Vlad the Impaler...

[Scurvy]

Erm..i have a history essay to do on a subject of my choice and decided i would do it on Vlad the Impaler (i was watching Dracula when i thought of it) i already know a fair bit about his life in power but need to know a bit more around his family and also his time in Turkey... (i realize that there is some debate over his life, but im okay with whatever you say...) I also would quite like to know how many of his family met their gory, and often unforunate ends...(i think that one brother was burried alive) anyway, its a subject that interests me so i'l stop babbling and hope someone replys... (links to sites are fine)

[Sarethi]

Check out this thread: The Truth about Vlad the Impaler

[King Kurt]

Vlad - was he the victim of a bad press? - was he just misunderstood??

Even by the standards of the day Vlad was cruel beyond belief. The Wikpedia article is, as always, an excellent source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlad_II...nian_attitudes

He undoubtedly defended his country well and held off the Turks, but his terror methods are beyond the pale.

[Orda Khan]

He possibly got the idea from the Huns. Attila used a particularly nasty form. Stakes were sharpened to very fine points and carefully driven up the backside, avoiding major organs until they appeared out of the shoulder/neck area. The ankles were then bound to the stake which was mounted much like a fence post in the ground. If this was done carefully enough, the victim could last several days. A human spit, now that's a gruesome way to die

.......Orda

[matteus the inbred]

well KK, i was about to argue with you, but having read the Wikipedia article i can't really justify defending Vlad Tepes! Undoubtedly they were desperate times and he needed to defend himself with everything available, but some of the things he seems likely to have done were quite astonishingly inhumane and cruel.
i suppose he's not available as an MTW 'character', being too late for the time period...maximum dread and some 'Butcher' vices, i reckon!

[Cronos Impera]

Vlad the Impaler was a victim of the press.He declined the privilages of the Hungarian merchants from Brasov, and their revenge was to portray him as bad as they could in the eyes of the western powers. That's how Bram Stocker got the job. He became ruler of an lawless Wallachia, where voievodes (kings) whare nothing more than puppets in the hands of the boyars.
Terror was necesary, as it produced excellent results, impaling made the people respect the law once again to an unprecedented level ( eg. If you ware a merchant travelling in Wallachia and dropped your bag of gold in the middle of the market, you cold return a week later and find the same bag of gols sitting exactly where you dropped it).
Implaing the nobles was necesary to put them in line so that they could stand against the Ottoman threat.

[Scurvy]

he was also brought up to that kind of thing... (from what i'v read) his experiences made him think that life was cheap and so he didnt really mind impaling people

[King Henry V]

Even his portrait is scary...

[Cronos Impera]

By the runes, Vlad the Impaler's only fault was to introduce the death penalty for all crimes ( from robbery to betrayal) in the form of impalement.
Though bloody, this punishment guaranteed the safety of merchants, the loyalty of the boyars and the fear of the Turks.
By the time of Vlad the Impaler Wallachia had lost the Black Sea Coast, some cities along the shores of the Danube and the state was tributary to the sultan of Istambul. Furthermore the kings ware puppets in the hands of the boyars.
"IMPALING WAS NECESARY, THOUGH IT WAS A PAINFULL WAY TO DIE"

Remember the french revolution, when thousands ware beheaded, should we portray the revolutionaries as vampires? Or Napoleon Bonaparte he was responsable for the massacres of Jaffa yet noone makes a picture of him with fangs and claws.

Sometimes brutal measures are necesary to keep unity.
" The purpose excuses the means " Machiavelli

[Ludens]

Sometimes brutal measures are necesary to keep unity.
" The purpose excuses the means " Machiavelli

Yes, history seems to remember some leaders with loathing and others with respect even though their actions were alike. It seems that whoever writes your biography after your death decides how you will be remembered. Like Terry Jones (of Monthy Python fame) said: "Propaganda, thy name is history".

Incidentally, though the sentiment is Machiavellan, I do not think the quote is his. There is an almost identical quote from a famous Jesuit (whose name escapes me): "the goal justifies the means", which has often been cited as proof of the Jesuits' ruthlessness. However, it is conveniently forgotten that the man added "except cruelty and violence." This rather nicely illustrates my point, I think .

[Meneldil]

Remember the french revolution, when thousands ware beheaded, should we portray the revolutionaries as vampires? Or Napoleon Bonaparte he was responsable for the massacres of Jaffa yet noone makes a picture of him with fangs and claws.

Some people do.

*remembers some Backroom topics*

[kataphraktoi]

So is he Hamas material?

Liberation fighter or terrorist?

[nokhor]

in one aspect he is similar to richard the lionheart, in that he is a really famous ruler from his lands but didn't spend a lot of time actually ruling there.

[matteus the inbred]

in one aspect he is similar to richard the lionheart, in that he is a really famous ruler from his lands but didn't spend a lot of time actually ruling there.

and similarly, you damn well knew about him when he was there!! To be fair to Richard, he did spend a lot of time in his kingdom, it's just that that kingdom included quite a lot of France!

what's the quote? when one of John's courtiers heard Richard has been freed from German captivity and was on his way home he said 'look to yourself sire, the devil is loose'...equally applicable to Vlad, i'd say. not a good time to be a boyar...

[Rosacrux redux]

Richard... uh, you got to love it when a Frenchman is England's most famous king
On the subject: Vlad was a vicious sob, a homicidal one as well, but a bloody effective ruler. He went a bit too far in his feud with the boyars though, and they delivered to the Turks (they could do business with the Turks, while Vlad spoiled their business). Reminds of the conduct of some Byzantine feudal lords... when Orhan got some momentum, they started swearing loyalty to the Ottomans and converted to Islam... nothing would stand in their way of "making business"...

...still pretty much the same, isn't it? When it's about money, nothing matters - no country, no allegiancies, no faith, no loyalty...

[edyzmedieval]

I love the guy.

The germans wrote the "Germanic Tales" or something like this, which shed a very bad light on Vlad the IIIrd. They were made because Vlad didn't give them trade rights.

So that's why Bram Stoker did that idiotic thing...And continued till this very day.

[Don Corleone]

Richard... uh, you got to love it when a Frenchman is England's most famous king
On the subject: Vlad was a vicious sob, a homicidal one as well, but a bloody effective ruler. He went a bit too far in his feud with the boyars though, and they delivered to the Turks (they could do business with the Turks, while Vlad spoiled their business). Reminds of the conduct of some Byzantine feudal lords... when Orhan got some momentum, they started swearing loyalty to the Ottomans and converted to Islam... nothing would stand in their way of "making business"...

...still pretty much the same, isn't it? When it's about money, nothing matters - no country, no allegiancies, no faith, no loyalty...

Not to start a war of nationalism, but I thought the French kings were Capetian, which was Frankish/Gothic. Calling the Normans French isn't accurate, as they were both English and French, as well as neither, when you come down to it. Normans were Normans.

[Rosacrux redux]

Ah, well, if you want to call Normans, Normans, no problem with me. I ain't starting no war for Richards national identity... despite the fact that the lad didn't speak a word English

[Don Corleone]

True. What's more, my apologies for the off-topic remark. I'll refrain from continuing.

I always thought Vlad's big sin was consolidating power away from the nobles. In history, that's generally how you come down as evil, if you don't finish the job they do a hatchet job on you in the history books. I've often heard that the big difference between Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great was that Peter the Great was better at being bad. :-)

[Spino]

I'm a student in 'the ends justify the means' school of thought and I think Vlad's actions were justifiable. You have to keep in mind that his brutality was born out of the experiences of his youth and the need for desperate and effective measures in the face of considerable odds. Even the pro-Vlad propagandists like to overlook the fact that when Vlad was younger he and his brother were sent by their father to stay with Sultan Mehmet as hostages in order to secure loyalty. Unfortunately, unlike most royal hostages neither Vlad or his brother were well treated. In fact Vlad was abused and thrown in a Turkish dungeon while his brother who was blessed with good looks was... the target of the sultan's repeated amorous advances (read as... raped). This kind of experience will make anyone more likely to rely on brutal tactics to achieve an end.

Vlad's use of guerilla warfare and the mass impalement of Turkish prisoners worked and was instrumental in forcing the Sultan to cease his invasion and keep to his side of the border.