The Life and Times of Vlad Dracula III

All images public domain except where noted otherwise**

"Dracula" Episode EXTRA 06 Part 2 will be released later this week. 

The EXTRA Episode detailing the life and times of Vlad Dracula III, I focus  on some the main points of Balkan military history. Sultan Murad II, his son “Fatih The Conquer” Mehmed II, John Hunyadi, and King Sigismund of Hungary.

The geographic makeup, castles, fortifications, and famed “battle wagons” were covered extensively in the “Dracula” episodes (In fact we haven’t even touched on the main part of Dracula’s life… so it will be a series of episodes).

This Blogpost is meant to expand on the ideas and places I briefly spoke about in EXTRA Episode 6 of the podcast.

First, a little background. 

The Ottoman conquest of the Balkans, from the 14th through the 16th centuries, is some of the most interesting history out there in my opinion. You get Knights with guns, cannons blasting old castles, misty mountains hiding thieves and Princes. The very terrain of the area forced men to employ impressive strategies for survival.

Map of geographic makeup of Wallachia. Note the mountains and Danube River basin.

From this period arose great men such s King Sigismund of Hungary, John Hunyadi, the “Stefan” dynasty in Serbia. The 14th century through the 16th, is considered the “classical” period in Ottoman history. It is during this time that I became obsessed with Turkish history when I was younger.

This period is fascinating on so many levels, on a personal note, researching this time period leaves me so thankful I wasn’t born in those conditions. The Balkans, especially in the 15th century, were an unforgiving and dangerous place to be. Not till the Second World War would the Balkans again experience the suffering, horror, and hell filled landscape like this region did during the Ottoman invasions. 

Life was a never ending cycle of suffering. Famine, disease, war and all manners of instability plagued the region. The conditions in which men, women and children faced were rot with death and misery. These circumstances made, then Wallachia, in the southern region of modern-day Romania, a difficult area to rule and conquering it, an even more challenging task.

Walachia itself was a relative new, having existed a mere hundred years give or take. It was the result of Hunic, and other Steppe raiders mixing with the local Greek and Latin populations. For the hundred years of Wallachia’s existence, up till the time of the historic “Dracula,” many great regional powers attempted to exert control over the country.

Of these powers was a remnant of the Great Mongol Empire, called the Golden Horde; riders on horseback firing arrows, left their mark on Wallachia. The Steppe warriors interbred with the locals and soon Wallachian horsemen became some the very best light horse cavalry Europe had seen to date. Not till the arrival of the Ottoman Akinji and cavalry would the Wallachians meet their contenders.

Modern day Romania is the result of a merger between the four countries of Transylvania, Moldavia, Gothinia, and Wallachia: Source Reddit Map of Balkan Regions

Next came the Hungarians, then the “Empire” of Bulgaria, before it was crushed by the Ottomans in the early 14th century. Serbia even made a few attempts into the land of Wallachia before it’s armies were ambushed and turned back by the thick forests and equally mysterious inhabitants.

I go into detail in EXTRA Episode Part 2 and cover the strategic significance of Wallachia so I’m not going to go to much into that here. But, in the episode I talk about the Danube River to the south, the Carpathian mountain range to the north, and the choke points which favor a defender. Add a few forts here and there, connect them by a few OK roads, and you get a sense of how both isolated Wallachia is (to this day in Romania, the region has areas that are all but impossible to access except on foot) and what a challenge it would be for any would-be conquerer.

Dracula’s father born we think before 1395 and ruled as Voivode of Wallachia from 1436 till 1442, died aged 51 or 52.

Walachia in 1442 (Map) City of Targoviste, the capital of Wallachia.

Picture (below) of the remains of the old Egrigoz fortress, where Dracula and his brother Radu were held as hostages of the Ottoman Empire. Located deep in modern day Turkey, the location was remote, the Janissary guards harsh, and boys were raised.

Source: https://voivodeofwallachia.wordpress.com/son-of-the-dragon-vlad-iii/

“For the next six years Vlad Dracula, an adolescent, lived among the the Turks without father or mother. He did not speak the language of his jailers. Their religion was strange to him. He must have felt abandoned by his father and other kin. (Florescu, “In Search of Dracula”)

John Hunyadi born 1406 died 1456 aged 49 (or 50 nobody really knows), was an intractable enemy of the Ottomans which you can hear about in the special EXTRA Episode 5 : EXTRA 05 John Hunyadi (Listen here)

Hunyadi dealt the Ottomans a series of battlefield defeats in Transylvania. However, his luck would run out at the Battle of Varna and Second Battle of Kosovo. He was also constantly invading and meddling in the internal affairs of Wallachia. It was Hunyadi’s goal to overthrow the Dracula family, and install his family members as the loyal vassals of Wallachia.

Emblem of the “Order of the Dragon” from which Vlad II, a member of the noble House of Basarab, would take on the namesake of the Catholic Military Order hence his last name (and that of his sons) became Drăculești (Dracula).

Picture of Ottoman Sultan Murad II (below).

Born 1404, his father was Sultan Mehmed I. Died in 1451 aged 46. It was he who imprisoned Dracula and his brother and held them for the next 6 years. The practice of taking hostages from leading families and held in an ally, ostensibly, court was common in Medieval Europe and the wider Middle East at the time. However, the Ottomans took a unique approach, and educated their hostages in the ways of Ottoman culture, religions, and military tactics.

Vlad Dracula III 

The boys Dracula and Radu would have been given a first rate education in logic, philosophy, history, mathematics, and been taught to be fluent in Turkish, Greek, Latin, and probably the merchant trading languages of the day (or at least been able to read in them) of Persian, Arabic and High Parisian.

Dracula's younger brother, Radu "The Handsome," sources claim he entered into an intimate relationship with Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II

But the boys time in captivity saw them also subjected to cruel punishments, starvations, harsh discipline, and uncaring and unloving jail keepers. Dracula’s time in Turkish captivity motivated him to nurse a never-ending hatred of the Ottoman Empire for the rest of his life.

"We are all God's madmen." Dracula, Bram Stoker.