comes to the palace at Targovista,
21:18Dracula orders that their turbans be nailed to their skulls.
21:21The simmering hostility finally boils over in 1461,
21:25when Dracula attacks the Ottoman forces of Gergiu
21:27on the Wallachian side of the river Danube.
21:30Dracula gains entry to the fort
21:32by using his fluent Turkish to order the commander to open the gates.
21:35Once inside the fort,
21:37Dracula slaughters the rest of the guards.
21:39In the eyes of the sultan,
21:40this is as good as a declaration of war.
21:44It's winter when Dracula deploys his troops,
21:46who cross the frozen river Danube on horseback
21:49into Ottoman-controlled Serbia.
21:50Recalling the battle in a letter to the king,
21:52Dracula said,
21:53We killed 23,884 Turks and Bulgars,
21:57without counting those who we burned in homes,
21:59or whose heads were not cut by our soldiers.
22:02As proof,
22:03Dracula attaches to this letter two large bags
22:05full of the severed heads,
22:06noses,
22:07eyes,
22:07and ears of his victims.
22:09Dracula and his army
22:10continue to slaughter and capture Ottoman forces
22:13through the spring and summer of that year.
22:15Thousands are impaled at Targovista,
22:16with the tallest spike saved for the army's leaders.
22:19The sultan sends his grand vizier,
22:21Mahmud,
22:22along with 18,000 men
22:23to take the Wallachian port city of Brela.
22:25From Brela,
22:26they strike north to pillage the countryside,
22:28but are intercepted on the way back
22:30by Dracula's forces.
22:3110,000 Turks are killed in the confrontation.
22:34This defeat is what finally brings Mehmed II
22:36out into the battlefield himself.
22:38Expecting the full force of the Ottoman navy
22:40to come up the river,
22:41Dracula fortifies the Wallachian riverfront.
22:43When Mehmed II finally arrives in 1462,
22:47it's with enough men to decimate Wallachia.
22:4960,000 regular troops,
22:5130,000 auxiliaries,
22:52and 120 cannons.
22:54Dracula's army is tiny in comparison.
22:57He tries to rally his Hungarian allies
22:59to fight with him,
23:00but since Matthias Corvinus
23:01is now locked in a brutal conflict
23:03against Frederick III
23:04for the crown of Hungary,
23:05he can't spare any men to defend Wallachia.
23:08Transylvania,
23:08still recovering from Dracula's brutal attacks,
23:11refuses to come to his aid.
23:12Even Stephen of Moldavia,
23:14Dracula's close friend,
23:15chooses to side with the Ottomans,
23:17so Dracula does the only thing he can think of.
23:19He gets to work making sure
23:21that every able-bodied man in Wallachia
23:23is armed, trained, and combat ready.
23:25With his new peasant forces,
23:27the Wallachian army now numbers
23:2920,000 infantry and 10,000 cavalry.
23:31The Ottomans are spotted at Vidin.
23:33Their invasion is done in two parts.
23:35Half have marched north from Bulgaria,
23:37the other half continue up the river.
23:39When they cross the northern bank,
23:40they're ambushed by Wallachian archers
23:42shooting flaming arrows
23:43and are forced into retreat.
23:45They next attempt a landing at Turnu in June,
23:47where they deploy cannon fire
23:49to cover their advancing troops.
23:50But the Wallachian cavalry
23:51mount a counterattack
23:53that drives them back
23:54into the marshes along the river,
23:55where they're forced to hold
23:56until reinforcements arrive.
23:58Among those reinforcements
23:59is Dracula's younger brother, Radu,
24:01commanding a force of 4,000 horsemen.
24:03Despite the force of the Wallachian cavalry,
24:06the Ottomans manage to cross the river
24:07and head for Targovista.
24:09Dracula is forced to change tactics.
24:11If the Ottomans can't be beaten
24:12in a fair fight,
24:13the Wallachians will stop fighting fair.
24:15Every town between Turnu and Targovista
24:18is evacuated,
24:19and once the towns are emptied,
24:20any food and water left behind
24:22for the Ottomans to pillage
24:23are poisoned.
24:24Dracula has the river dammed and rerouted,
24:26flooding roads and turning sections
24:28of the country into an impassable swamp.
24:30Dracula himself leads a brutal nighttime raid
24:33of the Ottoman camp
24:33that becomes a three-hour skirmish.
24:36Still, the Ottomans manage
24:37to reach Targovista,
24:38and as soon as they reach the city,
24:40they start to wish they hadn't.
24:42Waiting for them at the city walls
24:43are the impaled corpses
24:44of thousands upon thousands
24:46of their fallen comrades,
24:47still in their armor
24:48and in varying stages of decomposition.
24:51This is when Mehmed truly realizes
24:53what kind of man he's up against.
24:55The Ottomans retreated from Wallachia
24:56on June 22nd.
24:58Dracula is hailed as a hero of Christendom
25:01for driving back the Ottomans,
25:02but his victory comes at the expense
25:04of the very land he protected.
25:06The population is exhausted,
25:08the lands flooded and poisoned.
25:10Dracula is eventually deposed
25:11and driven out of Wallachia,
25:13pursued by his own brother,
25:14who seeks to claim the throne
25:15with the support of the Ottomans.
25:17Radu chases his older brother to Brazov,
25:19where King Matthias Corfinus
25:20is waiting for him.
25:22Dracula is imprisoned
25:23in the city of Visegrad
25:24for 14 years.
25:25Despite no longer holding the throne,
25:27it's impossible to keep Dracula away
25:29from the battlefield for long.
25:31After being released from prison,
25:33he takes up arms against Basarab III,
25:35another brother of Don and Vladislav,
25:37who gains Ottoman support
25:38for his claim to the throne.
25:40Vlad dies in battle against him,
25:41and his head is removed
25:43to be sent back to the Sultan
25:44as proof that the son of the dragon
25:46is finally dead.
25:48Yea,
25:49and his head is complementary to consider
25:49Esse Him�us
25:49theyающую
25:49as a threat
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