Dracula and the Turks: The Connection Between Mehmet the Conqueror and Vlad the Impaler

It's 1462. The Ottoman army is advancing under the orders of Sultan Mehmet II through the Romanian countryside toward Târgovişte, medieval capital of Walachia. They expect a hard fight but instead find the city deserted-a foul stench in the air. Along the main road beyond the city they find the calling card of the most notorious warrior in European history.

Corpses of Turks and Bulgarian Muslims spitted on wooden stakes line the road for miles: some men impaled through the abdomen; others killed with a pole forced up through anus and out the mouth. Hamza Pasha, a Turkish general and the most senior of all the dead, rots on the highest stake. Sultan Mehmet II, not a naturally squeamish man--during the siege of Constantinople he often impaled men guilty of treachery or cowardice--turns over command to his generals with orders to retreat. He's had enough of facing Vlad Dracula in battle.

The fall of Constantinople in 1453 unleashed chaos in southeast Europe. The Byzantine Empire had stood as a bulwark against the Turks. In the years following the sack, the only serious threat to Ottoman hegemony is the Kingdom of Hungary. Only one thing separates the two nations: the Kingdom of Walachia.

Walachia's rolling plains south of the Carpathians and command of the lower Danube. make the country an unwilling battleground. The Walachian ruling family, however, is long accustomed to this precarious niche. Dracula's father, Vlad II, attempted to keep Walachia out of the dispute but his lukewarm stance against Ottoman expansion got him deposed by the Hungarians. He immediately allied with the Turks and regained his throne in 1444, sending his two sons, Radu and Vlad as hostages, proof of his vassalage to Sultan Murad II.

Vlad Dracula was about 13 when he and his brother were taken to Egrigoz in western Anatolia. Though their lives rested on their father's loyalty, they were treated with respect. They had tutors who taught them logic, fighting, Islamic theology and Turkish. They also met figures of the Ottoman court-most importantly, Mehmet II.