The Legend of Vlad Dracula...
[Or, Political Reform in the 15th Century]
There really was a historical character whose rather morbid exploits led to the creation of that astonishing literary icon: Count Dracula. He was known as Vlad Dracula, or as the locals tagged him, Vlad the Impaler. He ruled the territories that now constitute greater-Romania and the adjoining Transylvanian regions in the 15th century. He was born in 1431, the same year that Joan of Arc was barbecued at the stake in Rouen, France; a coincidence of history that was thematic of the whole Renaissance movement -- the end of the old, kind of stale medieval period and a lot of uncertainty about the fall elections. Seems like a familiar theme nowadays. The Christian Right was just finishing up The Crusades, which really meant they were busy killing a bunch of folks who worshipped God in some other neighborhood and once dead would no longer need the houses with the 3-car garages. Later that century, Christopher Columbus would globalize that concept and steal whole continents.
Like the Cold War of a much later century, Europe was politically and secularly divided between east and west, and military dominance had reached kind of an impasse for the moment. That meant that maintaining your imperial thrown, or for that matter your head, now a matter of politically inspired familiar alliances. Which meant you had to marry so and so's ugly daughter or give up your own in order to keep breathing. This 'politics of alliances' culminated almost 500-years later in the carnage of World War I, the rupture occurring in Dracul's own back yard: the Balkans. Every divorce has its loser, but this one killed over 20-million bystanders and probably more than a few lawyers.
Like the Cold War of a much later century, Europe was politically and secularly divided between east and west, and military dominance had reached kind of an impasse for the moment. That meant that maintaining your imperial thrown, or for that matter your head, now a matter of politically inspired familiar alliances. Which meant you had to marry so and so's ugly daughter or give up your own in order to keep breathing. This 'politics of alliances' culminated almost 500-years later in the carnage of World War I, the rupture occurring in Dracul's own back yard: the Balkans. Every divorce has its loser, but this one killed over 20-million bystanders and probably more than a few lawyers.
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| Vlad, the Impaler |
Trying to explain the Balkans is almost as difficult as figuring out that new Smart-Phone. A lot has to do with geography and illegal immigration -- a hot-topic around America today, only these migrants tended to bring large, angry and underpaid armies with them. And no, they weren't there to keep the lawns mowed or Safeway stocked with fresh lettuce and mushy tomatoes.
The Balkans were and are historically a cultural and religious border between two very large humanoid groups that spent a lot of time arguing semantics around their own cloistered campfires -- unless of course they found themselves in agreement; which meant it necessary to pick a fight somewhere else. What's the point of having a military/industrial complex without a disagreeable enemy -- imagined or otherwise? Next thing you know the peasants would hollering about that minimum-wage thing again.
The east, in Vlad's time, consisted of the Ottoman Empire, founded by a guy named Othman, who sort of wandered in one day from Turkmenistan and never left. The West was the usual hodgepodge of Italians, French, Poles, Brits, Spaniards, a few confused Germanic tribes, some Russians and The Vatican, which at the time was suffering from a bad case of too many Popes on the Pot. The Crusades had sort of run out of steam by the late 1400's. Trade was the new big deal on the block and the best way for a venture capitalist to make a buck was to stomp on a neighbor and swipe his stuff. That's why they call it a 'hostile takeover' nowadays. A lawyer is nothing more than a Viking with a briefcase full of sentences that would drive Plato nuts, and a large axe that covered most of the fine print.
The Balkans were and are historically a cultural and religious border between two very large humanoid groups that spent a lot of time arguing semantics around their own cloistered campfires -- unless of course they found themselves in agreement; which meant it necessary to pick a fight somewhere else. What's the point of having a military/industrial complex without a disagreeable enemy -- imagined or otherwise? Next thing you know the peasants would hollering about that minimum-wage thing again.
The east, in Vlad's time, consisted of the Ottoman Empire, founded by a guy named Othman, who sort of wandered in one day from Turkmenistan and never left. The West was the usual hodgepodge of Italians, French, Poles, Brits, Spaniards, a few confused Germanic tribes, some Russians and The Vatican, which at the time was suffering from a bad case of too many Popes on the Pot. The Crusades had sort of run out of steam by the late 1400's. Trade was the new big deal on the block and the best way for a venture capitalist to make a buck was to stomp on a neighbor and swipe his stuff. That's why they call it a 'hostile takeover' nowadays. A lawyer is nothing more than a Viking with a briefcase full of sentences that would drive Plato nuts, and a large axe that covered most of the fine print.
The Ottomans (I think these were the bad guys, but I'm not sure.), first crossed the Dardanelle's Straights, which separate Europe from Asia, in 1353, summoned by a couple of Byzantine emperors who were having trouble with some Bulgarians. The Turks (or Ottomans), killed most of the Bulgarians, but decided to hang around just the same. Something about Turkmenistan being a 'dry' county and, well, the folks in the Balkans knew how to press a grape. Oh, this expedition also marked the demise of the eastern branch of the Holy Roman Empire and the introduction of a new fashion style: balloon pants and the fez.
During this same period the Germans (called Saxons), moved in from the west. Basically, the Hungarians were supposed to be in charge, but a Mongol guy named Batu Khan showed up in 1241 and rearranged the furniture again. That's why the Wallachians and the Romanians ended up being pushed into Transylvania, which at the time was definitely the wrong side of the tracks, even if you didn't have any trains. And to be honest, I don't even know why any of this matters other than why Transylvania earned such a bad reputation in the local press.
Now, we sort of established that Dracul's real name was Vlad, later to be embellished further due to some behavioral issues, so we're assuming he probably had a rap sheet in some other village. The head of this unpleasant dynasty was Vlad's father, Prince Mircea who dies in 1418 of something other than high cholesterol. Mircea seemed to have more illegitimate sons than true heirs, so family relations were anything but cordial. This paternity fight evolved into the Dracul/Danesti feud, which was a little like the Oakland Raiders taking on the Stanford Cricket team. To help the feud move along, Vlad, now an over-sexed adult wandered between Turkey and Poland for a while trying to find a king stupid enough to sponsor his quest for the throne of Wallachia. During this period he managed to get inducted into the Order of the Dragon, the Transylvanian version of an Elk's Club. He was then accepted as 'Dracul' by the boyars (local real-estate agents). Roughly translated, boyar means, "I repossess your house." That meant that Dracul's future son would be named Dracula (son of repossessor), but the connotation of this name caused a lot of misunderstandings. People didn't realize that 'repossession' was really a euphemism for losing your head -- not your house. Did save a lot of money on court costs though.
So moving along, the Elks had a big party, everybody got drunk and they elected Vlad the Prince of Wallachia. His campaign had been centered around getting the Turks to stop stealing women for their harems, as well as the usual stuff about lower taxes and better camel trails. The former activity had really hurt the dating situation around the capitol, not to mention creating some very unhappy sheep ranchers who were missing their best ewes. However, this would prove to be a highly challenging proposition for Vlad, as Wallachia was still under the control of the Turks. So I guess that meant that the new 'repossessor' was currently 'dispossessed' by the previous 'repossessors.' At least I think so.
Once Vlad got the nod (voting hadn't been invented yet), he moved into his new fortress, Sinhisoara to keep a closer eye on his Turkish rivals. Mostly he spent his time pumping iron and hanging out (pun intended), on his balcony, which overlooked the Councilmen's Square to the Jeweler's Dojon, which was where the Turks tended to hang people on a pretty regular basis. It was also said that he took night courses in Italian, French and of all things: the humanities. Seemed to this writer that it was a little like holding an AA Meeting in a no-host bar, but,...well hell, it was the 15th century after all.
As his power solidified, he actually signed into an alliance with the Turks, partly because of the Dragon Oath that he had signed bound him to protect Christians, Germans, small dogs and a couple of Hungarians -- not to mention that well-heeded advice about "keeping your enemies closer." Even so, there was still that issue with all the missing women.
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| Mehmed II |
By 1440, Vlad had had enough of the Turks. Plus the locals were getting a little testy about his seemingly vacillating loyalties. On top of that the barley crop had failed causing the price of ale to skyrocket. Unfortunately, history was in the middle of another re-run as the Turks decided to swipe Vlad's two sons and this time no quiet soiree in the local harem was on the agenda. Radu, by far the more handsome of the two had also caught Mehmed's eye -- heir-apparent to the Turkish throne and well known for her beauty and well...charms. Vlad wasn't about to get into another Christian Crusade with his only sons in captivity by his Muslim overlords....
Time Out!
{Seems I neglected a certain historical reality: Prior to the Mongols showing up in the 1200's to rearrange the furniture...a whole bunch of Arabs did the same in the 700's, shortly after the death of the prophet Mohammed. They figured it was about time for a new religion since Christianity had taken up sectarian violence as some sort of Holy mantra all their own. In fact it could be said that the Christians invented the Jihad, only they kind of spun the language a bit and called it a Holy Crusade. In reality, it was just a real-estate hunt with some Biblical overtones. In time, the Muslim invaders either wandered off or assimilated, but Islam itself remained.}
….However, this didn't stop the Polish King and The Vatican's representative from stirring up some new shit anyway, which culminated at the Battle of Varna -- where both these instigators surrendered their heads. Ah, no they didn't find the heads. You see it was like a game show -- you really, really didn't want to find the head. A lot like the 'Bankrupt' slot on the Wheel of Fortune. Pat and Vanna are sympathetic, but the sponsor would rather see you dead than take home that Mustang.
To confuse matters further...or maybe deflect is a better word, Vlad senior got into a bit of a spat with a guy named John Hunyadi (he later invented the Korean car), and that ended the senior Vlad's political career in a swamp outside the village of Danesti. Vlad Jr., or Dracula (Son of the Repossessor), didn't get the news until some months later (a Post Office thing.) He was freed by the Turks to assume the throne, but another Vlad -- Vladislaus II, who happened to own the Hungarian Army had other ideas. Vlad...uh Dracula fled south and hung out with the Turks for a while before going to Moldavia under the protection of Prince Bogdan II. However, the Prince's brother killed him. (Not Dracula, but the other guy.) I guess the main thing to remember about this paragraph is that political reform in the 15th-century always included some headless thing, and that there are way too many Vlads in Romania.
The climax to all this political intrigue culminated with the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Sultan Mehmed II had already overrun most of the Balkans leaving the great Byzantine city an island of Christianity in what had become a Moslem world. Europe and Asia were about to have a nasty divorce and all the children, legitimate and otherwise were planning to rid themselves of the last vestiges of adult supervision.
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| Fall of Constantinople |
On one side was Valdislaus II, John Hunyadi, Vlad Dracula and Ladislas V Posthmus, the latter stuck with a really bad choice of names. They were joined by King Frederick III of Germany, who was busy dealing with Bohemian heretics and far too distracted to invade anyplace. Henry VI of England and France's King Charles VII were naturally upset over this turn of affairs, as well as some folks at the Kremlin. A few Popes were also pretty pissed, especially over the loss of Byzantium, but it was still a case of too many Popes claiming title to the big chair in the Vatican. The visiting team was led by the Turkish Sultan who was busy padding his portfolio by sacking Constantinople -- and stealing all the women as usual. I think we all know by now how the Romanians felt about that kind of nonsense. But in the end, they all agreed to make it a religious war since fighting over women was seen to be below their class.
Vlad and a bunch of his cohorts got together up in Transylvania and instituted a draft. They also cut a few contracts for cannons, spears, swords, large rocks and other war-type stuff. Most of the army was comprised of peasants, whose battle song went something like, "There goes Monday Night Football again." A 'coalition' problem also surfaced in that Vlad and his co-conspirators trusted each other less than they trusted the Turks. All these machinations and subterfuge culminated in the Battle at Belgrade, in which the Turks got whooped and the unfortunate Sultan got stabbed in the butt for his efforts. He retaliated by stabbing most of his generals in the same vicinity and topped it off with a good old-fashioned mass execution. Vlad also took the opportunity to kill Vladislaus II and poor old John Hunyadi caught some plague and dropped dead shortly thereafter. That left Vlad as the unrivaled Prince of Wallachia, though nobody was quite sure what that really meant.
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| Battle of Belgrade |
A couple of things happened next: Halley's Comet made an appearance, even though the astronomer that discovered it wasn't scheduled to be born until 1636. It was considered a good omen since it also made an appearance when William the Conqueror flattened the Saxons in 1066, and once again when Attila the Hun got slapped around on the plains of Catalonia. Since most of these great leaders probably never took a history class, the real 'omen' more than likely lay in the fact that the comet didn't land on their collective heads.
Secondly, Vlad managed to mend a few fences with his cousin, who just happened to be Stephen the Great. The Sultan's wound in the...uh, buttocks healed nicely, but he was he was highly suspicious of Vlad's intentions in the west. Plus he was a little short on generals since he'd dispatched the last bunch after the debacle at Belgrade.
Secondly, Vlad managed to mend a few fences with his cousin, who just happened to be Stephen the Great. The Sultan's wound in the...uh, buttocks healed nicely, but he was he was highly suspicious of Vlad's intentions in the west. Plus he was a little short on generals since he'd dispatched the last bunch after the debacle at Belgrade.
Even so, Vlad had his own problems at home. Power was shared between the boyars and the princes, the latter kind of Johnny-come-laters in the scheme of things. The boyars were a strange mish-mash that can best be described as a combination of a Congressional Appropriations Committee, private interest-group lobbyists, the Mafia, and a local chapter of the NRA. Throw in a little KKK ideology and you get the drift. Princes had an average life-expectancy of two-years at best, so it wasn't a job you'd apply for on a regular basis unless you had a pretty large ego or a bunch of friends with large swords. Vlad was gifted with both.
Before finding some kind of final solution to the Turk problem, the young Dracula needed to clear up some issues on the home turf. So he invited the most recalcitrant boyars up to the castle for Easter dinner and just before dessert was scheduled to be served, had them all impaled on large stakes. The bus-boy wasn't thrilled about the mess, but the message was certainly received. From that day on, Dracula was known around the neighborhood as Vlad the Impaler. Later he created his own battalion of impalers par excellence, which in reality were paid mercenaries who would engage in any sort barbarity as long as Vlad's check didn't bounce.
That caused things to get a little testy around the Royal Court -- as in nobody was too willing to answer the RSVP thingy. Evidently the word didn't quite get around to an Italian delegation who showed up the palace to cut a deal on pasta and marinara sauce. They happily removed their hats and hoods in his presence, but kept their skullcaps on as was their custom. Vlad stated that, "In all fairness, I want to strengthen and recognize your customs." They thanked him profusely and asserted their loyalty. Then Vlad pulled some large iron nails out of a sack and proceeded to have their skullcaps nailed to their heads. "Believe me," he said as the hammers did their work, "this is the manner in which I will strengthen your customs."
Vlad's propensity for creative diplomacy even put Ivan the Terrible's reputation in doubt. Collected figures from the time indicate that Vlad probably impaled between 40-100,000 victims in an effort to consolidate his power. These figures don't include those poor slobs captured from the Turkish Army. Even Robespierre's guillotine only managed 25,000 to clean up the corruption around Paris. But Vlad didn't just impale people. He also enjoyed blinding, decapitating...the removal of human accessories like noses, ears, sexual organs and limbs. He strangled, hanged, burned, boiled, skinned, roasted, hacked ("like cabbages," he was known to boast), nailed, buried alive and stabbed. However, his all-time favorite was impalement. His courtyard and the town square were adorned with large stakes, purposely left somewhat dull to prolong the fun. Victims were thrown off balconies, released through trap-doors or simply tossed on top of the stakes. Sexual indiscretions were punished in even more macabre ways (if that was even possible.) Cannibalism was not uncommon either.
A Turkish chronicler of the time: "In front of the wooden fortress where he had his residence, he set up at a distance of six leagues, two rows of fence with impaled Hungarians, Moldavians and Wallachians. In addition, since the neighboring area was forested, innumerable people were hanging from each tree branch, and he ordered that if anyone should take one of the hanging victims down, they would hang in his place."
In all fairness to Vlad, some other guys and gals were just as bad. Louis XI, the Spider King had a predilection for hanging young boys from trees; Ferdinand of Naples had his victims mummified and displayed in his sitting room during negotiations with foreign leaders, and Pope Alexander VI and his illegitimate son, Cesare Borgia were well-known for their own degrees of extreme cruelty.
Vlad Dracula's ultimate downfall began with the rising influence of Vlad Senior's oldest bastard son who was out stirring up the Saxons living in western Wallachia, while concurrently fomenting a new trade war by flooding the country with cheap wine and Chinese knock-offs. Vlad responded by sacking a few Saxon towns and repeating the 'cabbage-hacking' thing. When his 'captains' weren't successful in taking over some Saxon villages, he had them impaled. Over six-hundred German merchants were rounded up, tossed into giant cauldrons and boiled alive. And you thought the IRS is a little tough.
Most executions seemed to coincide with dinner. Vlad would have a little steak tar-tar and a baked potato while his henchmen were busily hacking off the limbs of most of his guests. Tradition has it that Vlad liked to dip his bread in human blood, hence Bram Stoker's (author if the fictional Dracula character), later fascination with vampirism as an overriding narrative on Transylvanian dating customs.
Vlad continued his raiding and burning of Saxon towns and churches because he was convinced that some guy named Dan III was scheming with the Hapsburg clan to bump him off and take over Romania. However, the plan backfired and Vlad had Dan's head removed and well...impaled all the upstart's followers.
That takes us back to Mehmed II -- you remember, the fat Sultan with the butt wound? Just when things were beginning to settle down, he decides to declare an Islamic Holy War against these Wallachian infidels and tosses in the bonus that if his troops died in battle, they all got a free trip to heaven. The Christians couldn't match this offer, only offering stand-by status with a possible upgrade at some later time. Mehmed upped the ante by throwing in "lovely maidens that would serve tasty drinks" in his version of Paradise. Should have been no contest, but....
...Pope Pius II convened a Grand Council at the Cathedral of Mantua in September of 1459, trying to inspire the few collected leaders present to "take up the cross" once more against these other 'infidels.' Yeah, lot of name-calling going on. The two-hour speech was so intense that the Pope damn near died afterward, and those present sort of yawned and went home. Most of these Western European leaders were far too busy picking each other's pockets or sacking each other's castles to bother with a bunch of no-name Turks in another county. Besides, in a mere forty-years Columbus would aggravate the whole situation by bumping into Haiti and inventing the New World, which would prove to be less reasonable than the Old one.
But, back to the current war. Once Vlad made a few incursions on the east side of the Danube, Mehmed took off the gloves. He cleaned up a few messes around Asia Minor and then personally led his massive army out of Constantinople. Vlad was on the phone trying to drum up some support, most notably from the Hungarians and the Vatican. After all, he was defending Christianity's eastern gate. The Sultan's entourage was estimated at about 250,000 well-dressed soldiers accompanied by about 150 cannons. Vlad's forces were numbered at about 30,000, many of them indentured peasants, who not too happy about the Vegas odds on the undertaking. Vlad had a few early successes, but he quickly retreated, engaging in a scorched-earth policy in order to deny the Turks access to the better restaurants. Adding insult was the fact that Vlad's cute younger brother Radu, was leading a contingent of Turks. Yeah, he fell for the old 'maiden and tasty drink' thing.
Vlad retreated to the Capitol, Tirgoviste and prepared for a long siege. The road to his stronghold was adorned with a huge semi-circle, picket-style fence decorated with impaled Turkish soldiers, most rotting and subject to the privations of ravens and other carrion-eaters. The smell of rotting flesh was so overwhelming that Mehmed called it a day. Didn't help though. Vlad's cousin, Stephen the Great, turned his back on family values in order to preserve his own monarchy in Moldavia. Mehmet limped back to Constantinople and both sides hired a few 'spin doctors' to cook the books on just who carried the day.
Given the ease in international tensions, Vlad was once again under public scrutiny over his questionable hobbies. Sure, he was an equal-opportunity impaler, but face it, people were having a tough time getting health insurance around Transylvania. On top of that, Vlad's brother Radu was courting the reform vote, offering lower taxes, better prices for camels and something called "death by natural causes," a totally new concept in Transylvanian society. Plus, he was much cuter, a political advantage that became apparent much later in the Kennedy/Nixon debates. Vlad's base consisted of the paid mercenaries, the King of Hungary, who was completely inept on a good day, and whatever Pope who happened to be occupying the "Pot." Most of his army had wandered off to catch up on Monday Night Football and re-runs of I Love Lucy. To make matters worse, Vlad was running a little short on gold ducats which meant that all those checks that were supposedly in the mail never got cashed. Even his mistress decided that she would "rather have her body rot and be eaten by the fish of the Arges than be led into captivity by the Turks." Evidently that was a no-confidence vote as shortly thereafter she jumped off a cliff. Given all the rumblings around the capitol, Vlad had all his horses shod backwards to confuse his many enemies and split for Hungary.
Turned out that Mathias, the King of Hungary wasn't quite as dumb as Vlad had assumed. He figured that given Vlad's current circumstances (meaning everybody in Europe AND Asia wanted him dead), that it was the perfect opportunity to snatch Romania. He promised Vlad a "holy crusade" (which meant he could kind of borrow the Hungarian Army), and sent him merrily back to Wallachia with a token force led by a Slovak-Hussite mercenary named Jan Jiskra. The main army (which was mostly on paper), was to follow. While still in Hungarian territory, Jiskra took Vlad prisoner instead and tossed him in a nearby dungeon. However, a bunch of European king-types were not amused, since they figured that Vlad was probably the only guy nasty enough to keep the Islamic Turks at bay and the local women from ending up in some Potentate's harem. Yeah, back to the woman-stealing thing. King Mathias needed a legitimate reason for keeping Vlad incarcerated, so he put together some phony paperwork that implicated Vlad in an "impaling for profit" scheme orchestrated by the Turkish Sultan. It also marked the first time in history that anyone was specifically charged with "crimes against humanity," a catch-phrase for genocide still in use today. Vlad's attorney argued that his clients activities had absolutely nothing to do with "race, religion, ethnicity or sexual preference," but were simply a hobby he developed as a prisoner in a Turkish harem. Okay, so it was highly questionable 'insanity defense,' even though insanity hadn't been invented as yet either. Vlad's only supporter, Pope Pius II was skeptical, but noted that the Dragon Oath negated this feeble conspiracy about the Sultan. In any event, the tribunal wanted him gone anyway, so they gave him a 10-12 year stint in a Hungarian prison where he became the object of much curiosity for his weird behavior. Kind of like the bearded lady in a local circus.
Even in prison, Vlad pursued his hobby. He impaled mice, birds; pieces of wood, if nothing else could be found. Meanwhile, Radu, now embellished with the moniker "The Handsome," was increasingly being pinched between the Hungarian King, aka, the Hapsburg Empire. 'hole-in-the-butt Mehmed' and Stephen the Great in Moldovia. Radu was good looking, but basically a wimp. Stephen slapped him around a bit, swiped his wife, married his daughter and ran off with the Wallachian treasury. A short time later Radu died of syphilis. Not sure why that is relevant here, but I guess 'safe-sex' was still in the conceptual stage of development as well.
Mathias (the Hungarian guy), sent Vlad to a 12-step program for rehab; the idea being to restore him as the Prince of Wallachia. However, he had to marry Mathias's ugly cousin and convert to Catholicism. Everybody also agreed to dismiss all the atrocities against the Saxons as little more than 'fake news.' Mehmed meanwhile, invaded Bosnia. Pope Pius II croaked, so the new Pope, Sixtus IV renewed the call for a Christian Crusade. Vlad and Stephen the Great kissed and made up and together thumped the Turks at Srebrencia. The down-side was that Vlad was back to hacking off limbs and throwing people on stakes again. The papal legate got wind of this relapse and decided the best thing to do was to declare Vlad a Protestant. Adding to this mess, Stephen the Great died in 1479, his only heir his cousin, one Elizabeth Bathory, known as the "Blood Countess." Turned out she really was a vampire in a kind of a roundabout way. She reputedly butchered over 650 girls during her lifetime in order to bathe and shower in their blood. It was a cosmetic thing I suppose -- like Oil of Olay, only a lot messier.
Prior to Stephen's death, he and Vlad once more went to war with the Turks with a rag-tag army of locals and actually managed to win the thing. Both sides lost about 30,000 soldiers, but Wallachia was once again a 'Turk-free zone.' A few dissident boyars were still floating about and it is unclear whether Stephen eventually turned on his cousin, who, given the previous episodes of mass murder was a questionable candidate for the thrown...or, that maybe Transylvania's Tourist Board decided the country needed a public relations makeover. Either way, about two-months after the successful campaign, Vlad was found headless and mangled in a swamp. He was only forty-five, which was pretty old by Balkan standards. Some centuries later, Romanian archeologists think they have found his carcass buried at the island monastery of Lake Snagov, though the whereabouts of his head remain a mystery.
The moral of this story is that none exists. Bram Stoker grabbed a bit bizarre history, embellished it a bunch, incorporated vampirism (a bat thing) and came up with a best-seller that Hollywood couldn't resist. Dracula did exist as a historical figure, but if he sucked down any blood, he no doubt used a straw. And the Balkans are still a mess because everybody's still trying to figure out who stole all the women.
I don't know about you, but I'm exhausted.
That caused things to get a little testy around the Royal Court -- as in nobody was too willing to answer the RSVP thingy. Evidently the word didn't quite get around to an Italian delegation who showed up the palace to cut a deal on pasta and marinara sauce. They happily removed their hats and hoods in his presence, but kept their skullcaps on as was their custom. Vlad stated that, "In all fairness, I want to strengthen and recognize your customs." They thanked him profusely and asserted their loyalty. Then Vlad pulled some large iron nails out of a sack and proceeded to have their skullcaps nailed to their heads. "Believe me," he said as the hammers did their work, "this is the manner in which I will strengthen your customs." Vlad's propensity for creative diplomacy even put Ivan the Terrible's reputation in doubt. Collected figures from the time indicate that Vlad probably impaled between 40-100,000 victims in an effort to consolidate his power. These figures don't include those poor slobs captured from the Turkish Army. Even Robespierre's guillotine only managed 25,000 to clean up the corruption around Paris. But Vlad didn't just impale people. He also enjoyed blinding, decapitating...the removal of human accessories like noses, ears, sexual organs and limbs. He strangled, hanged, burned, boiled, skinned, roasted, hacked ("like cabbages," he was known to boast), nailed, buried alive and stabbed. However, his all-time favorite was impalement. His courtyard and the town square were adorned with large stakes, purposely left somewhat dull to prolong the fun. Victims were thrown off balconies, released through trap-doors or simply tossed on top of the stakes. Sexual indiscretions were punished in even more macabre ways (if that was even possible.) Cannibalism was not uncommon either.
A Turkish chronicler of the time: "In front of the wooden fortress where he had his residence, he set up at a distance of six leagues, two rows of fence with impaled Hungarians, Moldavians and Wallachians. In addition, since the neighboring area was forested, innumerable people were hanging from each tree branch, and he ordered that if anyone should take one of the hanging victims down, they would hang in his place."
In all fairness to Vlad, some other guys and gals were just as bad. Louis XI, the Spider King had a predilection for hanging young boys from trees; Ferdinand of Naples had his victims mummified and displayed in his sitting room during negotiations with foreign leaders, and Pope Alexander VI and his illegitimate son, Cesare Borgia were well-known for their own degrees of extreme cruelty.
Vlad Dracula's ultimate downfall began with the rising influence of Vlad Senior's oldest bastard son who was out stirring up the Saxons living in western Wallachia, while concurrently fomenting a new trade war by flooding the country with cheap wine and Chinese knock-offs. Vlad responded by sacking a few Saxon towns and repeating the 'cabbage-hacking' thing. When his 'captains' weren't successful in taking over some Saxon villages, he had them impaled. Over six-hundred German merchants were rounded up, tossed into giant cauldrons and boiled alive. And you thought the IRS is a little tough.
Most executions seemed to coincide with dinner. Vlad would have a little steak tar-tar and a baked potato while his henchmen were busily hacking off the limbs of most of his guests. Tradition has it that Vlad liked to dip his bread in human blood, hence Bram Stoker's (author if the fictional Dracula character), later fascination with vampirism as an overriding narrative on Transylvanian dating customs.
Vlad continued his raiding and burning of Saxon towns and churches because he was convinced that some guy named Dan III was scheming with the Hapsburg clan to bump him off and take over Romania. However, the plan backfired and Vlad had Dan's head removed and well...impaled all the upstart's followers.
That takes us back to Mehmed II -- you remember, the fat Sultan with the butt wound? Just when things were beginning to settle down, he decides to declare an Islamic Holy War against these Wallachian infidels and tosses in the bonus that if his troops died in battle, they all got a free trip to heaven. The Christians couldn't match this offer, only offering stand-by status with a possible upgrade at some later time. Mehmed upped the ante by throwing in "lovely maidens that would serve tasty drinks" in his version of Paradise. Should have been no contest, but....
...Pope Pius II convened a Grand Council at the Cathedral of Mantua in September of 1459, trying to inspire the few collected leaders present to "take up the cross" once more against these other 'infidels.' Yeah, lot of name-calling going on. The two-hour speech was so intense that the Pope damn near died afterward, and those present sort of yawned and went home. Most of these Western European leaders were far too busy picking each other's pockets or sacking each other's castles to bother with a bunch of no-name Turks in another county. Besides, in a mere forty-years Columbus would aggravate the whole situation by bumping into Haiti and inventing the New World, which would prove to be less reasonable than the Old one.
But, back to the current war. Once Vlad made a few incursions on the east side of the Danube, Mehmed took off the gloves. He cleaned up a few messes around Asia Minor and then personally led his massive army out of Constantinople. Vlad was on the phone trying to drum up some support, most notably from the Hungarians and the Vatican. After all, he was defending Christianity's eastern gate. The Sultan's entourage was estimated at about 250,000 well-dressed soldiers accompanied by about 150 cannons. Vlad's forces were numbered at about 30,000, many of them indentured peasants, who not too happy about the Vegas odds on the undertaking. Vlad had a few early successes, but he quickly retreated, engaging in a scorched-earth policy in order to deny the Turks access to the better restaurants. Adding insult was the fact that Vlad's cute younger brother Radu, was leading a contingent of Turks. Yeah, he fell for the old 'maiden and tasty drink' thing.
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| Vlad Dracula's digs in Trigoviste |
Vlad retreated to the Capitol, Tirgoviste and prepared for a long siege. The road to his stronghold was adorned with a huge semi-circle, picket-style fence decorated with impaled Turkish soldiers, most rotting and subject to the privations of ravens and other carrion-eaters. The smell of rotting flesh was so overwhelming that Mehmed called it a day. Didn't help though. Vlad's cousin, Stephen the Great, turned his back on family values in order to preserve his own monarchy in Moldavia. Mehmet limped back to Constantinople and both sides hired a few 'spin doctors' to cook the books on just who carried the day.
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| Jan Jiskra |
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| Radu the Handsome? |
Turned out that Mathias, the King of Hungary wasn't quite as dumb as Vlad had assumed. He figured that given Vlad's current circumstances (meaning everybody in Europe AND Asia wanted him dead), that it was the perfect opportunity to snatch Romania. He promised Vlad a "holy crusade" (which meant he could kind of borrow the Hungarian Army), and sent him merrily back to Wallachia with a token force led by a Slovak-Hussite mercenary named Jan Jiskra. The main army (which was mostly on paper), was to follow. While still in Hungarian territory, Jiskra took Vlad prisoner instead and tossed him in a nearby dungeon. However, a bunch of European king-types were not amused, since they figured that Vlad was probably the only guy nasty enough to keep the Islamic Turks at bay and the local women from ending up in some Potentate's harem. Yeah, back to the woman-stealing thing. King Mathias needed a legitimate reason for keeping Vlad incarcerated, so he put together some phony paperwork that implicated Vlad in an "impaling for profit" scheme orchestrated by the Turkish Sultan. It also marked the first time in history that anyone was specifically charged with "crimes against humanity," a catch-phrase for genocide still in use today. Vlad's attorney argued that his clients activities had absolutely nothing to do with "race, religion, ethnicity or sexual preference," but were simply a hobby he developed as a prisoner in a Turkish harem. Okay, so it was highly questionable 'insanity defense,' even though insanity hadn't been invented as yet either. Vlad's only supporter, Pope Pius II was skeptical, but noted that the Dragon Oath negated this feeble conspiracy about the Sultan. In any event, the tribunal wanted him gone anyway, so they gave him a 10-12 year stint in a Hungarian prison where he became the object of much curiosity for his weird behavior. Kind of like the bearded lady in a local circus.
Even in prison, Vlad pursued his hobby. He impaled mice, birds; pieces of wood, if nothing else could be found. Meanwhile, Radu, now embellished with the moniker "The Handsome," was increasingly being pinched between the Hungarian King, aka, the Hapsburg Empire. 'hole-in-the-butt Mehmed' and Stephen the Great in Moldovia. Radu was good looking, but basically a wimp. Stephen slapped him around a bit, swiped his wife, married his daughter and ran off with the Wallachian treasury. A short time later Radu died of syphilis. Not sure why that is relevant here, but I guess 'safe-sex' was still in the conceptual stage of development as well.
Mathias (the Hungarian guy), sent Vlad to a 12-step program for rehab; the idea being to restore him as the Prince of Wallachia. However, he had to marry Mathias's ugly cousin and convert to Catholicism. Everybody also agreed to dismiss all the atrocities against the Saxons as little more than 'fake news.' Mehmed meanwhile, invaded Bosnia. Pope Pius II croaked, so the new Pope, Sixtus IV renewed the call for a Christian Crusade. Vlad and Stephen the Great kissed and made up and together thumped the Turks at Srebrencia. The down-side was that Vlad was back to hacking off limbs and throwing people on stakes again. The papal legate got wind of this relapse and decided the best thing to do was to declare Vlad a Protestant. Adding to this mess, Stephen the Great died in 1479, his only heir his cousin, one Elizabeth Bathory, known as the "Blood Countess." Turned out she really was a vampire in a kind of a roundabout way. She reputedly butchered over 650 girls during her lifetime in order to bathe and shower in their blood. It was a cosmetic thing I suppose -- like Oil of Olay, only a lot messier.
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| Dear Elizabeth Bathory |
Prior to Stephen's death, he and Vlad once more went to war with the Turks with a rag-tag army of locals and actually managed to win the thing. Both sides lost about 30,000 soldiers, but Wallachia was once again a 'Turk-free zone.' A few dissident boyars were still floating about and it is unclear whether Stephen eventually turned on his cousin, who, given the previous episodes of mass murder was a questionable candidate for the thrown...or, that maybe Transylvania's Tourist Board decided the country needed a public relations makeover. Either way, about two-months after the successful campaign, Vlad was found headless and mangled in a swamp. He was only forty-five, which was pretty old by Balkan standards. Some centuries later, Romanian archeologists think they have found his carcass buried at the island monastery of Lake Snagov, though the whereabouts of his head remain a mystery.
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| Guess he had at least one fan... |
The moral of this story is that none exists. Bram Stoker grabbed a bit bizarre history, embellished it a bunch, incorporated vampirism (a bat thing) and came up with a best-seller that Hollywood couldn't resist. Dracula did exist as a historical figure, but if he sucked down any blood, he no doubt used a straw. And the Balkans are still a mess because everybody's still trying to figure out who stole all the women.
I don't know about you, but I'm exhausted.
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