Vlad The Impaler

 

Vlad The Impaler

The Night Attack (1462) The Night Attack was a battle fought between the forces of Wallachian Prince Vlad III, known as Vlad the Impaler, and the forces of Mehmed II, sultan of the Ottoman Empire. After Vlad raided Bulgaria and killed more than 20,000 Turks and Bulgarians, Mehmed marched on Wallachia, and the two powers fought a series of skirmishes.

 The conflict had started with Vlad's refusal to pay Tax on non-Muslims (Jizya) to Sultan, the Night Attack happened when Vlad attacked the camp of Turks to kill Mehmed, he did not succeed but Mehmed marched to the Wallachian capital of Târgovişte, where he discovered another 20,000 impaled Turks and Bulgarians. Horrified, the Sultan and his troops retreated.

After Constantinople was fallen to Ottoman Empire in 1453, Mehmed decided to counter the Greek Trebizond in Anatolia, to the East the White Sheep Turkomans of Uzun Hasan, Skanderbeg in Albania, while Bosnia was also reluctant to pay Jizya sometimes. Wallachia controlled her side of the river to Danube, Mehmed wanted to have control over the river, as naval attacks could be launched against his empire all the way from the Holy Roman Empire. On September 26, 1459, Pope Pius II called for a new crusade against the Ottomans and on January 14, 1460, at the Congress of Mantua, the Pope proclaimed the official crusade that was to last for three years.

However, his plan failed and only European leader who showed enthusiaism was Vlad Tepes. Vlad Ţepeş's only ally, Mihály Szilágyi, was captured in 1460 by the Turks while traversing Bulgaria. When Vlad was pressed to pay Jizya, he killed the Turk envoys,  Vlad Ţepeş refused the demand, and the Turks crossed the Danube and started to do their own recruiting, to which Vlad reacted by capturing the Turks and impaling them. He also tried to deceive Mehmed at the end of November 1461,  as he Vlad Ţepeş could not pay jizya as he had run out of resources and that he could not leave Wallachia and risk having the Hungarian king take over his domains. He promised to pay gold and go to Constantinople if the Sultan sent a Pasha to rule over Wallachia in his absence. However that was a trick and when Hamza Pasha was sent to stage a diplomatic meeting with Vlad in Giurgiu, Romania, Vlad attacked the Turks and killed all the men with Hamza Pasha, the Wallachians had the Turks surrounded and fired with their handgunners with Vlad being one of the first European crusaders to have used gunpowder in a deadly artistic way. In his next move, he went on a campaign and slaughtered enemy soldiers and population that might have sympathized with the Turks; first in southern Wallachia, then, in Bulgaria by crossing the frozen Danube. Bulgarian Christians were however spared. Vlad Ţepeş's campaign was celebrated among the Saxon cities of Transylvania, the Italian states and the Pope. A Venetian envoy, upon hearing about the news at the court of Corvinus on March 4, expressed great joy and said that the whole of Christianity should celebrate Vlad Ţepeş's successful campaign.

Mehmed  when hearing about the events, abandoned his siege at Corinth and decided to go against Vlad Ţepeş himself. He gathered men equal to the number which took Constantinople, Mehmed set out to conquer Wallachia and annex it. Vlad also set out to gather a group of fighters comprised of 30,000 men. When the Turks tried to disembark at Vidin, they were attacked by arrows, Vlad also used many other tactics in war, as scorched earth, poisoned the river water, also created marshes by diverting the waters of small rivers. Throughout the campaign the Turks were subject to fatigue yet they kept advancing, Vlad also adopted guerrilla tactics, he also sent people suffering from lethal diseases like plague, syphilis etc. to intermix with Turks and infect them.  When eventually Turks reached the capital, they found the gates of capital open and found about 20,000 Turks and Muslim Bulgarians impaled, the  rotten corpse of Hamza Pasha impaled on the highest stake, to symbolize his 'high ranking'. Seeing this sight, the Turks retreated with the Sultan saying that could not take the land away from the man who did such things. However, later on Turks called celebration of great victory  over Vlad Ţepeş. The Turks had enslaved many of the local inhabitants, which they marched on their way south together with 200,000 cattle and horses. Meanwhile Vlad was also attacked by his cousin Stephen III of Moldavia, who wanted to retake Akkerman and Chilia. 

Source: Wikipedia