When we think of beheadings and gruesome deaths, most Americans think of the Taliban, Al Qaeda, or ISIS/ISIL, or, the term I prefer, Daesh. But gruesome murders were de rigueur in wartime, and Christians were every bit as gruesome as any Muslim terrorists today. Take Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, of the House of Draculesti, also known as Vlad Draculea, Vlad Dracula, or Vlad Tepes (Vlad the Impaler). He was a good Christian boy during the period the Ottomans were battling for control of the Balkans. His father, Vlad II Dracul, was a member of the Order of the Dragon, founded to protect Christianity. Born in 1431, Vlad III was given to the Ottoman Turks as a political hostage at the age of 13. The Turks taught him the Turkish language, horsemanship, and the Qu’ran. Unlike his well-behaved and well-liked younger brother, who was also turned over to the Turks, Vlad was defiant and constantly punished, which may have spurred his hostility towards the Ottomans. By 1459, Vlad III was back in Wallachia. Pope Pius II called for another Crusade that year. The Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II send a delegation to Vlad III to collect a delayed tribute. But if Vlad had paid the Ottomans a tribute (consisting of money and men) it would mean he was allied with the Turks. Vlad III responded by nailing their turbans to their heads, on the pretext that they had not doffed their hats to him. Meanwhile, the Sultan had sent a force of 1000 cavalry to take Vlad’s stronghold close to the Danube. Vlad and his troops ambushed the Turks and impaled almost all of them. Now, you might wonder how one is impaled. I’m sure there are numerous methods, but here is one reported to have been employed by Vlad: One foot of the victim would be tied to one horse, the other foot to another horse, and the horses then slowly moved apart, so that the victim would be lifted into a vertical position, kind of doing the splits in the air. A staff that had been rounded at the tip (by Vlad’s preference) and oiled was pushed into the victim’s anus, then pushed all the way through until it came out the victim’s mouth. This did not immediately kill the victim, who would then be lifted into a vertical position, the staff planted into the ground. Death took many agonizing hours, and often several days, during which the victim was usually aware. It is said that Vlad liked to take his meals outside amongst his “forest” of groaning, screaming victims. In 1462, while the Crusade still raged, Vlad crossed the Danube and devastated the entire area between Serbia and the Black Sea. He wrote to the leader of the Crusade, “I have killed peasants men and women, old and young……We killed 23,884 Turks without counting those whom we burned in homes or the Turks whose heads were cut by our soldiers...Thus, your highness, you must know that I have broken the peace with him (Sultan Mehmet II).” In response to this, Sultan Mehmed II raised an army of 90,000, including Vlad’s younger brother Radu, who had been mostly raised by the Turks. The Ottomans crossed the Danube in June 1462. Vlad was unable to turn them back, though he did launch numerous attacks on them, killing as many as 15,000 in one night. Vlad eventually lost his castle to an army led by his younger brother. In autumn of 1462, Vlad and the man tasked with leading the Crusade spent 5 weeks making battle plans and alliances. Vlad then started home to Wallachia, confident he had gained Hungarian support for his crusade against the Ottomans. However, he was ambushed by Matthias Corvinus’ (the leader of the Crusade)’s own men, and spirited away to Hungary. No one can say why exactly Matthias Corvinus shifted his loyalties and betrayed Vlad. One possible explanation is that in the early 1460s, the Hungarian king became distracted by the possibility of receiving the title of Holy Roman Emperor, and effectively tried to end the anti-Ottoman crusades in Eastern Europe. To focus on gaining power in Central Europe, he abandoned the Balkans to the Turks, a hasty and incriminating move for a supposed crusader-king. In order to justify his actions, he ordered Vlads arrest, claiming that the Wallachian prince was actually in league with the Turks; therefore, the entire area was undeserving of his protection. Vlad was held in captivity for around 8 years, until 1470, but by 1475 he was free and had put together another small army. Accompanied by neighboring allied Christians, he invaded Wallachia and claimed it for himself. But no sooner had he been enthroned than his allies left, leaving him with about 4000 men to defend against an Ottoman invasion. Vlad was crowned in late November 1476 and reigned for less than 2 months before being killed in battle. After Vlads death, several pamphlets detailing his brutality were circulated in Germany, Russia, and elsewhere (aided by the recent invention of the Guttenberg press). A typical German pamphlet from 1521 gives numerous examples of lurid incidents, such as the following: He roasted children, whom he fed to their mothers. And (he) cut off the breasts of women, and forced their husbands to eat them. After that, he had them all impaled. While some areas of Eastern Europe and Russia celebrated him as a warrior, Vlad III Ţepeş reputation in Western Europe was as a tyrant who took sadistic pleasure in torturing and killing his enemies. Estimates of the number of his victims range from 40,000 to 100,000. He also had whole villages and fortresses destroyed and burned to the ground. But impalement was Vlads preferred method of torture and execution. Upon finding a forest of 20,000 impaled bodies, Sultan Mehmed II is said to have been so horrified and sickened at the sight that fled to get away from the horror. So when we measure who the terrorists are, who the violent, horrible people filled with bloodlust are, let us not forget our own good Christian men---because the Muslims certainly have not.
Posted on: Thu, 30 Oct 2014 04:12:46 +0000
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