It's June 1462

and we're in the Wakian capital of

Taravish as the Ottoman Sultan Memed II

advances uneasily on the stronghold. But

the Sultan's enemy is nowhere to be

seen. His soldiers move unimpeded

through abandoned streets. There's no

sound. The men themselves are exhausted,

having not eaten for days, and the humid

summer heat gives the town a heavy,

oppressive atmosphere. Memed expects a

trap, but as his army advances,

no such thing comes. Finally, up ahead,

the Sultan spots something appearing to

be a grove of trees.

But they're very neatly ordered and

pointing upwards into the blue Wakian

sky.

Only, of course, these are not trees. As

Memed gets closer, he realizes what he's

seeing. It's the forest of the impaled.

Row after row of wooden stakes, each one

bearing the rigid corpse of a human

being decomposing in the sultry late

June air. Some wear expressions of

contorted anguish, their faces frozen in

the horrific moment of their slaying.

Others look almost calm and at peace, as

if unable to fully process the terror of

their final minutes on this earth. All

are impaled vertically with a long stake

of wood entering into the groin,

traversing their torso from bottom to

top. The sultan is spellbound by such

cruelty. As he walks amid the bodies,

he's left with a strong impression of

who exactly he is dealing with. And the

sultan's soldiers are shaken, too. The

chronicler Leonukas Chalonz writes that

the Turks were dumbfounded when they saw

the multitude of men on the stakes.

There were infants too affixed to their

mothers on the stakes and birds had made

their nests in their entrails. This is

of course the work of none other than

Vlad III of Wulakia. Also known by other

names such as Vlad Dracula or Vlad

Tepesh

or perhaps more famously Vlad the

Impaler. But is this popular nickname

truly justified? Was Vlad of Wakia

really a murderous tyrant with almost

vampiric levels of blood lust? or was he

just another ruler of another small

medieval state battling for survival in

the chaos of 15th century Europe? This

is what we're going to be finding out

today as we explore the bizarre, bloody,

and often surprising story of Vlad III,

the Impaler. But first, a quick word

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video, and thank you, the viewer, for

not skipping the ad. With that, let's

get back to Vlad the Impaler.

So long before there was a unified

Romania, there were the independent

principalities of Wakia and Mavia.

Throughout the late Middle Ages, these

principalities fought an almost constant

battle for survival as the Kingdom of

Hungary to the north and the Ottoman

Empire to the south threatened to absorb

them into their territories. But in

Wakia, there was also an internal

struggle. Within a century of its

foundation, the princely house of

Basarab had divided into two rival

branches, the Danesti branch and the

Draculi branch. For decades, these two

branches fought one another for

supremacy in Wakia whilst simultaneously

trying to maintain independence for the

state. It was into this boiling cauldron

of political intrigue and bloody

conflict that Vlad the Impaler was born.

These days, we often associate Vlad with

Count Dracula, the fictional vampire

from Bram Stoker's 1897 novel. While

it's nice to think that Stoker was

inspired by a medieval Wakian prince, it

probably isn't the case. The academic

consensus now is that Stoker simply

heard the name Dracula and thought it

sounded fittingly diabolical for his

creature of the undead. However, there

are some similarities between Vlad and

the fictional count. For instance, large

parts of Vlad's life are shrouded in

mystery, too. We don't know for certain

when Vlad was born or who his mother

was. The young Vlad entered the world

sometime between 1428 and 1431. His

mother may have been Upraia of Mulavia,

although some sources dispute this. What

we do know for sure is that he was born

in Shageshva in Transylvania and that

his father was Vlad Draul or Vlad the

Dragon. In 1436, Vlad Draal became Vuod

or prince of Wakia after the death of

his half-brother, the Dynasty prince

Alexander I. With Draal's ascension to

the throne, the branch of Drasti was

founded. This put Vlad Jr. in line to be

ruler of Wakia. But as Vlad's father was

still a young man, and as Vlad had an

older brother, Mertzia, this was a faint

and distant prospect. However, Vlad's

burning personal ambition and political

brinksmanship accelerated things

somewhat. In 1438, Vlad Drakal received

an order from Albert the Magnanimus, the

Hapsburg king of Hungary. Albert

instructed Vlad Drakal to defend

Transylvania from the Muslim Ottoman

invasion. Vlad Draal refused and instead

allied with the Ottoman Sultan Murad II.

The joint invasion of Hungary by the

Ottomans and Wakians garnered plenty of

plunder and captives for both armies.

But Vlad Draal was about to switch

allegiances again. The death of Albert

in October 1439 meant a new king of

Hungary. King Vladislaus appointed John

Hunyadi as the prince of the Hungarian

Transylvania territory and John quickly

sought to gain Draal's allegiance in the

fight against the Ottomans. Draal was KG

and tried to maintain relationships with

both sides. He didn't join Hunyadi's

crusade into Ottoman territory, but he

also didn't support an Ottoman invasion

of Transylvania either. Trying to keep

everyone happy is a recipe to please

nobody. And before long, Murad of the

Ottomans accused Draal of treachery and

held both Draal and his young sons Vlad

and Radu captive in the fortress of

Orig. Draal was released before the end

of 1442, but Vlad and Radu stayed behind

as Ottoman captives. Draal now seems to

have chosen peace in his own region over

the lives of his sons. He opted to

support King Vladislaus in his crusade

against the Ottomans in 1444, saying

that his sons would be quote butchered

for the sake of Christian peace. But it

wasn't Vlad and Radu who were going to

be butchered. After Draal swore his

allegiance to the Sultan again in either

1446 or 1447, John Hunyadi decided he'd

had enough of Drakal's flipping back and

forwards. So he invaded Wakia in

November 1447. Vlad Draal and Mercia

were murdered in the chaos of the

invasion and Hunyadi put Vlad's cousin

Vladislav I on the throne in Wakia. The

Destyi branch was now back in power.

Hunyadi and Vladislav now surged

outwards into the Ottoman Empire. Young

Vlad the Impaler, who was perhaps at

this age still only 17 years old, saw

his chance. He launched a counter

invasion, leading a detachment of

Ottoman troops into Wakia. Vlad Jr. was

now Vlad III, Vivod of Wakia. The first

days of Vlad [snorts] III's reign looked

promising. Hundreds of miles to the

southwest, John Hunyadi's expeditionary

force was being battered by the much

larger Ottoman force of Murad II. At the

battle of Kosovo, around a third of

Hunyadi's army was destroyed. But this

good news quickly turned sour for Vlad,

as it meant that Vladislav was now on

his way back to Wakia. Vladislav had

betrayed Hunyadi. And after two days of

fighting, the Wakians switched sides and

joined the Ottomans. So when the

Hungarian line collapsed, Vladislav and

his army was free to march back into

Wakia and reclaim the principality. By

December 7th, 1448, Vlad III was on the

run again, back to the Ottoman Empire.

His two-month stint as leader of Wakia

was over. Over the next 8 years, Vlad

disappears and reappears multiple times

in the mists of history. He spent time

in Turkey and then in Mulavia and then

he went and met with Hunyadi in

Transylvania in 1451, but was forced to

return to Mulavia in 1452. By 1456,

records suggest that he was in Hungary,

but what he was doing there, no one

really knows. What we do know is that he

wasn't sitting idly by. He was probably

gathering Hungarian support as well as

building a fighting force of his own.

And by the summer of 1456, he was

marching back into Wakia at the head of

an army. What followed was an impressive

bit of medieval chivalry, something not

usually associated with Vlad the

Impaler. Vladislav's army rode out to

meet Vlad near Turxar. The two

claimments to the throne of Wakia

decided that mass killing was

unnecessary and so they'd settle this

like true Shivalri heroes in single

combat. As the two men squared off

against each other in the wooded hills

outside the market town, their

respective armies cheered them on. After

a savage tussle, it was the Impaler who

emerged on top. He struck a fatal blow

to his adversary and Wakia was his. As a

final insult, Vlad put the wrong

inscription on Vladislav's grave. The

date August 22nd, 1456, refers to the

date of the engraving, not the date of

the prince's death, which was a month

before. By this time, Vlad probably had

other things on his mind. He was back on

the throne, and this time he planned to

stick around. It seems that Vlad had

learned the lessons from his father's

time in power in Wakia. And so, in a

letter to the Transian Burgers of Braz,

he wrote, "When a man or a prince is

strong and powerful, he can make peace

as he wants to. But when he is weak, a

stronger one will come and do what he

wants to him. For Vlad, strength often

meant violence, and straight away he

began showing this ruthless streak.

First of all, the Boards were in the

firing line. These nobles had held power

of their own during the struggle for

Wakia, and many had been active

participants in the murder of Vlad's

father and brother. He had these boars

put to death. But he didn't stop there.

Basically any noble who might be a

threat to Vlad's power could be

executed. It was difficult to stay on

Vlad's good side. Only two members of

his princely council kept their

positions throughout Vlad's reign. The

rest were either purged, imprisoned, or

slain. But executing unruly nobles

wouldn't be enough to give Vlad his

bloodthirsty reputation. That would come

next. 1456 and 1457 were chaotic years

in the Kingdom of Hungary. First, John

Hunyardi died and his son Ladislaus

Hunyadi assumed his father's position.

Ladislaus is also called Lazlo and for

the simple reason that lots of people in

this story inconveniently share the same

name. So, we're going to use Lazlo here,

too. The younger Hunyardi, again, that's

Lazlo, was no fan of Vlad. He issued a

proclamation to the Saxonburg burgers of

Transylvania, urging them to back

Vladislav's exiled brother, Dan, over

Vlad. He might even have joined Dan in

his assault on Wakia, but he had other

business to attend to first. A feud

between Llo and his fellow Hungarian

noble Urik of Selier rapidly got out of

hand. Lazlo's men murdered Ulrich, as

was customary in the region at the time.

The 17-year-old Hungarian King Ladislaus

V was severely unnerved by Llo's

actions. He gave Lazlo the title of Lord

Treasurer and Captain General of

Hungary. But it was all arused to lure

Lazlo to Buddha. Once there, Lazlo

Hunyadi was swiftly arrested and then

beheaded in March 1457.

But the Hunyadi family weren't finished.

Lazlo's mother was Elizabeth Silagi, a

powerful Hungarian number in her own

right. And along with her brother

Michael, Elizabeth started a civil war

in Hungary as they sought to depose the

teenage king. Vlad saw this as an

opportunity. First he supported Steven

the Great in his conquest of Mulavia and

then he began raids of his own attacking

the Transian towns of Braz and Sabiel.

Enraged by their support for his rival

Dam. This was when Vlad first gained the

fearsome epithet

or Impala, the Voyes troops took

hundreds of prisoners from

Transylvania's Saxon villages and

executed many. A significant number of

these prisoners were impaled, mounted on

spikes in prominent places to deter any

future support for a rival claimant to

the Wakian throne. This impalement would

have taken place while the victim was

still alive. Many of the condemned

survived the initial act of being run

through with a stake and would remain in

squirming agony for hours or days as

birds pecked at them and insects laid

eggs in their skin. Other prisoners were

hanged or beheaded. Some were chopped up

into pieces. All were killed horribly.

According to the author and historian

Andre Poges, Vlad quote set fire to

various villages, destroyed any

opposition, and took many prisoners.

Men, women, young, and old were impaled

in Wakia.

This is the first mention of Vlad's

impalement enthusiasm and it seems to

have kickstarted a chain of copycat

impalement incidents in oneupmanship. In

1459, Cibayu and Brazov decided to stand

up for themselves. They kidnapped Wakian

merchants and confiscated their goods

and then for some good measure impaled

them as well. Vlad decided that this

simply wouldn't do. So he returned the

favor by kidnapping Transian merchants

and confiscated their goods. and yes,

you guessed it, impaled them, too. The

following year, however, he had bigger

things to deal with. Prince Dan and his

allies swept across the border into

Wakia, ready to avenge the death of his

brother and reclaim the Void ship. He

didn't get far. Long before he reached

the flat central plains of Wakia, Dan's

army was intercepted in the mountains

and almost completely destroyed. To

quote Pogash again, "The prisoners,

including women and children, were

impaled alongside the corpses of the

fallen soldiers." Prince Dan was amongst

those captured alive in the tranquil

spring forests of the southern

Carpathian Mountains. Dan was forced to

dig his own grave and listen as his own

recquum was sung. Then Vlad severed the

man's head. Though Dunn was now gone,

some of the Clement's allies remained

hiding in Transylvania, including the

Impaler's illegitimate half-brother,

Vlad the Monk. The Impaler was now in a

rage and launched a series of raids in

the neighboring Voida ship, massacring

entire villages. Though Vlad the Monk

managed to escape, contemporary sources

say the people were cut like cabbage by

the Wakian troops. Scores of people were

impaled on the outskirts of Transian

towns as punishment for supporting Dan

and his retinue. 55 emissaries sent to

Wakia from the surrounding polities were

also impaled according to some sources.

In time, peace returned to the land, but

just because there was no war did not

necessarily mean there was no impaling.

According to the legend, Vlad

particularly enjoyed the act of impaling

and was said to revel in the view of

human corpses twitching their last on

the grim forest of poles and took active

pleasure in the stench of their rotting

corpses. He was even said to take his

meals in the shadow of impaled victims.

Historioggraphy from the end of the 15th

century suggests he would ask local

nobles and foreign emissaries to join

him at his meal times and then they

would all sit together beneath the

grotesque corpse knowing that if they

refused they would be next on the spike.

Later writers said that the voider would

dip his bread into the bloody wounds of

his impaled victims and then eat it. But

this gross tale has never actually been

confirmed. Some have alleged that Vlad

used mass executions to solve the social

problems that blighted his realm. When

the noble complained about the number of

poor people in Wakia, Vlad apparently

had the underclasses rounded up and

imprisoned in a large wooden structure.

He then promptly set it a light there.

He apparently told the horrified nobles,

"No more poor people, no more problem."

But we need to take a lot of this with a

hefty pinch of salt. Most of these

stories were written by Transian Saxons

and other enemies of Vlad. They are

almost certainly exaggerated in an

attempt to make Vlad look like a raving

madman. He certainly was at least a bit

of a madman, but not to the extent that

the records suggest. Other accounts of

Vlad then come from Ottoman sources, and

these as well are definitely biased.

Vlad had a habit of demanding Ottoman

emissaries remove their turbans in his

presence and when they refused he nailed

the turbans to the tops of their heads

and sent them back to the sultan. The

Ottomans had every reason to despise

Vlad the Impaler in 1461. He then gave

them another reason. When Vlad heard of

an Ottoman plan to capture him, he

ambushed the raiding party led by Hamza

Pashia, slaughtered most of them, and

you guessed it, impaled the rest. What

followed would be the biggest campaign

of Vlad's bloody military career, but it

would not end well. It did, however,

start very well. While Vlad was at best

a ruthless leader and at worst an

absolute maniac, he was also an

intelligent and worldly individual. He'd

spent years living in the Ottoman lands

and could speak their language well. At

Jeruju, he ordered the Ottoman commander

to open his gates. As the commander

received his orders in flawless Turkish,

he mistook Vlad for one of his own. The

gates were opened and the Wakians swept

inside and the fortress fell in the

ensuing massacre. The massacres

continued as Vlads swept along the

Danube. In his own words, I have killed

peasants, men and women, old and young,

who lived where the Danube flows into

the sea. We killed 23,884

Turks without counting those whom we

burned in their homes or the Turks whose

heads were cut by our soldiers.

Vlad's army was annihilating all in its

path. The Ottoman Sultan Memed II could

not stand for this and so with 150,000

men, he sailed up the Danube and landed

at the Wakian port of Brila. Vlad might

have been deranged, but he knew when he

was beaten. And so he marched his

soldiers back towards Tagvishe, burning

and destroying the land as he went. If

the Ottoman forces were going to march

into Wakian land at the height of

summer, then they'd have no Wakian food

or water to sustain them. It was

scorched earth tactics. Vlad reportedly

poisoned the waterways and dug pit traps

that he covered with leaves and

branches. In the words of the chronicler

Kalcoond, Memed's army found no man nor

any significant animal and nothing to

eat or drink. But Vlad wasn't just out

to starve and dehydrate his enemy. He

operated a fighting retreat, harrying

the Ottomans with guerilla raids that

chipped away at their forces. Finally,

on June 17th, 1462, Vlad unveiled his

master stroke, a daring night attack

that would shatter the Ottoman force

once and for all. According to KCO, the

attack was preceded by another piece of

daring cunning from the prince.

Confident in his natural command of the

Turkish language, a disguised Vlad

wandered freely into the Ottoman camp.

He roded around with apparent ease,

chatting to the people he met and making

a mental note of the camp sleel. Once he

was certain of the location of Memed's

tent, he disappeared into the night.

When the Wakians attacked in force, it

was chaos. The sound of bugles filled

the air. The Wakian torches lit up the

camp like a Christmas tree. And in the

chaos, it's not quite clear how many

people died or who exactly had the upper

hand. were lacking casualties were

believed to be about 5,000 of their

30,000 men. Losses they couldn't really

afford. Memed's casualties may have been

10% of his entire force, but not enough

to knock the Ottomans out of the

campaign, but an assassination of Memed

certainly would knock them out. In the

melee, Vlad retraced the mental map in

his mind, surging down the avenues

between tents where he found the

sultan's quarters and launched a

targeted assault. But for all his

cunning, he'd made a mistake. He

assaulted the tent of Ottoman Grand

Vizier's Ishach Pashia and Mahmud

Pashia. Memed's tent was not where he'd

expected it to be. The daring night

attack had almost succeeded, but now the

Wakians were falling back with the

Ottomans in pursuit. When the exhausted

Ottomans arrived at the capital of

Taravish, they found the city's gates

open, where inside a surprise awaited

them. 20,000 men, women, and children

impaled on a forest of spikes. Among

them was the decomposing body of Hamza

Pashia, the man who had set out to

capture Vlad earlier that year. His

attempt to ensnare the Impaler had ended

with him skewered. To quote Koko Condonz

again, the Sultan was seized with

amazement and said that it was not

possible to deprive of his country a man

who had done such great deeds, who had

such a diabolical understanding of how

to govern his realm and its people. And

he said that a man who had done such

things was worth much. Again, we do need

to be careful with the sources here, as

reports of Vlad's impalement enthusiasm

do tend to be exaggerated. Chronicers

state that the forest of the impaled

contained 20,000 corpses, but historian

Den Haray refutes this. Harai's research

suggests that only about 1,600 were

actually impaled at Tokaviche in the

summer of 1462. This makes much more

sense. Vlad had neither the resources

nor the time to impale that many people

before the arrival of the Sultan. Hadi's

research also scaled down the figures

attached to other mass impalings. In

1459, sources say that 600 Transian

Saxons were impaled, but Harai believes

the number was only 41. The impaling of

500 boy at an Easter feast was question

too, but Harai found that the number was

probably more like 40. All in all, had I

believed that Vlad probably only impaled

about 10% of the people that he was

supposed to have done. And also, it's

important to remember that impalement

itself wasn't all that unusual in

southeastern Europe during the period.

Historian Constantine Resviche argues

that Vlad specifically subjected foreign

enemies to foreign punishments. For

example, his massacre of the Transian

Saxons was quote done according to

various German laws mentioned in the

Altonberg CEX for killing of babies,

killing of relatives and adultery when

both partners shared one stake. Also, we

should mention that both the Hungarians

and the Ottomans used impalement

themselves. So, the Wakian prince was

not unique in his actions. Haraya

concludes that while Vlad ordered

collective impalements more frequently,

the average number of victims per

impalement was similar to that elsewhere

in southeastern Europe. But this still

leaves us with thousands of people

impaled on spikes across the towns and

cities of modernday Romania. So, was

Vlad's ponchant for impalement

exaggerated? Yeah, almost certainly.

Were other leaders also impaling their

victims around the same time? Yes, they

were. But does Vlad still deserve the

name the Impaler?

Yes, 100%. History is filled with

complex characters. These are figures

who were capable of astonishing

brutality, but who also had other

aspects to their personality, like acts

of warmth and kindness. Vlad the Impaler

doesn't really fit into this mold. There

are no records of anything approaching

warmth and kindness in his story, but

there are aspects of Vlad's past other

than out-and-out mass murder. Vlad was

also undoubtedly courageous, ferociously

intelligent, and had a strong sense of

honor. His sour into the Ottoman camp is

an example of this, as is his man-on-man

battle with Vladislav in 1456.

In Romania, Vlad III is often viewed as

a sort of national hero. Fair enough. He

helped keep Wakia and Mulavia

independent, even under constant threat

from both Hungarian and Ottoman

invasion. Yes, he was bloodthirsty and

borderline psychotic, but so were most

other rulers from the period. So, what

ultimately became of Vlad, the smart,

honorable strategist with the murderous

streak? Well, when we left him, he was

preparing an unpleasant surprise for the

invading Ottomans at the city of

Tagishe. But the story certainly does

not end there. In the following months,

the exhausted and depleted main Ottoman

forces would retreat, dragging

themselves back to their lands to the

south, but some Ottomans remained in

command of Vlad's younger brother, Radu.

The two remaining sons of Drakal did

battle several times on the banks of the

Danube. While Vlad the Impaler came out

on top, increasing numbers of Wakians

grew tired of the Impaler's erratic

ways, ponchant for warfare and well, his

incessant impaling. Many defected to

Radu and Vlad was forced to flee into

the Carpathian Mountains. Vlad was still

only in his early 30s at this point, so

there was plenty of fight left in him,

but the next 14 years of his life are

somewhat obscure. What is certain is

that Radu took the Wleian throne and

that Vlad was imprisoned by the great

Hungarian king Matus Corvinus, brother

of Llo Hunyadi. During his time in

prison, Vlad apparently retained his

love of impaling. The record of

Gabrielle Langon, Bishop of Ager, said

that the incarcerated prince, quote,

would trap mice, cut them into pieces,

and stick them on bits of wood, as he

had done with the men he'd once impaled.

Again, this might be made up, but it is

quite on brand. Meanwhile, back in

Wakia, Radu Dracula was not having an

easy reign. He was locked in a constant

struggle with Basarab, son of the

executed Dan II. By 1475, Radu was dead,

and Basarab III was now in charge of

Wakia. But now, Vlad the Impaler was

free, and he had the king of Hungary's

backing. Over the next year, Vlad led an

army against the Ottomans in the

Balkans. And here, he was back to his

old tricks. He rampaged across Bosnia,

massacring soldiers and civilians alike.

Hundreds of Turkish troops were captured

and impaled. By now, the already chaotic

situation of Wakia had descended

further. Hungarian forces took Tagishi

on November the 8th, while an alliance

with Mulavia helped Vlad occupy

Bucharest. Basarab fled to the Ottoman

Empire and by the end of the month, Vlad

the Impaler was crowned Vuv of Wakia

once again. He would not have long to

enjoy his reign though because his third

stint in the hot sea ended bloody. In

December, Basarab was back, this time

with an Ottoman army in support. Either

in late December 1476 or in early

January 1477, Vlad's forces met Basarabs

somewhere near Snaggov. Some accounts

describe a massacre as the Wakians were

cut down in their hundreds by the

advancing Ottomans. Others describe a

Wakian victory undone only when Vlad

went to inspect his glorious troops and

was killed by a nervous detachment of

his own men. A true warrior to the last,

Vlad apparently managed to kill five of

these asalants, but was in the end

pierced through by many lances and thus

he was killed. So, we don't know exactly

when Vlad the Impaler died. We don't

know how he died and we don't know who

killed him. It's a fitting end for a man

who drifted out of history sometime

between 1428 and 1431, impaled literally

thousands of people, and then drifted

away again some 4 and a half decades

later, becoming both a by word for

bloody savagery and a national hero in

the process.

Hey,

hey,