Vlad The Impaler and The Ottoman Invasion 1462.

Voivode Vlad III Dracula

Introduction.

Following Dracula's audacious and vicious attack south of the Danube in the winter of 1461 to 1462 a swift and deadly response form the Ottoman empire was inevitable.

According to the Byzantine Greek historian Laonikos Chalkokondyles, who wrote an eyewitness account,  Sultan Mehmed II had assembled a force of approximately 150,000 (although more likely to be approximately 80,000 to 100,000) men to march north on Wallachia. The only Ottoman army of this size in recent memory had been the one assembled to lay siege to Constantinople in 1453. The size of this army suggests that Mehmed was not taking any chances, regime change was coming and the Sultan's favourite, Vlad's brother, Radu the Handsome would be Voivode at Targoviste.

Sultan Mehmed II

The plan was to land a force at Braila, situated on the Danube, this was the principal port of Wallachia. The main army would cross the Danube near Giurgiu and press home the attack on Targoviste, skirting the Transylvanian border the army would head east to Braila. Terminating Vlad Dracula as quickly as possible and securing Radu as Voivode. Hopefully not entering Transylvania would stop any Hungarian aggression and a huge Ottoman army moving east would negate any Moldavian interference.

On the Wallachian side Dracula's army numbered between 20,000 and 30,000, a mixture of peasant levies, conscripts, mercenaries, the retinues of loyal Boyars and a small standing army of professional soldiers. They did possess a small amount of firepower, handguns and small culverins, nothing like the bombards and siege guns the Ottomans were dragging north.

A chronicler serving under Vlad II Dracul (Dracula's father) stated that Sultan Murad II (Mehmed II father) went hunting with more retainers than Vlad had in his army, this could easily be said of the 1462 invasion. To oppose the Ottomans in a set piece battle would be suicide, Dracula had to plan a different campaign and hope for Hungarian intervention, the pressure was not only on Vlad, it was also weighing on King Matthias Corvinus.

Reaping The Whirlwind.

The war began late in May, an Ottoman fleet sailed up the Danube and successfully attacked Braila, holding that town for future needs.

Meanwhile to the south west the Ottoman army was nearing the Danube, Dracula's men had destroyed many of the crossing places and Giurgiu was in Wallachian hands. 

The crossing was made at Nikopol on the 4th June, local boatmen who were no friends of Dracula attempted to ferry Ottoman troops to the far bank, the Wallachians fired into the oncoming host repulsing them with heavy casualties. The second attempt was done at night and a landing was forced, the fighting was brutal, the Ottomans even dug trenches to counter the Wallachian cavalry, but eventually Ottoman fire support came into play and the Wallachians were soon forced to withdraw under a barrage of arrows and cannon shot.

The Ruins of Turnu Fortress

A bridgehead was soon established and Turnu castle taken, the castle had been built in 1417 by Mircea The Old (Dracula's grandfather) but had soon fallen into Turkish hands, they in turn had lost it during the battle of Nikopol in the winter campaign of 1461 to 1462.

With the Ottomans on Wallachian soil the tactics had to change, Sultan Mehmed wanted to drive straight for the capital Targoviste, a journey of 173km (approx 107.5 miles) across bad roads and forest, although remarkably flat terrain it would still be a trial of stamina to get a huge amount of armoured men and the artillery train through. Also it was June and the temperature was rising.

The citadel of Bucharest came under attack as the invaders drove north, quite a new fortification, it is first mentioned in documents from 1459 and it was mentioned to be a residence of Vlad Dracula. The Ottomans failed to take Bucharest, they also failed in their attempt to take the island fortress at Snagov, the main prize was always Targoviste, nothing else really mattered. 

For Mehmed and his men this was turning into a living nightmare, the guerrilla tactics of Dracula were terrifying. Hit and run skirmishes were becoming more brazen, the Ottomans did not know from where the next attack would come.

Every village and hamlet was deserted, the wells poisoned with animal carcasses, crops were burned and livestock driven off, nothing was left for the invaders. 

People suffering with tuberculosis, leprosy and bubonic plague were inserted into the Ottoman camps, an early version of germ warfare that was partially successful as bubonic plague did spread within their ranks.

Water became a premium in the scorching heat, and at night the inhospitable landscape belonged to Dracula.

On the road to Targoviste evidence of Dracula's favourite pastime dotted the landscape, impaled Turkish captives or their sympathisers reminded the Ottomans of the awful fate of failure in this campaign, could it possibly get any worse. A Wallachian soldier captured by the Turks was at first bribed to give information, then tortured, he gave nothing away, Sultan Mehmed then said to the soldier "If your master had many soldiers like yourself, in a short time he could conquer the world."

For Dracula the campaign wasn't going very well, desertions were commonplace and he was losing ground fast. Even though he was picking them off there was just too many, he needed to think of something spectacular, something to shake the Ottoman morale and have them scurrying back over the Danube. Word had it that the Hungarians were finally on the move after pleadings from the Venetian ambassador, the Black Army was coming, but would they be in time.

Night Attack.

The battle with torches by Theodor Aman (1891)

On the night of the 17th June Dracula executed one of the most incredible attacks of his reign, an assault on the Ottoman camp with the intention of killing Sultan Mehmed II.

Vlad did his own reconnoiter within the camp, dressed as an Ottoman he walked around observing where the different parts of the army were, and also where the tent of the Sultan was.

That night "three hours after sunset" torches were lit and bugles sounded as 7,000 to 10,000 horsemen thundered towards the camp. 

There were several attacks from various directions, however, a second wave failed to materialise, a Boyar called Gales fled into the night taking with him all hope of an Ottoman rout.

The Sultan was not killed, the Ottomans did not run, but they were shaken to the core.

According to an Ottoman Janissary called Konstantin Mihailovic, a veteran of the battle who wrote of his experience that night;

"Although the Romanian Prince had a small army, we always advanced with great caution and fear and spent nights sleeping in ditches. But even in this manner we were not safe; for during one night the Romanians struck at us. They massacred horses, camels, and several thousand Turks. When the Turks had retreated in the face of the enemy, we (the Janissaries) repelled the enemy and killed them. But the Sultan had incurred great losses."

Sultan Mehmed II

The Janissaries pursued the Wallachians and killed many, the attack was over by four the next morning. That day the Ottomans broke camp gathered their shattered nerves and marched on to Targoviste.

The Forest of the Impaled.

When the Ottomans finally reached the city of Targoviste on the 21st June they found it deserted with the gates wide open. But, Dracula had left them a little surprise, there were the rotting cadavers of 20,000 impaled people. 

On the highest stake, still in his now tattered fine clothing was Hamza Bey, Mehmed's friend and chief envoy who had been captured by Dracula just before his Bulgarian invasion. 

Such a high ranking execution may have been in revenge for the execution by the Ottomans of Michael Szilagyi, Vlad's friend and ally in the wars with the German Transylvanians. Szilagyi had been captured in Serbia in 1460, his men slaughtered and Szilagyi taken to Constantinople and sawn in half.

So large was this execution site that the Ottoman army marched for half an hour through rows and rows of stinking corpses.

Chalkokondyles mentions the Sultans response to this horror;

"The Sultan's army entered into the area of the impalements.....There were large stakes there on which, as it was said, about twenty thousand men, women, and children had been spitted, quite a sight for the Turks and the Sultan himself.

The Sultan was seized with amazement and said that it was not possible to deprive of his country a man who has done such great deeds, who had such a diabolical understanding of how to govern his realm and it's people. And he said that a man who has done such things was worth much.

The rest of the Turks were dumbfounded when they saw the multitude of men on the stakes. There were infants too afixed to their mothers on the stakes, and birds had made nests in their entrails."

That night, his nerves at breaking point, the Sultan ordered a camp made, with a very deep trench dug around it. The next day the Turks broke camp and began the long march to Braila, but Vlad had already moved to the east as any hopes that Stephen the Great of Moldavia would be coming to Dracula's aid were dashed, he had laid siege to the Wallachian fortress of Chilia, a fortress on the Danube east of Braila.

Chilia Fortress

Stephen the Great was acting in his own interests, had Chilia fallen to the Ottomans it would have been disastrous for Moldavia, as it happened the Wallachians defeated the Moldavians, Stephen the Great was even wounded in the foot by a piece of shrapnel, he left before Vlad arrived.

Vlad had left 6,000 men hidden in the forests to harass any unwary Ottoman forces, as the army moved out from Targoviste the rearguard was attacked and severely beaten but reinforcements arrived and drove off the Wallachians who lost approximately 2,000 men.

After his victory over the Moldavians Vlad turned his army of 7,000 around and marched west back towards Targoviste. It was on this march that the two armies met at Buzau, the Wallachians attacked the worn out Ottomans but were repulsed with heavy casualties. 

The Ottomans carried on as planned and reached Braila on the 29th June, the town was torched, locals were rounded up as slaves, livestock was taken and the Ottomans left Wallachia. They reached Adrianople on the 11th July and had a great victory celebration on the 12th.

Aftermath.

Radu the Handsome

Mehmed II had left a sizeable Ottoman force with Radu The Handsome at Buzau, many boyars were now flocking to his standard as the prospect of another Ottoman invasion was unthinkable.

Even though Vlad had given the Ottomans a bloody nose he was losing control of what was left of his army.

So much for the Papal crusade, all that money poured into the Hungarian coffers was for nothing, after the slowest march in military history the Hungarians had barely moved through Transylvania.

As the new Viovode Radu now took up the anti Vlad banner and began to route out his supporters, Vlad's megre forces managed to defeat Radu twice at this time but the game was up.

View of Arges River From Poenari

Dracula, on the run in the Carpathian mountains is the stuff of legend, in one story it is said that his men tricked the Ottomans by shoeing their horses backwards, making them look in the wrong direction.

The fortress of Poenari is also mentioned during the search for Dracula, Radu's men laid siege to the castle and spread the rumour of Vlad's death, some say an arrow was shot through the window with a message tied to it, but that really is quite far fetched! Vlad's wife in a fit of grief threw herself off the battlements into the river Arges below.

In another legend Poenari is besieged and Vlad uses a secret route through the mountains to escape to the town of Arefu, where he is assisted to safety by the locals.

Poenari Castle

Colourful as these stories are the truth of the matter is that Radu was on the throne and Vlad was a fugitive.

Vlad entered Transylvania in the hope of joining forces with the Hungarians, unfortunately for him the Burghers of Brasov had recognised Radu as Viovode, in return Radu had payed 15,000 ducats in compensation for his brothers war. Vlad was arrested by King Matthias's men near Rucar, where he had executed Dan III two years before.

Matthias Corvinus with his Black Army

His arrest caused outrage in the Papal States, Matthias Corvinus needed a watertight excuse for locking up such a crusader, so three letters were forged. The letters were allegedly written by Vlad to Sultan Mehmed II, Mahmud Pasha, and Stephen The Great stating that he would join forces with the Ottomans and give them Transylvania if they put him back on the throne.

This was obviously nonsense, but it did the trick, Vlad Dracula was about to enter a confinement at the Hungarian court that would last for thirteen years.