Shields High: The Real Dracula

The Dracula legend arguably created the most famous monster of all time, and has been an enduring character in novels and films for over 100 years. The real Dracula- Vlad III of Wallachia, was a 15th century prince on whom the fictional vampire is roughly based. A fascinating, terrifying, and sadistic figure, Vlad “Dracula” was a cunning tactician and fearless warrior, as well as a vicious killer who earned his macabre nickname “the impaler.” Vlad Dracula also inflicted a defeat on the most powerful military in the world – the Ottoman Empire- that may have prevented it from invading the heart of Europe. This podcast is history you need to know, as the “Real Dracula” is a legend without the mythical bats and fangs.  

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
The battles of the past to find the present. This
is shields high. Who's the greatest monster in history? Some
names will come up right away, Hitler, Stalin, Mao pol Pot,
But that takes the question a very specific direction. I

(00:32):
didn't say real monsters, did I? And then again, those
are also all figures in the twentieth century. Now, because
of the industrialized scale of the slaughter in the twentieth century,
clearly by sheer numbers, those evildoers will be in something
of a category by themselves, although if you look at
the body count of say Genghis Khan, it would rival,

(00:56):
including innocent women and children, anything done by the evildoers
of the twentieth century. And is it really possible that
all of the worst, most fearsome evildoers in history were
alive in a one century period, in fact, doing their
deeds within decades of each other. Probably not. But let's

(01:19):
return to the question. Those are all real people. And
when some people think monster, something very different comes to mind.
The locknest monster, the abominable snowman, the wolfman. Monster conjures
up horror stories of recent decades and myths and legends
of the past. Now, what if I told you there

(01:41):
was a figure in the actual past who was a
very real monster in both senses, a remorseless, bloodthirsty killer
on a massive scale, as well as being the basis
for one of the most enduring monster myths monster legends
of all time, as well as, believe it or not,

(02:02):
being a national folk hero in Romania, a talented military commander,
a Christian crusader against the Jihad, an exceptional builder and administrator,
and a man who founded what became the capital of
Romania with the city of Bucharest. Well, all I have

(02:23):
to do is say one word to answer this for you, Dracula.
I know what your mind goes to when you hear
that word, right, an elegantly dressed count with a thick
Romanian accent, then slicked back hair with two prominent fangs,
who vaughns to drink your blood. And that's certainly part

(02:43):
of the Dracula mythology as represented in pop culture for
say the last hundred years. Some of you might even
think about a chocolate sugary cereal or a beloved numerically
literate character on Sesame Street known simply as the Count.
But what about the actual guy, the actual man, not

(03:04):
the horror films with the comic strips, or even the
timeless classic novel written by an irishman named Bram Stoker
in eighteen ninety seven. Well, my friends, there was a
very real man named Dracula, and he's actually one of
the most fascinating and terrifying characters of the fifteenth century

(03:26):
Western world. He was a minor prince in Eastern Europe,
set in the middle of warring factions to include Hungary, Serbia, Moldovia, Germans, Saxons, Transylvanians, Greeks,
and yes, of course, the Ottoman a horde at his doorstep,

(03:47):
the Caliphate of Islam, seeking the ultimate conquest of all
of Christendom. His name was Vladcheppes or Vlad the Third,
better known as Vlad Dracula and later on Vlad the Impaler.
Have you heard about this prince of Wallachia, famous for

(04:08):
ordering the cruelest of tortures for thousands of his enemies
at a time. In fact, Vlad Chepesh or Vlad the
Third would become so expert in the utilization of this
impalement technique that he would become known as the Impaler.
Now this is a particularly brutal form of execution that

(04:29):
has been known in the historic text going back to
the time of Hammurabi in the eighteenth century BC, and
much like crucifixion for the Empire of Rome, this was
the means that the Ottoman Empire used to terrify anyone
who would stand in its way. In fact, during the

(04:49):
fifteenth century when our tale takes place, it was a
common fact of conquest and retribution, and there were two
main ways that impalement would take place. In the more
standard variation, the executioner would take a spear and insert
the sharp and in or near the navel of the

(05:11):
poor victim, press all the way through the guts until
the spear tape came out the victim's back, and then
the spear would be planted in the ground, upright with
the ghoulish, ghastly sight of a victim atop the spear,
sliding down slowly, writhing to death in agony and bleeding out.

(05:32):
Believe it or not, this was considered the less awful
version of this form of execution, in order to generate
the absolute maximum of misery and suffering, and therefore spread
a message even further of the terror that awaited anyone
who stood athwart the Sultan's ambitions. Sometimes, impellment would involve

(05:54):
using the blunt end of the spear, inserting it in
the individual's rectum, and then planting the sharp part in
the ground, and then the person would slowly, based on
their weight, have the blunt end of the spear driven
through their abdomen over time, and they would bleed to
death in misery. It was an awful way to go,

(06:17):
and it was standard practice as a tool of execution
and terror for the most powerful regime in the world
in the fifteenth century, the Muslim Ottoman Empire based in
what is modern Turkey. In fact, to understand the world
of Dracula, the real Dracula, one has to first understand

(06:38):
the history, the context, politically militarily of Eastern Europe and
the Ottoman Empire in the early to mid fifteenth century.
Ever since the victory of the Seljuk Turks over the
Byzantine armies at Manzikert in ten seventy one, the nomadic
people known as the Turks continue to consolidate power in

(07:02):
what we call Asia Minor in historical studies, or just
in today's geography, Turkey. The Ottomans, named for Osman One
of their chieftains from the thirteenth century highly successful in
being a warlord and consolidating more and more power, and
by the fourteen hundreds had effectively taken all of the

(07:24):
major land of the Byzantine Empire east of Constantinople, and
Constantinople itself was next on the list. This was a
city whose strategic importance geographically is hard to overstate, and
despite the encroachments of the Muslim Turks, the Byzantine Empire

(07:45):
thought that its Theodosian walls could perhaps hold out indefinitely
around the city of Constantinople itself. And Constantinople was more
than just a massive base and an incredibly lucrative area
for trade, was also the heart of the Eastern Orthodox
Christian faith. The Byzantines thought of themselves not as Eastern

(08:08):
Orthodox or Byzantine, but as Romans, and so in many
ways the city of Constantinople was second to Christianity, only
to Rome and the Pope in terms of importance. While
in fourteen fifty three, right in the middle of Dracula's life,
Constantinople would fall to the Turks. This dramatically increased the

(08:32):
threat to all of Christendom of a direct Muslim invasion
of Europe, and our own Count Dracula was on the
very front line of that battle. Dracula's often thought of
as Transylvanian, but in truth he was the voivode or
prince of Wallachia. It's in what is today Romania in

(08:54):
the center of the country. Transylvania, even more mountainous and rugged,
is just north of Wallachia, and this was a very
dangerous neighborhood to be a boyar their term for a noble.
Wallachia was surrounded by a hostile, intrusive and expansive powers
on all sides. The considerably more powerful Kingdom of Hungary

(09:18):
to the west was constantly setting up puppet rulers and
occasionally snagging pieces of what is today's Romania than Wallachia.
Transylvania for itself. The Polish and Germanic kings were no better.
Even the Moldovians would become involved, as well as the
Serbians and Bosnians, who, along with Wallachians. Lectrocula himself were

(09:42):
on the very front line of the battle against the
invading Ottoman Empire. Every year during the campaign season, the
Ottoman Sultan would push deeper into what we think of
today as the Balkans seizing more fortresses, demanding tribute from
more Christian prince including the hated dev Shehrma, a system

(10:04):
of human tribute the Ottoman's demanded that would become infamous
throughout the centuries. In the Devshrma, Christians, mostly Greeks, but
many youths from the Balkans as well, would be offered
up by their localities by their nobles to be trained
in the Ottoman court. These Christian boys, taken from their
mothers and fathers, would be raised as the property of

(10:26):
the Sultan himself, fanatical Muslims who sought to use the
power of the Ottoman state to expand the Caliphate, and
were the basis for the Janissary Corps, the most elite
of all of the Sultan's troops. Others became high administrators
in the Ottoman court, but all were forced to turn

(10:48):
upon the countries, the nationalities, the religion that they grew
up with. The dev Shehrma turned these young Christians into
warriors against their own faith. For Islam it was had
by those who suffered under its yoke. Before we get
to Dracula himself must be understood that the history of
warring royal houses in the fifteenth century in this part

(11:12):
of Eastern Europe, right along the fringe of the Islamic Empire,
was straight out of a Game of Throne's storyline. There
were constant usurpations, assassinations, poisonings, ambushes during diplomatic calls. One
of the worst reasons for all of this mess was
that bastards, those born out of wedlock, would often make

(11:36):
claim to the throne, and in the Eastern Orthodox culture,
at least as it was practiced in Hungary and Serbia
and Romania, anyone with any basis for a bloodline claim
who was bloody minded enough to murder all of his
rivals was very possibly the king or the prince, at
least for a time. The reign of Wallachi in Transylvania, Bulgarian,

(12:02):
Serbian Bosnia nobles was often only a few years, in
some cases only a few months, and these reigns did
not end with a gentlemanly handshake and retirement, but a
beheading and sometimes a massacre of an entire family. It
was into this world that Vlad the third Vlad Sheppes

(12:23):
Dracula was born in about fourteen thirty one. They're not
exactly sure of the year, but they are sure that
it was in a house in Transylvania that still stands
to this day. Vlad's father, Vlad the Second, was a
member of a holy order of Crusaders known as the
Order of the Dragon. The Romanian word for this is Drakul,

(12:47):
So Vlad the third are Dracula's dad was actually Vlad Drakul.
The man we're talking about now was called Dracula, as
in Little Drakul, son of Drakul, or the Dragon. Just
as Dracula would be later on, Vlad the Second would
be drawn into the constant border wars and skirmishes between

(13:09):
princes in and around Wallachia. In fourteen forty two a d.
The Sultan Murraud the second was very unhappy with the
fact that Vlad the Second had not supported directly the
latest Ottoman invasion. Remember, these incursions by the Muslim Ottoman
Empire into Eastern Europe were happening yearly now, seizing more fortresses,

(13:34):
more territory, terrifying and often massacring the local Christian population.
But Vlad the seconds hold on power in Wallachia is weak.
He has to worry about the most powerful man and
hungry at the time, John Hunyadi, and the last thing
Vlad the Second wants is then the most powerful ruler
in the world, Murraud of the Ottoman Empire to engage

(13:58):
in a full scale invasion of Wallachia, or even to
just support one of Vlad's rivals to his throne. So
when the Sultan tells Vlad the Second to show up
in Gallipoli to pay homage and perhaps talk about the future,
lad shows up and brings his two sons, Vlad the

(14:19):
third Dracula and Radu, Dracula's younger brother, leaving behind in
Wallachia in the city of Targo Vista, the seat of
Lad the Second's power, his eldest son Murcia. Well, it
turns out the visit to the good old Sultan Murad

(14:40):
was a family trip that Dracula would never forget. He's
roughly ten years old at the time, and he shows
up expecting the pomp and circumstance of noble to noble discussions,
and Muraud promptly has Vlad the Second, Dracula and Radu
thrown into chains and placed in a dungeon. You have

(15:01):
to remember that at this time sultans were often known
to order the execution of all male relatives, brothers in particular,
and given the fact that the harems were well frequented
by the sultans, this could mean the execution of dozens
of small children and even babies, all to protect the

(15:22):
sultan's grip on power. So to say that the rulers
of the Ottoman Empire were willing to engage in vicious
brutality is an understatement. That was for their family members.
Imagine what they're willing to do to somebody who stands
in the way of their power, who's an enemy. So
Vlad the Second, Flad the Third, Dracula Radu are being

(15:42):
held in captivity, and a deal is struck, Vlad the
Second can return to Wallachia, returned to his main city
of Turgo Vista, and Dracula and Radu will stay behind
in the Ottoman court as hostages. Now, to be fair,
the Ottomans did treat Vlad the Third and Radu as

(16:05):
nobles in the court. Dracula himself would become absolutely fluent
in Turkish as well as other languages, get an incredible
education from some of the most learned people in the
Western world at that time, as well as being instructed
in all the finest arts and tactics of the Ottoman military.

(16:25):
The Sultan did not know it at the time, but
his most senior, talented and gifted advisors and instructors were
rigorously training a man who would become among their most
vicious foes in the finer points of combat, artillery, horsemanship, archery,
leading men in battle, and all the internal intricacies of

(16:48):
the Ottoman culture and the Sultan's court. This would prove
invaluable for Dracula later on. Radu, on the other hand,
Dracula's younger brother, would become known as Radu the Handsome.
He became a favorite of both the men and women
of the Ottoman court, and there are even contemporary chroniclers

(17:08):
who believe that he was the Sultan's lover for a time.
As we would see later, Radu turned Turk entirely and
would even fight against his own brother on the side
of the Ottomans. Apart from the rigorous academic and military
training that Dracula received during this period, it was terrifying

(17:29):
for a preadolescent to be dropped off in a foreign culture.
In a famous incident, the sons of a Serbian ruler
Brankovic were also being held hostage around this time, but
they wrote what the Sultan considered treasonoist letters home, so
the Sultan had their eyes gouged out with red hot pokers,
despite please from his wife, who was sister to his

(17:52):
two royal guests. If you crossed the Sultan, the price
was terrible, and as it turned out, Dracula most found
this out the hard way. You see, while he was
being held captive in the High Court of the Ottomans,
Christian forces back in Eastern Europe were actually undergoing another crusade.

(18:14):
In fourteen forty two, a crusade was declared by Pope
Eugenius the Fourth. Twenty five thousand men under Polish, Serbian,
Hungarian and other commanders beat the Turks, made it deep
into modern Bulgaria, capture the city of Sophia, and forced
the Sultan Maraud to come to terms. He in fact

(18:36):
agreed to restore Basses to Christian control and release Dracula
and his brother, along with all other important royal captives
in the Ottoman court, back to their homes, but the
Christian forces did not keep their word. In fact, Dracula's
father Drakkol in written correspondence, made it clear that he

(18:57):
believed his continued assistance and alliance with the Crusading forces
against the Turks would result in the execution of two
of his sons. This didn't seem to bother him too much.
In fact, it was a sacrifice he indicated he was
willing to make as long as his favorite son, Mercia,
was able to take up his line. And Marcia was

(19:20):
part of these crusading efforts into modern Bulgaria, including the
disastrous Battle of Varna, where the Turks finally defeated the
Christian forces decisively. This Battle of Varna in fourteen forty
four a d was a disaster for the allied Christian forces.
The King of Poland was killed in hand to hand combat,

(19:44):
along with thousands of the finest knights of Christendom, and
just to make a point about what they do with
other captured nobles, the Turks cut off Ladislaw's head and
raised it on a pike for all to see, most
notably for Dracula. The Christian forces had betrayed their agreement,

(20:05):
they had broken the treaty, and now the Sultan was
on the offensive. He very well could have had both
Dracula and Radu executed, but he didn't. He saw value
in them. It was just a question of how long
he would hold them in court before deploying them for
his own purposes. But then word came down from Maraud

(20:28):
himself to Dracula that his father Led the Second and
his son Murcia were ambushed and murdered by treasonous boyars
nobles in their home region of Wallachia, And after swearing
allegiance to the Sultan on a Bible and on the Quran,
Dracula was given leave to return home to Wallachia to

(20:52):
seize his birthright, become the voivode or prince, seek retribution
for his father and brother's murder, and become a useful
ally for the Sultan put in place to help with
the Ottoman campaigns to come. Or so Murad thought. It
would not be quite so easy. As Dracula made his

(21:14):
way to Wallachia, you have to remember that back in
the Ottoman court, Radu, his younger brother, had stayed behind,
and one of his closest companions and yes believed to
be his lover, was someone who would come to be
known as meh Met the Second or meth Met the conqueror,
the Sultan who took Constantinople, and he absolutely in time

(21:38):
would want Radu and not Dracula, to be the prince
of Wallachia. It's complicated at this time because Wallachia was
a vassal state both of the Turks officially as well
as of the Kingdom of Hungary, which would play a
large role in the politics and battles to come of
Dracula's life. But in fourteen forty seven, Dracula returns home

(22:03):
and he is now free, but also a Turkish officer
at the same time, somebody trained in the Ottoman ways
of warfare, their language, and their culture. Based on his
connections and his family wealth, he's able to cobble together
a force that is loyal enough to him that he
thinks he has a shot of pushing all of his
rivals in Ballachia out of the way. Remember, his father

(22:26):
was assassinated by boyars, who quickly divided up power and
spoils among themselves. Next door in Hungary, John Hunyadi, who
was considered one of the great crusaders against the Ottomans
of his day, lost at the Battle of Kosovo. While
that's going on, Dracula decides that the time was perfect

(22:48):
because Hunyadi had been backing the other side of the
Wallachian power structure. So while Hunyadi is trying to pull
things together after a massive loss to the Turks, Dracula
stages a coup takes control of Wallachia with some help
from Turkish cavalry friends who came along with him, but

(23:10):
this period lasts only two months. Then he fled to
Turkey and then finally to Moldavia, where he spent two
years in the court there. But in fourteen fifty one,
bog Down of Moldavia, who was his ally that allowed
him to stay there, was assassinated and Dracula once again

(23:31):
had to flee, so he escaped through the Borgo Pass
to Transylvania. During this period, Dracula's trying to lay low,
but John Hunyadi, who is the most powerful man not
technically the king, but the most powerful man in neighboring Hungary,
who was involved at least in some way in supporting
the murder of Dracula's brother and dad, has heard the

(23:53):
Dracula is in fact in Transylvania and decides that he's
going to write letters to all city leaders that if
you have Dracula near you, if you have Dracula taking
refuge with you, you must chase him out. Some even
went further than this and tried to have Dracula assassinated.
First in Brasov, the vice governor there tried to have

(24:16):
Dracula killed, but as would be the case many times
going forward, Dracula managed to escape the noose at the
last minute and get away from an ambush that had
been set for him. But then major change in the
Ottoman court brings about a change of heart for Hunyadi.
A new sultan rises to power. Me Met this second,

(24:38):
and as I said, he would become known as meth
Met the Conqueror, and he had absolute designs on the
conquest not only of the Balkans, Wallachia, Hungary, but all
of Eastern Europe. And then he wanted to strike into
the heart of Christian Europe itself, to Vienna and beyond.
John Hunyadi of Hungary is one of the few military

(25:02):
leaders who recognizes this, and he understands that Dracula will
be a very powerful frontline defender of Christendom if only
he had the proper backing. So Hunyadi invites Dracula to
make peace with him in person, and gave him a
command position in his army. But of course the price

(25:22):
of this was that it was up to Dracula to
be the front line of defense against the next Turkish invasion.
Fortunately for Dracula, but for the detriment of all of Christianity.
At the time, methmets sites were focused on a much
bigger prize than the rugged and relatively poor area of

(25:45):
Vallachia in what is today's Romania. He was going for
Constantinople itself, and in fourteen fifty three the great calamity struck.
In fact, there's another Shield's High podcast you can listen
to entirely on the fall of Constantinople. But Methmet took
fifty thousand Christian slaves and thousands more murdered in the streets.

(26:09):
The Theodosian walls were not enough to prevent this invasion
of the Turks against Constantinople from being successful, and in fact,
Venetian sailors who escaped told stories of mass impalements the
Turks committed outside the city walls of Constantinople. The Christian
forces of Eastern Europe knew what was next Belgrade, then

(26:32):
Buddha today's Budapest, then Vienna. The Battle of Belgrade put
six thousand Christian defenders against an Aman force at least five,
perhaps ten times that size. But John Hunyadi, along with
John of Capistrano, somebody who had pulled together what was
essentially a people's crusade of just those gathered together on

(26:57):
the streets who wanted to wage war against the Turk,
were able to hold back the Turkish onslaught at Belgrade.
Pope Eugenius the fourth called it the happiest event of
his life. So for a time it seemed the direct
route for an invasion into the heart of Christendom was
blocked for the Turks. But this would mean they would

(27:18):
turn their sights on Volachia. In the background of the
siege of Belgrade, Dracula had used a force of mercenaries
and friendly boyars to hunt down Vladisla the Second in Turgovista,
the capital of Vallachia, and Dracula ended up killing him.
This was the man who orchestrated directly the assassination of

(27:39):
Dracula's brother and father, buried the brother alive. In fact,
Dracula killed Vladislav the second in single combat hand to hand,
so at twenty five years old, Dracula once again became
the Prince of Volachia. This would last for six years

(28:02):
and would be the most important of the three periods
of Dracula's reign, and it would be the time when
Dracula used his most vicious and sadistic methods to wage
war on the quarreling and backstabbing nobles who had been
a constant threat in the background of his life. But

(28:24):
during this period, Dracula also showed himself to be a
great builder. He founded the fortress of Bucharest, which would
later on become the capital of modern day Romania. He
rebuilt a foreboding castle near the Hungarian border that would
come to be known as Castle Dracula, and he even
minted his own coins. It was his war on the

(28:46):
boyars inside Vallachia, however, that would begin the reputation of
Dracula as a bloodthirsty, evil, tyrant, demonic, and perhaps the
devil himself. Once story well illustrates this. In fourteen fifty
seven Easter Sunday, Dracula seized boyars and their wives at

(29:11):
a celebration meal for the holiest day in all of Christianity.
Dracula immediately ordered the impalement of the older boyars and
their wives. He marched the younger and healthier ones fifty
miles and forced them to help rebuild what would come
to be known as Castle Dracula. There was also a

(29:33):
method to the sadism and madness. Dracula gave property to
peasants and elevated them so they would only be loyal
to him. After executing one of these boyars, he would
take their property and use it effectively as a bribe
to create a new boyar who owed everything to Dracula
and knew that if he ever crossed Dracula, he himself

(29:56):
would face impalement. Dracula also understood that he had to
build a force that would be loyal entirely to him
of cutthroats, mercenaries, and assassins. He pulled together gypsies, tatars, hungarians, serbs,
cutthroats from all across the region. He even gave gypsies

(30:18):
immunity from crimes that they committed so long as they
were willing to join the personal army of Dracula. And
believe it or not, the peasants of this time. Despite
his severe and draconian approach to enforcing the law and
to dealing with his enemies, the peasants of this time
liked Dracula. They thought that he was a builder, that

(30:40):
he was fair, that he was fierce and perhaps evil
at heart, but that he maintained some degree of honor
in all of this. His word was good. It's just
if you broke your word to him, he would have
you gutted, impaled, and perhaps lit on fire. And this
the legends of Dracula, is where we get the beginnings

(31:04):
of the mythology of this monster who drinks blood and
who is part of the undead. Dracula was known to
go around to peasants and ask them about what was
going on in their community, a kind of undercover boss
situation where he wanted to know what the ground truth was,
but there was no amnesty for people who lied to him,

(31:25):
even if they did not know who he was. There
are stories told by some of those who hated Dracula,
the Saxons, who were German transplants into Wallachia merchants mostly
who felt that Dracula was constantly trying to take more
from them and undermine them. But they spread stories far

(31:47):
and wide of his cruelty, as did Christian monks, who
Dracula felt were always trying to get in the way
of his power. It's tough to know how much of
these stories are true, but they have been passed down
over the centuries. In one case, Dracula supposedly called together
a meal for all of the beggars in Turgo Vista,

(32:10):
the capital of Wallachia, and all the realm. They gathered
together for a sumptuous feast, the most incredible food imaginable,
with endless amounts of ale and beer, all poured for
them at no expense. Once they became completely satiated and
drunk beyond words, they found out that Dracula had had

(32:33):
the entirety of this great hall barricaded, set it on fire,
and burned everybody inside alive. When asked about this, Dracula
said that beggars were even worse than thieves, because at
least thieves showed some initiative, at least they were willing
to do something to take money from you. Beggars just

(32:54):
took it from you, slowly and without action. In another
famous story passed down through thee a gypsy leader came
to complain to Dracula that his constant use of impalement
was contrary to the law as it existed at the time.
Dracula heard him, listened very respectfully, and then had this

(33:16):
gypsy leader boiled alive and forced his followers to eat him.
That's right, forced cannibalism while Dracula watched. In one of
the stories about his severity but also strange honesty, a
merchant passing through Dracula's territory had his goods parked outside

(33:36):
of Wanner Dracula's palaces. Some of this merchant's gold duckets
had gone missing over the course of the night. He
went to complain to Dracula about this, as Dracula had
given him his word that in his realm there would
be no stealing. Dracula immediately put out that anybody who
was involved in this theft would be impaled, and anyone
who did not tell about who was involved in the

(33:58):
theft would share the same fate. So the thieves were
quickly found, but in the meantime, Dracula also had every
single gold coin that was missing placed back among the
merchant's belongings. Later in the day, Dracula asked the merchant
if all had been made well, but he had made
sure that there was one additional gold coin given to

(34:19):
the merchant fortunately for him, He said everything was well,
but he did find one additional gold coin among his belongings.
Dracula laughed and said how fortunate this merchant was, because
if he had not told Dracula about the extra gold coin,
he would have had him impaled on the spot, and

(34:40):
the merchant knew it was true. Dracula also savagely punished
women for infidelity, with tortures and mistreatments that I can't
even tell you here. Needless to say, he was not
above mutilation and the worst and cruelest kinds of punishment.
In his own courtyard of his p alice at Turgovista,

(35:01):
Dracula had steaks laid out constantly so that people could
see the most recent victims of his impalement frenzy. But
it wasn't only impalement that Dracula had his minions engaged.
He also blinded, burned, decapitated, strangled, roasted, skinned, and buried alive.

(35:21):
He even had secret trapdoors in his palaces with sharp
steaks placed below so he could throw unsuspecting people who
displeased him down to their immediate death. As part of
his war on the Saxon merchant class, who were constantly
trying to back other people for the throne of Vallachia
Vlad the Impaler Dracula, as he is now known, would overrun,

(35:47):
burn down entire cities, and then impale every man and
woman that he captured. From fifteen sixty to fifteen sixty two.
His war on the Boyars caused thousands, perhaps tens of
thousands of casualties, many of them impaled, but his campaign
was successful. He managed to stay in power, and that

(36:12):
was why the Sultan meth Met the conqueror, decided to
send some of his emissaries to pay Dracula a visit.
The emissaries of the Sultan were welcomed into Dracula's court
at first, although he recognized that there was no way
he was going to play out his youth again and
go pay the tribute to the Sultan in person. He

(36:33):
also refused the five hundred boys of tribute for the
janissary program of the Turks, and in one infamous episode,
one of the Turkish intermediaries refused to take off his cap.
This offended Dracula, so he had the cap the Turban
nailed into the Turk's head. Dracula also famously did this

(36:57):
to two Genoese merchants who came to eat with him
and did not remove their hats in his presence, nails
directly into their skulls, and as they were being murdered
in this way, Dracula said that he wanted to help
them respect their traditions forever. With the murder of an
envoy and the rejection of the Sultan's request for an

(37:20):
in person audience, it was clear that the Sultan was
going to have to take out this troublemaker, so he
sent an initial force in fourteen sixty two to go
after lured impaler. As Dracula was known to the Turks
at that time sixty thousand men plus twenty thousand irregulars,

(37:40):
but the Turks did not realize just who they were
up against. Dracula was able to trap and murder the
first senior Turkish official who came after him with forces,
and also was able to take the fortress of geer
Yu by yelling to the Turks in perfect Turkish just
to open the gate. They couldn't believe that somebody from

(38:02):
Wallachia spoke fluent Turkish. Dracula recognized the only way to
deal with the vastly superior Turkish force was to go
completely scorched earth. He even would send in sick people
that had the plague or that had other diseases into
the Ottoman camp to see if they could spread the disease.

(38:23):
He engaged in constant guerrilla tactics anything he could do,
poisoning of wells, slaughtering of livestock, paying assassins and brigands
to pick off any Turkish forces that got separated from
the main army. If it was a means to strike
at his enemies, Dracula was willing to do it, no

(38:43):
matter how vicious, no matter how cunning. And then one
of the most famous of all instances of Dracula's life,
the Sultan Methmet and his vastly larger force thought that
it had boxed in Dracula and his forces in a
mountainous area, while Dracula decided to turn the tables. This

(39:07):
led to what is known on June seventeenth of fourteen
sixty two as the Night Raid of Turgovista. This was
a raid into the Ottoman camp with nothing but torches
by Dracula and his cavalry and his army of irregulars
intended to kill the Sultan himself in his tent. It

(39:30):
was a massacre. Dracula and his forces operated at night
as though they could see perfectly well. According to the
chroniclers who observed the battle, they knew the terrain better.
They were entirely at home, going from tent to tent,
massacring members of the Turkish military who were caught completely unaware.
Thousands were hacked and bludgeoned to death, and Dracula almost

(39:55):
pulled off the incredible feat of killing the most powerful
men the world met the second in his own tent.
His most elite forces targeted one red tent that they
believed belonged to the Sultan. They got inside massacred everyone,
only to realize it was the wrong tent, a senior
verzier perhaps, but not the Sultan himself. Dracula and his forces,

(40:20):
after hours of massacre and mutilation of the Turks, pulled
out before sun up. The Turkish forces were deeply demoralized,
but the Sultan would not stop. He ordered the continued
march to Turgo Vista, and when they got to the city,

(40:41):
they saw one of the most terrifying scenes described in
all the Dracula literature, the Forest of the Impaled, thousands
and thousands of bodies impaled high on stakes, arranged like
a forest just outside of Turgo Vista proper. The Turkish

(41:02):
soldiers were horrified, and they just can't take it anymore.
With winter coming, they decide it's time to turn back.
That's right, an entire Turkish invasion force turned around by
the absolute ruthlessness of Dracula, Prince of Wallachia. It's hard

(41:23):
to fully gauge just what a seismic shift this was
in the Ottoman plans for conquest. But for an army
led by the Sultan himself, with his crack troops, his janissaries,
his spa he's, the elite nobles and the cavalry of
the Ottoman Empire, his cannons, his vastly superior forces was

(41:44):
a shock to the Ottoman system. Of course, they returned
home claiming victory, but people knew Lord Impaler had frightened
away the Sultan himself. It was not over for Dracula,
though his brother Radu was now the primary challenger for
his throne and had the full backing of the Turks

(42:07):
behind him. It was then political intrigue that would undo Dracula,
as he was taken prisoner by Matthias kor Venus, the
son of John Hunyadi and the most powerful man in
Hungary at the time. Dracula was held as an elite
and a noble, but he was under house arrest in

(42:29):
various Hungarian palaces during this period, and Radu, his brother,
with Hungarian connivance, was able to become the Prince of
Vallachia in Vlad's absence. It was said that during Dracula's
captivity and Hungary, when some of the most well known
portraits of him were painted, that he had a very

(42:51):
strange habit of buying mice and birds and impaling them.
But you have to remember that Dracula was a renowned
crusader and incredibly able at warfare even with small forces,
and that required the kind of mountain hit and run
tactics that he had used so successfully against the Turks.

(43:14):
So the Hunyadi family, with now Matthias Corvinus as its head,
officially became the royal family of Hungary. They took the
Hungarian crown and allowed Dracula to marry into their royal family.
Dracula also converted officially to Catholicism at this time from

(43:34):
his Eastern Orthodox Christianity, though this was clearly done for
political purposes, and during his captivity, his brother Radu ended
up fighting a war while he was Prince of Vallachia
against the Moldavians, which did not go well, and the
sources of the time claimed that Radu ended up dying

(43:55):
of a terrible case of syphilis. During this period, the
time was right for Dracula's backers in Hungary to put
him once again for a third time, on the throne
of Wallachia. As the prince, he took power, settled some
scores with old nemesses by impaling them, of course, and

(44:15):
then began yet another campaign against the Turks in fourteen
seventy six, this time centered on the area of Srebernitza,
where yes he defeated some Turkish forces, impaled all of
the survivors, and burned entire villages and forts to the ground.
But Dracula had made so many enemies at this point

(44:35):
inside of Vallachia that when he returned, though the circumstances
of his actual death seem a bit murky. He was murdered,
likely at the hands of an assassin who was posing
as one of his servants, paid by the Turks, but
also perhaps by the boyar nobles inside Vallachia, or Hungarian

(44:56):
or Serbian or other rivals, all of whom had come
to hate Dracula with the fire of a thousand sons.
By legend, Dracula was buried at the Snagov Monastery, though
later on when they exhumed his tomb there was nobody
found inside. The myth of Dracula did not take long

(45:17):
to spread far and wide. His exploits, his mass impalements,
his murder of thousands and thousands coincided with the invention
of the printing press in the mid fifteenth century, and
in fact, Tales of Dracula would be among the first
for profit books ever published. The German Saxon sources of

(45:40):
the time particularly hated Dracula and told the most lurid
stories of his impalements and yes, his drinking of human blood.
The Russian sources, on the other hand, viewed him as
severe but fair, and over time, in Romania he would
come to be known mostly as a national hero who

(46:01):
defeated the Turks and prevented what is present day Romania
from becoming a Turkish state. But it was the Romanian
folklore over the centuries, taking the tale of Dracula and
through the oral tradition, beginning to mix it with the
folkloric demon known as the Strigoy, that set the basis

(46:23):
for the Dracula tale. We have come to know today
of a man undead who must drink the blood of
innocent victims in order to stay alive, and who has
supernatural powers, can only be killed with a stake through
the heart, with silver, with garlic, and has a fear
of crosses. All of this comes from the Romanian folklore,

(46:47):
which Braham Stoker relied on in large part for his
creation of the Dracula myth in his Timeless novel of
eighteen ninety seven. So now you know the story of
the real Dracula. He was a historical figure of great
importance in his day. But he was also in many
ways far more terrifying than a sharp fanged vampire who

(47:11):
turns into a bat. Because this Dracula was real. This
has been shields high