Vlad the Impaler
Vlad the Impaler was well known for the
punishment that he adopted, the impalement, this is the reason why he was
named Tepes, which means The Impaler. The method of impaling criminals and
enemies and raising them aloft in the town square for all to see is associated
with his ruthless image. Almost any crime, from lying and stealing to killing,
could be punished by impalement. Dracula used various means of torturing
including, cutting of limbs, blinding, strangulation, burning, cutting off
noses and ears, mutilation of sexual organs, scalping, skinning, exposure to
the elements or to wild animals and boiling alive. Death by impalement was
slow and painful. Victims sometimes endured for hours or days. Dracula often
had the stakes arranged in various geometric patterns. The most common pattern
was a ring of concentric circles in the outskirts of the city that was his
target. The height of the spear indicated the rank of the victim. The decaying
corpses were often left up for months.
History condemned him for killing many
(about 500) of the nobility who did not like or agree with him. The poet
Michael Beheim, wrote about the impaling of the 500 nobles. The book
"Povestirile Slavone" tells how Vlad the Impaler (Dracula) impaled anyone who
was found guilty, nobles, soldiers and priests - no exceptions. The same book
indicates he was trying to eliminate from society, people in poverty. He
announced to all, the blind, handicapped, elderly, poor, etc., an invitation
to a party (similar to a charity dinner) in a special house. All of the people
invited, entered the house, ate and drank. After, Dracula asked them if they
wanted to cease to be a burden to their loved ones and end their poverty. All
the people present agreed. When he heard that, he ordered the house set on
fire and all the people were killed.
Impalement was and is one of the most
gruesome ways of dying imaginable. Dracula usually had a horse attached to
each of the victim's legs and a sharpened stake was gradually forced into the
body. The end of the stake was usually oiled and care was taken that the stake
not be too sharp, else the victim might die too rapidly from shock. Normally
the stake was inserted into the body through the buttocks and was often forced
through the body until it emerged from the mouth. However, there were many
instances where victims were impaled through other bodily orifices or through
the abdomen or chest. Infants were sometimes impaled on the stake forced
through their mothers' chests. The records indicate that victims were
sometimes impaled so that they hung upside down on the stake.
His first major act of revenge was aimed
at the boyars of Tirgoviste for for not being loyal to his father. On Easter
Sunday he invited all the boyar families who had participated at the princely
feast. He asked them how many princes had ruled in their lifetimes. They said
they had lived through many reigns. Shouting that this was their fault because
of their plotting, Dracula had them all arrested on the spot. He impaled the
older ones on stakes while forcing the others to march from the capital to the
town of Poenari. This fifty-mile trek was quite grueling and no one was
permitted to rest until they reached destination. Dracula then ordered boyars
to build him a fortress on the ruins of an older outpost overlooking the Arges
River. Many died in the process, and therefore Dracula succeeded in creating a
new nobility and obtaining a fortress for future emergencies. What is left
today of the building is identified as Poenari Fortress (Cetatea Poenari).
A German story about Brasov, a real
massacre, says that Dracula was sitting at a table filled with food and drink.
In front of him, on a hill, some of his soldiers began to impale a number of
the Saxon traders simply because of his dislike for them, and because of their
attempts to remove him from the throne of Valachia. Another story, described
the impaled bodies looking like a forest. Many German stories of that time,
indicated that Dracula caused many people to suffer. There are manuscripts
dating from 1462 telling of impaling as his way of serving justice.
At the beginning of 1462, Dracula
launched a campaign against the Turks along the Danube river. It was quite
risky, the military force of Sultan Mehmed II being by far more powerful than
the Wallachian army. However, during the winter of 1462, Dracula was
very successful and managed to gain many victories. To punish Dracula, the
Sultan decided to launch a full-scale invasion of Wallachia. Of course, his
other goal was to transform this land into a Turkish province and he entered
Wallachia with an army three times larger than Dracula's. Finding himself
without allies, Dracula, forced to retreat towards Tirgoviste, burned his own
fields and poisoned the wells along the way, so that the Turkish army would
find nothing to eat or drink. When the Sultan, exhausted, finally reached the
capital city, he was confronted by a most gruesome sight: thousands of stakes
held the remaining carcasses of some 20,000 Turkish captives, a horror scene
which was ultimately nicknamed the "Forest of the Impaled." This terror tactic
deliberately stage-managed by Dracula was definitely successful, the scene had
a strong effect on Mehmed's most stout-hearted officers, and the Sultan, tired
and hungry, admitted defeat. Nevertheless, following his retreat from
Wallachian territory, Mehmed left the next phase of the battle to Dracula's
younger brother Radu, the Turkish favorite for the Wallachian throne. At the
head of a Turkish army and joined by Dracula's detractors, Radu pursued his
brother to Poenari castle on the Arges river. The Turks finally succeeded in
forcing Dracula to flee to Transylvania in 1462. Reportedly, his first wife
committed suicide by leaping from the towers of Dracula's castle into the
waters of the Arges River rather than surrender to the Turks. The river was
afterwards known as the "Princess River". Dracula escaped across the mountains
into Transylvania and appealed to Matthias Corvinus for aid. Instead the King
had him arrested and imprisoned in a royal tower near Buda. Dracula remained a
prisoner for twelve years.
Little is know of his first wife, who
committed suicide, but history reveals more about the second wife of Vlas
Tepes, Ilona Szilagy, it is believed that she was the sister of Matei Corvin
(Matthias Corvinus). In 1462, Matthias had imprisoned Dracula for twelve
years, most of which were spent in the palace of Visegrad and was where Ilona
had met the prince of Wallachia. After his release from imprisonment, they
married and had two sons, one named Vladislav IV and the other thought to be
named Mircea. Dracula himself already had an illigitimate son before her with
an unknown woman, probably a Transylvanian woman. His name was Mihail and had
become known later in life as Mihnea the Bad. It was then his involvement into
Dracula's life that Matthias decided to take some action against the Turks
since Dracula was known to be an avid crusader against them.
Some say that the ghosts of Dracula and
his wife can still be seen by those game enough to spend a night at the eerie
castle.
