The Night Attack Of Targoviste

The Battle of Targoviste was fought on the night of June 17, 1462 between the armies of Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II and Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia. Better known as “Vlad the Impaler” or “Dracula,” the real Vlad was a hardened veteran of the long Ottoman conquest of the Balkans. Mehmed demanded a jizya, or tax on non-Muslims, from many bordering states, but Vlad refused to pay. In 1460, the Hungarian regent Michael Szilagyi (Vlad’s main ally against the Ottomans) was captured by the Turks and sawed in half.

When Mehmed’s forces crossed the Danube and began pressing young boys into military service, Vlad responded by capturing Turkish soldiers and impaling them. Mehmed attempted to trick Vlad into an ambush, but the Wallachians surrounded and massacred his force of 1,000 cavalry. By 1462, Vlad was engaging in outright ethnic cleansing—by his own estimate, his forces slaughtered over 23,000 Muslim civilians and sympathizers. In response, Mehmed invaded Wallachia with at least 150,000 men. Vlad could only field around 30,000.

Vlad began a scorched-earth campaign, retreating while burning crops, poisoning water supplies, and diverting small rivers to create marshlands. He even sent civilians infected with syphilis, leprosy, and bubonic plague into the Turkish ranks.

In 1462 Vlad Dracula of Wallachia wrote a letter to King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary describing how he had killed precisely '23,884 Turks and Bulgarians in all, not including those who were burned in their houses and whose heads were not presented for our officials'. The raids are also described in the later German accounts of Vlad Dracula's life. These are often exaggerated, but the description of the Danube campaign cannot be very far from the truth, because he:

ordered that all these men, together with their maidens, should be slaughtered with swords and spears, like cabbage ... Dracula had all of Bulgaria burned down, and he impaled all of the people that he captured. There were 25,000 of them, to say nothing of those who perished in the fires.

When the Ottomans advanced on Wallachia Vlad Dracula realised that he could not face the Ottoman Army in open field combat, so he decided to retreat covered by a scorched earth policy, after which he would launch guerrilla raids on the Turks. This inevitably caused great suffering to the population when Vlad burned fields and destroyed villages in his own territory so as to deny supplies to the enemy. Wells were poisoned and lifestock slaughtered. 'Thus', wrote Dukas, 'after having crossed the Danube and advanced for seven days, Mehmet II found no man, nor any significant animal, and nothing to eat or drink.' The Turkish chronicler Tursun Beg described how:

the front ranks of the army reported that there was not a drop of water to quench their thirst. All the carts and animals came to a halt. The heat of the sun was so great that you could cook kebabs on the mail shirts of the ghazis.

Soon the guerrilla raids began, with stragglers being either beheaded or impaled. On the night of 17 June 1462, when the Turks were well on their way to Tirgoviste (Targoviste), Vlad the Impaler launched a daring night attack on the Sultan's camp. Chalkondylas tells us how:

At first there was a lot of terror in the camp because people thought that a new foreign army had come and attacked them. Scared out of their wits by this attack, they considered themselves to be lost as it was being made using torchlight and the sounding of horns to indicate the place to assault.

When Vlad launched a surprise night attack with 7,000 to 10,000 cavalry. The attack caused chaos in the Ottoman ranks (historians differ on the numbers killed, but many of the casualties were inflicted by confused Turkish units attacking each other). By dawn they had regrouped and pursued Vlad’s forces toward Targoviste. Thousands may have been slain, but the raid failed in its primary purpose of killing Mehmet the Conqueror himself because his loyal Janissaries rallied. The raiders were driven off and disappeared into the darkness. A few days later the Ottoman Army drew near to Tirgoviste. It had been prepared for a siege like any other medieval town, but with one unique addition. As Chalkondylas relates, Mehmet:

saw men impaled. The Emperor's army came across a field with stakes, about two miles long and half a mile wide. And there were large stakes upon which he could see the impeded bodies of men, women and children, about 20,000 of them ... There were babies clinging to their mothers on the stakes, and the birds had made nests in their breasts.

The sight of the famous 'forest of the impaled' persuaded Mehmet the Conqueror, a man who was well used to the horrors of war, to pull back from Tirgoviste.

The road to Kosovo

Battle of Kosovo

Everyone agrees that the assassin of Murad/Murat (The First) was a Serb whose personal name was Miloš  (turkified as Milos,) (anglicized to Milosh). But, after that, identification of the killer begins falling off the track.

One respected historical source says he was a crazed camp-follower. Another claims he was a patriotic Serb nobleman. Since he could have easily been both, we'll just say 'take your pick' -- and move on, to where a more serious argument looms. Because... when it comes to the question of the assassin's correct surname, the matter becomes more important to some.

When Stephen Dushan of Serbia died his empire passed into the hands of his young son Urosh. His vassals soon renounced their allegiance to him and set themselves up as independent princes. One of these Serb leaders, Vukashin, who ruled in Serres, combined his forces with sympathetic Serbian allies and marched northwards towards the Maritza Valley full of hope. But far from driving the Turks out of Lurope they suffered a great defeat on 26 September 1371 at the battle of Cernomen where all the Serbian leaders were killed. This battle, also known as the second battle of the Maritza, was called in the Turkish chronicles 'Sirf sindigi' (the destruction of the Serbs). Murad I was prudent after his victory and left much of Macedonia and Serbia in the hands of local chiefs as his vassals. They included a certain Lazar, who, although connected with the Dushan family did not claim the royal title.

Almost ten years went by before the Turkish advance against Serbia was renewed. In the meantime they struck at Albania and Bulgaria. So confused had been the state of Albania that its rulers were used to calling in foreign troops to aid them against internal rivals, and so it was that the lord of Durazzo called upon the Ottomans as allies in 1385. The price was vassaldom and when the fortresses of Croia and Scutari fell to Murad I he handed them over to his loyal Albanian followers. Elsewhere Thessalonica surrendered in 1387, but Murad I also sought to consolidate his position in Anatolia and took Konya from the Turkish house of Karaman that same year.

Lazar of Serbia seems to have been stung into action by the loss of Sofia in 1385, a defeat that was followed in 1386 by the occupation of the Serbian city of Nis. He was also embarrassed by the use of Serbian vassal troops in the Ottoman Army, so a combined force of Serbs and Bosnians went to war and defeated the local Turkish commander. The victorious army grew, swollen in number by hopeful contingents from Bulgaria, Wallachia, Albania and Hungary. But swift action by Murad I detached Bulgaria from the league and, as he marched north to take on Lazar, he was joined by many sympathetic Serbian nobles.

The resulting armed clash was the famous battle of Kosovo, fought in June 1389, an encounter that still has tremendous significance in Balkan politics today. Among all the legends about the battle and its aftermath three facts stand out. The Ottoman Turks were victorious; Murad I was killed by a Serb at some point, although not during the actual fighting; and Lazar of Serbia was captured and executed in revenge. His son Stephen Lazarevic succeeded him and reigned for many years as a loyal Turkish vassal.

Battle of the Sajó River [Battle of Mohi]

Béla IV flees from Mohi, detail from Chronicon Pictum

Date April 11, 1241

Location Muhi on the Sajó River in northeastern Hungary

Opponents (* winner)
*Mongols
Hungarians
*Mongols Commander Subotai
Hungarians King Béla IV

Approx. # Troops
*Mongols As many as 120,000
Hungarians More than 100,000

Importance
The Mongols ravage eastern Hungary and Transylvania and gain access to all central Europe
The victory over a Hungarian army led by King Béla IV at Muhi on the Sajó River gave the Mongols access to all of Central Europe. Genghis Khan died in 1227, but his son and successor, Ogatai Khan, continued Mongol expansion. The Mongols conquered Korea in 1231 and defeated the Chin Empire during 1231–1234. In 1235 in the course of a conference with Mongol leaders, Ogatai outlined a plan of expansion in four areas: China, Korea, Southeast Asia, and Eastern Europe.

The offensive against Eastern Europe began in 1236–1237, when Ogatai sent 130,000 Mongols into the region. Batu Khan had nominal command, but Subotai exercised real command. Subotai defeated the Bulgars and then led his army across the frozen Volga River in December 1237. In the course of their winter campaign the Mongols destroyed the northern Russian principalities, culminating in the defeat and death of Grand Prince Yuri II of Vladimir in the Battle of the Sil River on March 4, 1237. At the same time, Mongol forces to the south entered the Ukraine, where they reorganized and reequipped their forces.

During the next two years Subotai consolidated Mongol control over eastern and southern Russia. While the states of Central and Western Europe knew little about Mongol conquests or intentions, the Mongols gathered accurate intelligence about the political situation to their west. Subotai began the offensive in November 1240 with 150,000 men, again campaigning in winter to achieve maximum mobility on horseback in the marshlands and across frozen rivers. When Kiev rejected surrender demands, Subotai captured it on December 6.

Leaving behind 30,000 men to control the conquered territory and maintain his lines of communication, Subotai invaded Central Europe with 120,000 men. The Mongols moved on four axes. Kaidu, grandson of Ogatai, commanded the northern flank; Batu and Subotai had charge of the two central forces; and Kadan, son of Ogatai, protected the southern flank. The two middle forces were to pass through the central Carpathians into Transylvania and then meet at Pest, on the east bank of the Danube.

Kaidu meanwhile moved into Silesia, defeating a Polish army under King Boleslav V at Kraków (Cracow) on March 3, 1241. To meet Kaidu, Prince Henry of Silesia put together a mixed force of some 40,000 Silesians, Germans, Poles, and Teutonic Knights. King Wenceslas of Bohemia marched north with 50,000 men to join them. However, Kaidu struck before the two opposing forces could join. In the hard-fought Battle of Legnica (known as the Battle of Liegnitz in German and also called the Battle of Wahlstatt) on April 9, 1241, Kaidu smashed Prince Henry’s army. Kaidu then halted, having achieved his aims of devastating North-Central Europe and preventing its armies from moving south.

The Mongol southern advance had gone well. In mid-April the Mongols secured Transylvania, and Kadan drove north through the Iron Gates to join Subotai. On March 12, 1241, Hungarian king Béla IV, informed of the Mongol advance, called a conference of nobles at Buda, on the west bank of the Danube, to discuss how to meet the threat. On March 15 the conferees learned that the Mongol advance guard had already arrived at Pest, just opposite Buda.

Sure that the Pest defenses could hold the attackers, Béla IV gathered some 100,000 men over the next two weeks. At the beginning of April he set out from Pest to meet the invaders, confident that he had sufficient strength to defeat them. The Mongols withdrew before Béla’s cautious advance. Late on April 10 about 100 miles northeast of Pest, the Hungarians encountered and defeated a weak Mongol force defending a bridge at Muhi on the Sajó River, a tributary of the Tisza. Béla IV then established a strong bridgehead on the east bank of the Sajó and camped for the night with the bulk of his force on the west bank in a strong defensive position of wagons chained together.

The Mongols attacked the Hungarians before dawn on April 11, 1241, striking the bridgehead with arrows and with stones hurled by catapults, followed closely by an infantry assault. The defenders fought fiercely, and the Hungarians sortied from the main camp to their aid.

They soon discovered that the attack was only a feint. Subotai had led 30,000 men across the river some distance south of the bridge, and this force now came in from the south and rear of the Hungarians. The Hungarians found themselves packed in a small space and devastated by Mongol arrows, stones, and burning naptha. King Béla IV managed to escape with some of his men to the north toward Pozsony (Bratislava). Although Mongol losses in the battle were heavy, the Hungarian force was virtually destroyed. It suffered between 40,000 and 70,000 dead, including much of the Magyar nobility.

With this Hungarian defeat, only the Danube River prevented a further Mongol advance. The Mongols held Eastern Europe from the Dnieper to the Oder and from the Baltic to the Danube. In a campaign lasting only four months, they had destroyed Christian forces numbering many times their own. Following the victory, the Mongols ravaged all eastern Hungary and Transylvania. With a majority of its settlements having been destroyed and a large portion of the population slain during the Mongol occupation, which lasted until 1242, the Hungarian state had to be completely reconstituted.

ReferencesAllsen, Thomas. Mongol Imperialism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987. Grousaset, Rene. The Empire of the Steppes: A History of Central Asia. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1970. Nicolle, David. The Mongol Warlords: Genghis Khan, Kublai Khan, Hulegu, Tamerlane. London: Brookhampton, 1998.