The night is dark and full of terrors at Târgoviște

Hi, this is Our Bloody History, where we diligently sift through myth and legend to tell you what really went down.

Here’s the drop today:

Vlad the Impaler's famous night attack against the Ottoman Empire, which took place this week, 560 years ago, on 17 June 1462.

Trigger Warning: this post includes graphic descriptions of impalement. 

Alrighty then. Shall we?

This caterpillar-sporting chap is Vlad Țepeș, one of the mosts controversial figures in world history. He's also known as Vlad III, Vlad Dracula, or Vlad the Impaler. We'll just call him Vlad.

Vlad is currently the Voivode (governor / ruler) of Wallachia, a historical and geographical region of modern-day Romania. It's a tricky job in an even more tricky location. Wallachia is smack bang in the middle of two opposing worlds, a buffer between East and West, the expanding Ottoman Empire on one side, the ambitious European kingdoms on the other. Maintaining sovereign independence at the crossroads is a sophisticated juggling act requiring constant concessions and tradeoffs. 

It's been less than ten years since the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 and the Islamic Caliphate continues to grow. Naturally, the Holy Roman Empire doesn't like this. In 1460, Pope Pius II tries to stop the expansion by proclaiming a new crusade, but he's left hanging. No one responds to the Pope's call...

Except Vlad.

Mehmed II, the Ottoman Sultan, sees this lack of enthusiasm from European leaders as an opportunity to launch a new offensive. In particular, he wants Wallachia because it controls the left bank of the Danube, a naval gateway that cuts across the Balkan Peninsula to the Black Sea. In 1460, the Sultan sends envoys to Wallachia, demanding payment of the jizya (yearly tax paid by non-muslim vassals) and 1,000 boys to be trained as janissaries. Vlad is like yeah nah and kills the messengers. The Turks then cross the Danube and begin recruiting anyway. Vlad captures the cheeky trespassers and impales them. Ouch.

Side note: as a wee lad, Vlad and his younger brother Radu were held as hostages in the eastern empire to secure their father's loyalty. Whilst Radu embraced their captors' culture and religion, Vlad fervently rejected it and was often tortured and humiliated. Many historians view Vlad's captive upbringing as the root of his deep hatred towards the Ottomans. 

Back to the story: Mehmed invites Vlad to Constantinople to negotiate, but the Wallachian declines. So the Sultan tries to ambush him at a diplomatic meeting in another location, but Vlad ambushes the ambush. It's all on now. Vlad then crosses the frozen Danube into Bulgaria and embarks on a vengeful rampage, covering some 800km in two weeks and killing more than 23,000 Ottomans and anyone sympathetic to their cause.

The Sultan immediately musters a huge army "second in size only to the one that [he] had led against Constantinople." Some sources estimate the army to be in the hundreds of thousands, but modern researchers say something between 35,000 - 45,000 is more likely. But Mehmed's stick is still easily 3-5 times bigger than Vlad's. 

The Ottomans reach the Danube in early June 1462. Vlad can't stop them crossing and resorts to the classic scorched earth tactic – destroying food sources, poisoning the water, diverting small rivers to create marshes and evacuating animals northwards. What's left is a hostile wasteland and the hungry Turks suffer greatly.

Vlad tries to slow the Turks through some pretty crazy guerrilla manoeuvres: Hit-and-runs, digging pits with spikes, night-time forest strikes, and even epidemic warfare. Say what? Yep, apparently he sends people suffering from lethal diseases, such as leprosy, tuberculosis and the bubonic plague, to mix with the Ottomans. But none of this stops the advance. With few options left, Vlad gets creative.

On 17 June 1462, our day in history this week, Vlad strolls into the Ottoman camp just south of the Wallachian capital Târgoviște. He has a little walk around, checks out the formations, locates the Sultan's tent, maybe has a little chit chat. Remember, Vlad grew up among the Turks, so naturally he walks the walk and talks the talk.

Then, a few hours after sunset, Vlad divides his horsemen into two groups and silently flanks the enemy camp on both sides. The first group, led by Vlad, penetrates the centre reinforcements and "speeds like lightning in every direction." It's total chaos and confusion. The baffled Turks try to respond, tripping over each other in the darkness, some killing their own comrades, while others are trapped under the heavy canvas of their tents as the lines are cut. It's a hell of a way to wake up.

The Wallachian wedge hacks it way towards the Sultan's tent, leaving a trail of death in the glow of their torches. Closer and closer they get...

...until they hit the Sultan's guard, the expertly-trained janissaries, an unforgiving wall of professional soldiery.

Remember how there was another group of Wallachians that supposedly took the other flank?

Yeah well...they never show up. Yikes. Cold-feet, betrayal or execution error, we don't know. But Vlad's left hanging – a bit of that going around it seems.

The tide's now turning and without reinforcements Vlad's assassination attempt is looking less and less likely. Sorry mate. So he pulls the plug and retreats. After all, the Night Attack was a wild shot in the dark. Literally. 

But the real surprise comes next.

As Mehmed and his army press on towards Târgoviște they enter a forest, not of trees, but thousands upon thousands of impaled, rotting corpses. It's a terrifying sight that sprawls for miles. There are infants too, affixed to their mothers' breasts, and it's said that birds have made nests in the entrails of the hanging bodies.

The Ottomans are shocked, impressed even. What man is capable of such horror?

It's some kind of weird mutual respect between rulers, a dude-that's-messed-up-but-I see-you kind of thing. 

Mehmed then calls off the campaign and heads back East. But he leaves Vlad's younger brother Radu, who had risen to be an Ottoman commander, behind with some men. Now that's awkward. Over the next few months, the two brothers clash for control. Unfortunately for Vlad, many wealthy Wallachians begin to ally with Radu who has a fat Ottoman-backed purse. Vlad then seeks help from the Hungarian King, but is imprisoned instead. Radu becomes the ruler of Wallachia while Vlad spends the next 12 years in prison.

It's during this time that stories of Vlad's cruelty travel far and wide, feeding the legacy we inherit today. In Western Europe he becomes seen as a "demented psychopath, a sadist, a gruesome murderer, a masochist," worse than Caligula and Nero. Books describing his cruel acts are among the first bestsellers in German-speaking territories. And the accounts are terrifying – impaling sinful women through the vagina, inviting beggars to feast and setting them on fire, dining while surrounded by people dying on poles. The list goes on and on and on.

Some historians claim that Vlad is the inspiration for Bram Stoker's Dracula, which was published in 1897, the first book to make a connection between Dracula and Vampirism. Seriously, check it out. A lot of contemporary media depicts Vlad the Impaler as the ominous Count Dracula.

Meanwhile, in parts of Eastern Europe, Vlad becomes viewed in a different light, an anti-hero, a just but stone-cold ruler, someone who does what he must to protect his people. It was a different time back then, and in a world of daily war crimes, Vlad rules with a necessary iron-fist. His "evil-wise" character, unflinching diplomacy and brutal punishments allow him to build a strong government and a society free (or freer) from corruption, crime and poverty. Or at least he tries.

Vlad is controversy personified. 

But if we peel back the skin of Vlad's legacy and dig through the layers of fact and fiction, we stumble upon important questions, some as old as time, like how much evil is justified in pursuit of building a just society?

Philosophers have debated this question forever. It divides us even today. 

Should the military just wipe out drug cartels? Should serious crime offenders be given the death penalty? Should violence and terror be squashed with an even greater show of aggression?

Hot potatoes.

Think what you will of Vlad, but his story is a colourful reminder that whilst social norms change dramatically (Vlad would be tried for war crimes in today's society), our questions regarding justice remain the same. It's still part of the human story to wildly disagree on what is just and the how we get there.

3 quick facts:

• It's estimated that some 15,000 Ottomans and 5,000 Wallachians are killed during the Night Attack and that the skirmishing lasts "three hours after sunset until four the next morning."

• An altered version of the Night Attack appears in the 2014 film Dracula Untold, in which Dracula blocks the sun with black clouds instead of the battle occurring at night.

• Vlad manages to secure his freedom and rule Wallachia for a third and final time in 1476, but is killed fighting the Ottomans within a month of becoming Prince.

Other conflicts that happened this week:

• 13 June 1381: The Peasants' Revolt in England comes to a head as rebels set fire to the Savoy Palace.

• 14 June 1821: Badi VII, king of Sennar, surrenders his throne and realm to the Ottoman Empire, bringing the 300 year old Sudanese kingdom to an end.

• 15 June 1148: Sverre Sigurdsson defeats King Magnus V of Norway at the naval Battle of Fimreite and takes the throne.

• 16 June 1779: Spain declares war on the Kingdom of Great Britain, and the Great Siege of Gibraltar begins.

• 17 June 1565: Matsunaga Hisahide assassinates the 13th Ashikaga shōgun, Ashikaga Yoshiteru.

• 18 June 1815: Napoleon Bonaparte loses at the Battle of Waterloo and abdicates the throne of France for the second and last time.

• 19 June 1816: The climax is reached between two rivals in the fur trade at the Battle of Seven Oaks near Winnipeg, Canada.

Philip D. Jordan, American Historian (1903-1980)

See ya next week!

DisclaimerYou are reading my abstractions based on the abstractions of others. History is not always an accurate map of what really happened. The map is not the territory. Reality can be very different. We are like blind people groping an elephant, describing what we feel. It always pays to do your own research and ask questions.