by Victor on 22 Sep 2003 17:44
Here is a short list of the military career of Vlad III the Impaler and his opponents:
1448 – prince Vladislav II of Wallachia. This was the man who killed his father and elder brother and took over the throne. He represented the rival faction, the Danesti. While Vladislav was away with most of his forces at Kossovopolje, where he fought in the ranks of Janos Huniady/Iancu de Hunedoara, Vlad took over the throne with help from his faction, the Draculesti, and from the Turkish beys in Bulgaria. But this first reign was short, because Vladislav II returned after the defeat ofthe Christian army. His army also included Moldavian cavalry, which had also participated in the battle alongside Wallachian archers, and was later joined by the militia of the capital Targoviste. Vlad was defeated and forced to flee to Edirne, after one month of reign. In 1449 Vlad left the Ottoman Empire for Moldavia, where his uncle had become prince. In 1451, his uncle was assassinated and he fled together with the rest of his family to Transylvania.
1452 – Vlad started planning to overthrow Vladislav, but because he had few resources, he only limited himself to several raids, which stopped after Janos Huniady/Iancu de Hunedoara found out.
1456 – Vlad was put in charge of the defence of southern Transylvania by Huniady, who was living for Belgrade. He gathered the limited forces available and his faction and invaded Wallachia. He defeated Vladislav II at Targsor and killed him on 20 August. After he became domn for the second time, Vlad tried to ally himself with the powerful Transylvanian cities Hermannstadt/Sibiu and Kronstadt/Brasov, offering advantages for their merchants, but he got no real aid and was finally forced to submit to the Turkish pressure, as he needed breathing space to reorganize the country
1457 – Vlad allied himself with Mikhail Szilagy, the brother in law of the deceased Janos Huniady/Iancu de Hunedoara, who was at war with Oswald of Rozgony and the two cities. Vlad decided to raid southern Transylvania in order to punish the Saxon patricians, who also harboured members of the Danesti
faction. He entered in Transylvania through the Olt Valley and burned and pillaged the villages and towns around Hermannstadt/Sibiu, owned by Peter Gereb and Petermann, the supporters of one of his rivals Vlad the Monk. He then headed to Kronstadt/Brasov where again burned the surrounding villages and towns, killed or enslaved their inhabitants. He retreated as fast as he attacked. Later that year Vlad and the Saxon patricians of Kronstadt, represented by Johannes Reudel, reached an agreement. Thus hisrival Dan III the Young was ousted from the city and its traders received in exchange privileges from Vlad
1460 – However the armistice with the Saxons patricians proved to be only temporary and because Vlad was protecting his traders very stubbornly from Saxon abuses, they decided to help Dan III. Thus the brother of Vladislav II invaded Wallachia, but was defeated, captured, dug his own grave and was executed on 22 April 1460. Only seven boyars from his faction escaped. The rest either died on the field or were impaled after. But the revenge for the support provided by Kronstadt to Dan was merciless. He entered Transylvania through the Prahova Valley (the first time this passage was used for a military expedition), achieving total surprise. He burned, pillaged and impaled. But this time he did not go around Kronstadt. He destroyed the city's outskirts and destroyed the beautiful Bartholomew Church. All the prisoners were taken to the Gesprengberg/ Sprenghi Hill and impaled to the horror of the rest of the inhabitants of Kronstadt/Brasov. He then attacked the Fagaras County, where some of the boyars from the rival faction were residing under the protection of Bogdan Doboca. The result of these expeditions was a new treaty of alliance with Kronstadt.
1461 – this was the year the open hostilities with the Ottoman Empire started. Vlad had stopped paying the tribute since 1459 and had come up with different excuses to delay the payments. Hamza Bey and 10,000 men (according to Mikhail Dukas) were sent to capture him and bring him to the Sultan. The battle took place near Giurgiu, where the Turks were ambushed by Vlad. The prisoners were all impaled. For Hamza Bey a longer pole was used, as he was the commanding officer. After this victory he captured the fortress of Giurgiu and massacred the garrison.
Winter 1461/1462 – taking advantage of the ice bridge created over the Danube, Vlad III the Impaler crossed into Bulgaria and started a bloody campaign which led to the death of 23,884 Turks and the capture of Dobruja. He also laid a path of destruction in Bulgaria, where he took Rusciuk, Shishtov, Samovit, Rakhova. At Nicolpolis he defeated, captured and impaled the garrison. He spared the Christians, but he moved them north of the Danube, into his realm.
1462 – Vlad had suddenly become a top priority for Mehmed II El Fatih. He signed armistices with Uzun Hassan (the ruler of Ak-Koyunlu) and the Karaman beys. He then sent ahead an army of 18,000 men under the command of Mahmud Pasha the Greek to secure the Danube frontier and make sure Vlad does not cross it again. But Mahmud invaded Wallachia, plundered and enslaved. Vlad gathered 5,000 men (his mercenary and servant army) and waited for him near the Danube. He surprised Mahmud Pasha and defeated him. Only 8,000 Turks got away, leaving behind the slaves and goods they had taken. This defeat caused another wave of panic (for the Turks) and agitation (for the Christians) in the Balkan Peninsula. Mehmed II was forced to leave the siege of Corynth and take personal command of the situation.
He amassed a sizeable force and headed for the Danube. The figures for this army go as high as 150,000 (Mikhail Dukas), 250,000 (Laonic Chalcocondil) or 300,000 (Tursun Bey). More close to the truth is probably Pietro of Thomassis with 60,000 soldiers and 20,000 auxiliaries. A fleet of 175 ships set sail for Chilia, the important port-fortress of Wallachia. To this threat Vlad responded by mobilizing all manpower he could. Figures for his army are situated between 24,000 (Pietro of Thomassis) and 30,000 (Domenico Baldi).
At the end of May the Ottoman army arrived at Nicopolis. They tried for several days to cross the river, but Vlad repulsed every attempt. The Janissaries finally managed to cross during a night, dug in, installed their artillery and waited for the sun to rise. Vlad attacked the fortified position the next day, but was forced to retreat, as the flow of reinforcements to the bridgehead had become pretty steady and threatened to overwhelm him. Also the artillery also caused many casualties among his cavalry. Reportedly 300 Janissaries were killed.
In the meanwhile, Vlad was forced to send 7,000 men to Chilia to secure it from the attacks of his cousin Stephen the Great, which wanted to make sure that it does not fall into Turkish hands. Thus he had to retreat. The pursuers, even though they were some of the most able Ottoman commanders (Turkhanbeyoglu Omer Bey, Alibeyoglu Ahmed Bey, Mikhaloglu Ashi Bey, Malkochioglu Bali Bey, Nesuh Bey of Albania, Delioglu Umur Bey and others), could not catch his forces and force them to fight. Vlad had scorched the earth in front of the Turkish advance and evacuated the civilians. He was also fighting a guerrilla type war against a thirsty, hungry and tired enemy, striking the small Ottoman units which ventured away from the main army. But still the Sultan pushed on to the capital Targoviste, after passing Bucharest. So Vlad decided to strike. He chose to do it in his personal style, during the night of 16/17 (or 17/18) June. Between 7,000 and 10,000 Wallachian cavalry stormed the Turkish camp. They entered first in the Anatolian army sector, which was either killed or put on the run. But not knowing the camp's organization, Vlad could not take advantage of the surprise to kill the Sultan. By the time he was done with Anatolians, the Janissaries had already surrounded Mehmed's tent and the Wallachians only got as far as the tents of Mahmud Pasha and Isaac Bey. As the sun was preparing to rise, Vlad retreated. Mehmed II sent Ali Bey Mikhaloglu after him and the two armies clashed. Vlad's men were tired after one night of fighting and suffered heavy casualties, losing apparently 1,000 men, before escaping to the safety of the woods. The victory in the camp could have been almost total if a second army, under the command of spatar (the equivalent of the Western constable) Gales, would have attacked from a second direction, as Vlad ordered. Gales was, of course, impaled for his failure to carry out the orders.
Another result of this attack was that Mehmed ordered that every night earth walls and ditches to be built around the camp, for protection. Slowly the Turks reached Targoviste, where a horrible sight awaited them: the forest of impaled comrades. The Sultan decided to retreat. Another night attack took place on 23 July. Vlad had to go to Chilia, but he left 6,000 men to harass the retreating enemy. The commander decided to attack the Turksonce again. They surprised the rear-guard of Iosuf Bey, which soon was put on the run. But Turkhan beyoglu Omer Bey came to his aid and forced the overwhelmed Wallachian army to retreat into the woods, leaving 2,000 men on the field. It seems there was another battle near Buzau in the same period, when approximately 15,000 Wallachians (most likely under Vlad's command) crushed the akingies (Turkish light cavalry) of Evrenos Bey. On 29 June Mehmed II reached Braila, which he burned to the ground and then crossed the Danube, with the army in a terrible state.
But Mehmed II found a very good way to get rid of Vlad: his brother Radu I the Beautiful. He left him north of the Danube, with a part of his troops, so that he would try to gather supporters. Vlad defeated another ottoman army in July 1462, killing 4,000, probably part of Radu's troops. But many boyars had grown weary of war and of Vlad and joined Radu. Others had their families taken hostage by the Turks and also joined the younger brother. Wallachia was divided into two parts. Vlad controlled the north and the east, while Radu the south and the west. Until 8 September, Vlad obtained another 3 victories. But he soon ran out of money and could not keep his mercenaries. Also the peasants and townsfolk started to leave him and he could no longer fight. He was later arrested by Matthias Huniady, the King of Hungary
1476 – Vlad was again in the favors of the king of Hungary, mostly because he needed a capable military commander on the throne of Wallachia. Vlad crossed into Moldavia on 15 August in front of a Transylvanian army and joined his cousin Stephen the Great in the pursuit of the same Mehmed II, which had now invaded Moldavia. The two princes crushed a Turkish army on the river Siret on 6 September 1476 and soon the entire Ottoman army was retreating towards the Danube. In November, Vlad and Stephen Bathory, the voivode of Transylvania, entered Wallachia in front of a 25,000 strong army. They defeated the 18,000 men army (mostly Turks) of prince Laiota Basarab in a terrible battle north of Targoviste, which resulted in 10,000 casualties. They took the capital and then headed for Bucharest. In the meantime, Stephen the Great entered Wallachia with 15,000 men. Vlad became domn for the third and last time.
After the allied armies left, Laiota Basarab returned. It seems Vlad met him near Snagov. Apparently he had him on the run again, but the boyars betrayed him. Only the 200 Moldavian horsemen gave by Stephen the Great stood by him. Vlad was killed in battle along with 190 of the Moldavian bodyguards. Only 10 survived and returned to Stephen in early 1477. The exact date of his death is not known, but it was probably in January 1477. His body was buried in the Snagov monastery.
Really wonderful work there!
