Known as Vlad the Impaler, III. Vlad is one of the scariest people of all time. He was brought up in the Ottoman Palace but turned into a Dracula. The world knows him as the “Vampire Prince”. In fact, the legend of Dracula was inspired by the Vlad the Impaler. He is the representative of the savagery that earned the title of “the impaler” by impaling tens of thousands of Turks. His cruelty continued until he was beheaded by the Turks.
Arrival of Vlad the Impaler to the Ottoman Palace
In the 1400s, the Ottoman Empire organized uninterrupted raids on the Balkan lands. A secret sect called “dragon brotherhood” was established to fight against Turkish raids. III. Vlad’s father is a member of this sect and was defeated by the Ottomans in the war. He gave his children to the Ottoman state as a sign of both their upbringing and the non-aggression agreement.
At this time, little Vlad, who was about 10 years old, spent a long time Tokat CastleHe was imprisoned in. Later, he was brought to Edirne Palace and started to receive education there. He adapted to the Ottoman Palace in a short time and received a perfect education in Enderun. Sultan II. Murat gave great importance to Vlad’s education so that he could manage the Balkan lands faithfully in his own name. In order for young Vlad to love and embrace the Turks, he put him in the same education group as his son, Fatih Sultan Mehmet.
Vlad had the best management training, but because of his rebellious and hot-tempered personality, he was often whipped for getting back on track. During his education in Enderun, Vlad also learned about Ottoman torture. One of the punishments for various crimes in the Ottoman state is impalement. Arsonists or captured foreign pirates were impaled. Vlad III was very impressed by this torture method. In the future, he developed the tortures he learned and used them against the Turks.
By 1456, the young Vlad became the Wallachian Voivode in his homeland with the support of the Ottomans. Voyvoda is the name given to the Ottoman rulers of Wallachia and Moldavia. He pays the tax that his country paid to the Ottoman Empire by coming to Istanbul every year. Each time, he expresses his admiration for Fatih Sultan Mehmet and the Ottoman Empire. But over time, he started to cut the taxes paid and rebelled against the Ottomans. Fatih Sultan Mehmet, first of all, III. He sent envoys to Vlad. Vlad went down in history with his answer. He skinned the feet of the Ottoman ambassadors, pressed them with salt, and then made the goats lick them. Not only that, he had the envoys’ turbans nailed on their heads with nails and sent them to Istanbul in this way.
The Incredible Torture Methods Used by the Voivoda
III. Vlad is a tough ruler who inflicts incredible tortures on his own people. For example, she had women’s nipples cut off, which did not please her husband. In fact, according to historical sources, he once had a child’s head sewn onto his mother’s breasts. In short, Vlad has turned into an incredible psychopath.
Vlad is a person who cannot tolerate even the slightest crime. Even beggars are traitors to him who live off the people’s back. One day, he called all the beggars in the city and gave a big feast. After feeding them well, he burned them alive. He throws the women who do not pay attention to their family life or who fight with their spouses to the cauldrons and boils them, and feeds their meat to their children. He applied special methods to chop people and boil them in cauldrons.
Ottoman historian Tursun Bey described what he saw as follows; He had 2 rows of stakes erected across 6 leagues across the wooden castle he was sitting on. He passed Hungarians, Wallachia and Moldavia to them. Since the surrounding land is covered with forests, countless people hang from the branches of each tree. He announced that anyone who tried to pull any of the victims from the tree would be hanged instead.
400 Hungarian and Erdel youth, who came to Wallachia to learn a language and receive education, were burned alive on the grounds that they were spies. He impaled about 600 merchants while they were shopping in the market place. Sometimes he had people tied up and had their knee and leg bones broken with sledgehammers or had their limbs amputated. For them, death was the easiest way to get rid of Vlad.
Impalement is one of the worst of medieval tortures. The prisoner was first laid down and the stake inserted through his anus was skillfully removed from the back or mouth without damaging vital organs. It could sometimes take days to die this way. They usually did this method in a festive mood. The voivode took great pleasure in eating by watching the people impaled. People of all languages, religions and races have suffered his wrath. However, these punishments were mostly applied to the Ottoman soldiers who were taken prisoner and to the Turks living in the Balkans.
Death of Vlad the Impaler
Vlad the Impaler organized a few small expeditions against the Ottoman Empire, and even reached the Black Sea coast via Serbia. Knowing that he could not win against the Ottomans in an open battle, he usually hid in the forests and hit-and-run. In Vlad’s own words, he killed 23884 Turks and Bulgarians. He impaled 20 thousand Ottoman prisoners of war.
In the face of these developments, the Ottoman army went on an expedition in 1462 under the command of Fatih Sultan Mehmet, against Voyvoda from Kazık. Vlad burned every place where the Army would pass, poisoning the waters. For very long distances, Ottoman soldiers could not find even a drop of water to drink. When the Turkish soldier reaches Wallachia, the scene he sees is terrible. About 20,000 people, men, women and children are impaled. The morale of the Ottoman soldiers, who saw so many people at the stake, deteriorated, and some of them were in a state to lose their minds.
For the assassination attempt on Fatih Sultan Mehmet; Disguised as an Ottoman soldier, Vlad infiltrated the army. But things did not go as planned, he entered another tent instead of the Sultan’s tent. At this time, he was noticed and pursued by the raiders. During this pursuit, Vlad left the capital and retreated to the forest zone. Instead of surrendering to the Turks, his wife committed suicide by leaving herself under the walls of the castle. Vlad encouraged the prisoners, lepers, and plagues to mingle with the Turks by releasing them wherever he went.
When Wallachia came under Turkish rule again, Vlad III fled to Hungary. However, the Hungarian king had him arrested and imprisoned in order not to spoil his relations with the Ottoman Empire. After 12 years of imprisonment and exile, he regained his freedom. He started to regain the support of the soldiers who were loyal to him and his own people, the Romanian people. He declared himself prince of Wallachia again, but was killed by Turkish raiders in 1476, at the age of 45, along with 300 of his soldiers. According to some sources, he was killed by his own men, and his head was put in a box full of honey and sent to Mehmet the Conqueror. His body was thrown into a swamp.
The castles where he lived host 100 thousands of tourists every year. There are even horror museums with instruments of torture. However cruel he may be, the people of Romania today see him as a national hero.
