Vlad the Impaler

Ben Langdale

Vlad III or better known as COUNT DRACULA, was the most terrifying ruler in the 15th century. Vlad became notorious for his evil ways of killing people, including his most favorite; impaling enemies with long sharpened wooden stakes. This is a gruesome process in which the victim had a wooden stake slowly driven through their body before being left to die of exposure.
That is how he got his nickname “Vlad the Impaler.” Vlad’s victims were murdered through unbearable means including beheadings, skinned, disembowelment and even being boiled alive. Experts today agree that he is responsible of the killings of 40,000 to 100,000 people.

Vlad III was a 15th century ruler of Wallachia, which is today known as Romania. His father Vlad II was a member of the Order of the Dragon in which solid purpose was to protect the land from the muslim Ottoman Empire in which was increasing rapidly. His father died in 1456 in battle with the Ottoman Empire and Vlad III took the throne soon after. He began to rule in a bloody and dictatorship manner, striking fear in the hearts of his enemies. In 1461, the war with the Ottomans began as a result from Vlad III attacking Ottoman strongholds on their land. The Ottomans began to push back his army. During a night raid, Vlad killed many thousands of Ottomans, and impaled their dead bodies on wooden post for the enemy armies to see the next morning. The most famous military defeat under Vlad the Impaler's rule is against the advancing Ottoman Turks, Vlad supposedly had around 20,000 men impaled on the banks of the Danube. The second wave of invaders retreated immediately after seeing the horrific forest of corpses.

Vlad the Impaler used his punishments to the extreme. One account describes a gypsy man who had stolen something from Dracula while traveling through his land. Vlad had the man boiled, and then forced the other gypsies to eat him. In an attempt to clean up Wallachia, Vlad invited all the sick and old residents to clean up the streets of the city of Tirgoviste (capital of Wallachia.) He then invited the sick and beggars to one of his home for a feast and burned them alive.   According to many historians, Vlad participated and enjoyed eating his meals among the thousands of impaled bodies of his enemies. He would even dip his bread into the blood of his victims. This bloodthirst practice along with the name “Dracula” (son of Dracul) derived from his father's’ Order of Dragon  and Vlad’s birthplace of Transylvania would later inspire the vampire in Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel “Dracula.”  Bram Stoker was responsible for bringing the idea and belief about vampires alive. “Dracula” means son of Dracul who was Vlad the Impaler's father nickname.  “Dracul” means “dragon” " in Romanian. Dracul belonged to the Order of the Dragon, which fought the Muslim Ottoman Empire. Bram Stoker based vampires off of Vlad the Impaler’s bloodthirst and ruthlessness. Vlad the Impaler finally died in battle when his army was outnumbered by the turks but his body was never found. Many skeptics have their reasons, but to most, it’s because he is the real count dracula.

Works Cited:
Miller, Dr. Elizabeth.”Count Dracula vs Vlad the Impaler” count dracula vs vlad the impaler 2005 web. 21, October 2015
Andrews, Evan “7 Terrifying Historical Figures” A&E Television Networks 2012 web 21, October 2015
Nixon, Eli “10 Fascinating Facts About the Real Dracula” Listverse Ltd. 2007 web 21, October 2015

Further Research:
Vlad the Impaler. http://www.medievality.com/vlad-the-impaler.html This cite has alot of information about Vlad the Impaler and the highlight of events in his life.
       
The Terrifying Truth about Dracula http://www.infoplease.com/spot/dracula1.html This cite talks about the Order of the Dragon, Vlad the Impalers life, and his missing corpse.

Vlad the Impaler: The Real Dracula's Dark Secrets http://www.livescience.com/48536-vlad-the-impaler-dark-secrets.html This cite is great for reviling the dark side of Vlad III.

Vlaislov III Dracula, Vlad the Impaler

Author: Ryan George

Vlad Dracula III, also called Vlad the Impaler, was born in Sighiorsa, Transylvania in the year 1431.His father, Vlad II Dracul, was a member of the Order of the Dragon; an order committed to the preservation of the Christian faith against Islamic influences by any means required. In 1438, however, his father betrayed the order and joined forces with the Turks, allowing them to keep Vlad III and his brother Mircea as guarantees of Vlad II’s loyalty.

When, in 1447, Vlad II was killed by John Hunyadi for his Turkish allegiance, Vlad III was released. When he returned to Wallachia to take his place on the throne, he discovered the boyars (a word for a minor nobleman) of Tirgoviste held the throne and had murdered his brother. In 1456, the teenage Vlad finally gained his rightful throne after killing the boyars and the murderer of his father with the help of Turkish cavalry.

Thirteen years later, Vlad began his reign of blood during an Easter feast. He ordered the healthy boyars attending sent off to labor in the construction of a new castle on the Arges river, the unhealthy were impaled in a public display.

In addition to killing his enemies, Vlad also despised the weak. He held a feast to which all his subject were invited, under the rouse of wanting to feed all the poor in his kingdom. When the guests arrived, he had them fed and got them drunk, then asked who among them would like to go without care or hunger forever. Of course they all wanted to, so Vlad boarded up the mansion he used for the feast and had it burned to the ground, ridding himself of all the poor, ill, and handicapped in his land.

Vlad’s main weapon was, not surprisingly, psychological. In the year 1461, Vlad failed to assassinate the Turkish Sultan, who became enraged and vowed to kill Vlad. Vlad, when he discovered the failed plot, knowing he couldn’t defeat the Turkish army, retreated with his army to Tirgoviste. While he retreated, he burned every village he found, dumped the corpses of pigs into the wells to putrefy them, and left fields of impaled villagers.

The sultan, his army demoralized, retreated for a few years, and Vlad’s brother Radu led the Turkish forces to take his throne. Hungarian reinforcements, meant to aid Vlad, instead arrested him. They escorted him back to Hungary where he was interred until 1474. Vlad died in the year 1476, however, shortly after retaking his throne, in a battle with an ottoman lord who claimed the Wallachian throne.

There are many unknown tales of Vlad, which may or may not be true. One such tale was that, in order to win support for his country, Vlad placed a golden cup on a stand overnight unobserved. The next morning, the cup remained. His subjects knew that to take the cup and be caught meant a slow, certain death. Another tale holds that, when three foreign ambassadors came to visit Vlad, they were told to remove their hats. When they refused, their hats were nailed to their heads. A third is that, when Vlad had 30,000 of the merchants and nobles of the city of Barasov impaled, he held a feast among the forests of those people still alive on their poles in order to fully enjoy the experience. He noticed one of his own nobles holding his nose against the stench, and so the man was impaled above all the others.

There are other tales, and other vesions of those tales. For further study, I’ve included a few links below. 

Works Cited: 

Picture of The Impaler. Digital image. Listal. Listal, 2012. Web. 18 Oct. 2012. <http://i2.listal.com/image/4185404/600full-vlad-the-impaler.jpg>.

"Vlad the Impaler (1431-1476)." Vlad the Impaler. Historicaltimeline.com, 29 Oct. 2009. Web. 11 Oct. 2012.

"Vlad Dracula/Tepes - The Impaler." Vlad Dracula/Tepes - The Impaler. Castle of Spirits, n.d. Web. 16 Oct. 2012.

Evolutica. "Dracula." Vlad. Draculas.info, 5 Aug. 2006. Web. 16 Oct. 2012.

Jenkins, Mark. Vampire Forensics: Uncovering the Origins of an Enduring Legend. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic, 2010. Print.

Wilde, Robert. "Vlad the Impaler / Vlad III Dracula / Vlad Tepes." About.com European History. About.com, n.d. Web. 16 Oct. 2012.

Links for Further Research:

http://www.vladtheimpaler.com/vlad_the_impaler_bio_003.htm A site about Vlad in particular, seems to have a few historical sources.
http://www.castleofspirits.com/vlad.html
A site about creepy things. Fairly corny, but useful for the tales about Vlad.
http://europeanhistory.about.com/od/famouspeople/a/Vlad-The-Impaler.htm
A site which gives the history of Vlad the Impaler in an unbiased way. It may have been translated from another language, as the wording is, at times, a bit off.