This week, Angie shares many of the factors that excite her about history. She shares an overview of the Ottoman Empire, Mehmed II’s rise to power, and how his path crosses with a young Wallachian prince, Vlad Tepes.
Once you add in the socio-political stances of the European kingdoms and the fear of Muslim takeovers, you now see how Pope Pius II funded the military campaigns of Vlad Tepes, who would go on to earn the spot in history as Dracula.
This episode pairs well with:
Pope Pius II Funds Dracula’s War
Transcript
Theresa: Hi, and welcome to the Unhinged History Podcast, the podcast where two friends join forces touching our signet rings together and then telling each other the stories from history we’ve only recently learned. I’m Teresa. I’m host one. And that is Angie. She is host two. I don’t have a signet ring. I don’t either. Oh, what have we been doing? We need to get signet rings, apparently.
Angie: Obviously. I have a really cool cursed object I could use as a signet ring. It’s pretty awesome.
Theresa: Are you telling me the one you described in a previous podcast with the Christ Almighty with a beard full of diamonds? Yeah. Which seems to be pretty sick. I was actually asked to say it as an anathema, the antithesis of Christ.
Angie: I was really wondering where you’re going with that.
Theresa: That was impressive. There was a word I was reaching for that I did not hit, and I was like, you know what? Just go to the synonym. Just call it a day.
Angie: Dude, do you ever ask Google what’s the word for, and then you have to use a paragraph to describe the word you’re looking for? Yeah. Yeah. I hate that. I hate that for me. Anyway, this is where we all find out we didn’t go therapy this week.
Theresa: When it just replies back with your therapist number and just says you need to give her a call. Now’s a great time. Yeah. And your meds are running low, FYI.
Angie: We thought you probably already knew, but we’re just, you know,
Theresa: we’re just, yeah, flagging that, writing you potential reason that you’re Googling this.
Angie: Well, the spreadsheet says… This is the amount of times I’ve used that to my husband. Can you describe this word? And then he immediately describes the word, and I’m like, I hate that.
Theresa: And he just knows? Yes. I feel like the alternative is worse when they just look at you and they’re like, what?
Angie: No, he rarely does that. He usually always knows. And it’s so frustrating to me because I’m the one that reads everything, so you think the words would come easy to me. They do not. I know this may come as a shocker after this many episodes, but here we are.
Theresa: You know, there was a social media post that said, you know, it was a quote, can I have a quick chat with you? And underneath it, it said, jokes on you. I’ve never had a quick chat in my life.
Angie: Yeah. That’s it right there.
Theresa: But I, you know, honestly, I’m looking. I think last episode, I went first. It is your turn, good lady.
Angie: Here’s the deal. I think my episode might be the whole story, so you want me to just go for it and see how much time we have.
Theresa: And if you’ve got… If we have time, I’ll throw something up, but if we don’t, then I’m just going to keep mine in my back pocket and not tell you about a recent great.
Angie: Like great, like Catherine the Great, that kind of great?
Theresa: Like an event from recent history that was labeled a great. And I say it like that because you won’t have the Google power to come up with it, but carry on. You are the worst. I’m so mad right now. For those of you playing at home, episodes drop every Friday.
Angie: She’s just filling in right now because I’m trying to get it together because I’m so mad because she knows I love a good, the great story.
Theresa: Yeah. I mean, who doesn’t? I complained that we run out of the great. So when I found the great and I was like, I’m sorry, that year has the wrong century in front of it.
Angie: Pardon? Yeah. I feel like the great stopped at like 1920, you know?
Theresa: Yeah. Like we just stopped calling it the great disco fire of Kelly. Is that you? No, I mean, yeah.
Angie: Okay. Look, I don’t know how to start. So I’m just going to start right. Okay. I feel like I feel like it’s time to give you the story of mid-med the second.
Theresa: Oh, we are going straight into Vlacula. Dracula. I like it. Yeah. Vlad Tepesh. Yeah.
Angie: Okay. So my disclaimer here is that this story is a short overview of this man’s life. His story is so big that it would have been like a six part. It would have been a six hour episode for me if I would have given you every great detail.
So I did my very best to whittle it down to a far more reasonable time. So that said, if you have an interest in the Ottomans, an interest in mid, or an interest in Vlad Tepesh, do feel free to read all the stuff because there’s a lot of cool stuff. My sources are, I have to start with this one because it made me laugh so hard. There’s a source called theautomans.org.
Theresa: This sounds like it’s just going to be a hate blog.
Angie: It was published in 2002. It has, I don’t think been updated since then. I am only including it because it made me laugh so hard. I used nothing from that source, but I was like, wait a minute, it’s called theautomans.org.
I must have this. There is a research page from the EBSCO, made the conqueror, and then, and I’m probably going to mispronounce a couple of the words throughout, so please forgive me because I try really hard, but there are some doozies in here. There is something called the FSMVU, and it is the Faith Sultan Medecis University. It is a higher education institute that was established in 2010 by the Republic of Turkey. They’re general directives of foundations whose, their goal is to be at the forefront of the Turkish higher education and research, and I am including this because this establishment was funded by a trust that Met-Met himself set up in his lifetime.
Theresa: Whoa, so in the 1400s he was like, hey, by the way, and his money has some staying power.
Angie: Yeah, I was like, what is, this is phenomenal, like could not, could not. I thought that was so stinking cool. Warfare History Network, as always, to include the origins of Dracula or Vlad the Impaler. A brief look into world history and psychopedia, a JSTOR article, Why Ottoman Sultans Locked Away with Her Brothers from Amelia Sloth of December, 2019, and then another by Humanities Research Journal.
I couldn’t find the author’s name on this one, it was just the school with which it was presented by, had a little bit of information that I thought was interesting. So with all that said, we have mentioned him before in episode 66, Algorithm’s Favor Syphilis. So Alessandro, get your Mingo card out. You can knock off syphilis, I said it. That episode, Teresa covers Pope Pius II.
Theresa: And I love him. He is the pope who wrote a dirty book and then flooded, flooded, funded Vlad the Impaler’s little rampage. You call it a little rampage, I love that. I mean, because it had not been anybody else, it would have been a rampage.
Angie: Yeah, but for him it was just like Tuesday. So, Med was born March 30th, 1432, which I think is super awesome because that means my son has a birthday buddy. Just saying.
Theresa: Yeah, your birthday buddy pissed off somebody who was a bit homicidal.
Angie: Just a little bit, just a little bit. So keep it up, I guess. You have goals now. Keeping up with the Joneses and all that. So he was born in Adrianople in the Ottoman Empire, which today is located in Idrin, Turkey. Now, at the time of his birth, he was born in the capital city of the empire.
He is the third son of Murid II whose reign is marked by military strength. He expands into the Balkans. There’s a lot of internal conflict that he consolidates, and then he brings about some institutional development, as well as big economic growth and some real cultural flourishings for what we know to be the Ottoman Empire today. Like when you think of the Ottoman Empire, like he had a lot to do with what we understand today. He also lays the stepping stones for the future conquest of Constantinople. For the record, up to this point, Constantinople has been unconquerable for a thousand years. I feel like that’s an important bit of information you should have.
Theresa: And that is rather stinking impressive, right? Yeah.
Angie: So he’s laying the stones for the groundwork for what’s going to happen in the future. Mithmed’s mother was a slave turned concubine, possibly called Devlet Hatun or Humah Hatun. It’s likely she was of non-Muslim origin. And additionally, he has several brothers, which lead to problems later that I’ll talk about in just a little bit. He spends his childhood in the harem with his mother, right? I don’t know if that’s common knowledge, but if you are born into a royal household in the Middle East, you are raised in the harem with your siblings and all 27 moms.
Theresa: That’s a lot of moms. Yeah.
Angie: And he’s brilliant, though. By the time he’s 11, he is sent to Amitia with two of his advisors to learn how to govern and keep his experience of leading. So this is customary for Ottoman rulers to send their sons out to provinces to act as the governor. So they’re basically given a territory to rule over to train them for their future jobs.
Theresa: Okay. So this is kind of a job skill training. Like, we’re not going to let you rule the entire country until you get good at ruling a region. Yeah.
Angie: And I think in some cases, I don’t know a ton about the way that this works, but I think in some cases it was a lifetime position, like, because maybe he has, you know, 27 sons or something like that, right? So they’re each given a province to rule in their own way. But in his case, he has given this province to learn how to do his father’s job. Now, while he’s there, he is surrounded by teachers and tutors that heavily impact his education and his spirituality. All of these teachers are also preaching their own agendas as well, right? So one in particular, and I’m hoping I’m going to pronounce this right.
I tried so many times last night. Akshem Sayden would have this super influence, particularly when it comes to informing Mehmed that it is his duty to overthrow the Byzantine Empire and conquer Constantinople. Like, you are destined by God. We are supposed to rule Constantinople. Like, that’s what he has been taught since day one.
While he’s there, he is also learning Arabic, Persian, Greek, Latin, philosophy, math, strategy, and kind of, I feel like it goes without saying, he is super impressed with men like Caesar and Alexander the Great. Shocking.
Theresa: I mean, I kind of like this for him. He’s got some good role models. Right.
Angie: By this time, he has already been recognized heavily by his tutors for both his brilliance as well as his impatience. He’s not wanting to wait patiently for the next thing to do. So unfortunately, our guy is only there for like a year when he is recalled to the capital because Pop has finally made peace with the Hungarians.
And in one of the wildest moments in history, he decides it’s time to retire. So he advocates the throne in favor of Mehmed, who is only 12 at the time.
Theresa: That’s quite a bit of, yeah, I don’t know if I, I’ve got a 12 year old.
Angie: Right. I know that this is customary in some cultures around the world that instead of holding your office until death, you pick a retirement time and then you do so and whatever child you see fit becomes the next ruler. But it is wild to me that his dad would be like, you know what, 12 seems right. I’m going to retire now.
Get out some fly fishing, you know. And it’s very not Western, right? We have this understanding that you’re king for life and then your eldest son takes over. That is not the case.
Theresa: So, I mean, to be fair, I kind of like the idea of retiring in your golden years.
Angie: Right. So he retires and Mehmed takes the throne at 12 years old. But his retirement doesn’t last long because Cardinal Julian Cisarini, who is the Pope’s representative, tells Hungary that breaking the treaties with the Ottomans isn’t really a betrayal. So there’s some incursions and Mehmed basically asks dad to come out of retirement like, hey, I could, I could use a hand here. There’s a chronicle from the 17th century that says dad initially says, nope, no, thanks. But Mehmed writes in the letter saying, if you are the Sultan, come and lead your armies. If I am the Sultan, I hereby order you to come and lead my armies.
Theresa: Okay, big flex. Love it.
Angie: Love it. Here for this energy. There is some belief that it was not directly Mehmed that asked for dad’s return, but rather one of his pashas, who was the Grand Vier, like he put out the effort to get dad back. But either way, he returns to lead the Ottoman army to the victory at the Battle of Varna.
Now, this battle does deserve like a really short side quest real quick. The Battle of Varna takes place near the city of Varna, which today is in modern day Eastern Bulgaria. And it’s got this large coalition of Christians led by the king of Poland and a man called John Hunyadi, who I think you might have mentioned in your story. He’s the commander of the Hungarian fleet and then Mirsia II of Lakiya, who is the older brother of Vlad Pembeš. I also feel like it’s important to note now that Vlad and Netmed are only a year apart.
So just like tuck that little nugget of information into your brain. Now, this coalition, it tries to halt the advance of the Ottoman army. The Christians are heavily outnumbered and they’re hampered by all kinds of things, difficult terrain. There’s all sorts of coordination problems.
And at first they hold their line and they do a pretty good job of it. But then the king of Poland gets this like harebrained idea and he leaves this attack against the Ottoman center. Like his thought process, if I just take out Miran, the problem will be solved.
Like, you know, cut the cut the snakes head off. The rest will go out of their way. Right. And this goes against Zunyadi’s like council. He’s like, absolutely not. That’s a terrible idea.
Don’t do that. And the king of Poland has immediately killed an action. His death destroys the morale of the Christian forces and the Ottomans root them out.
This defeat marks the end of any crusading effort on their part. And it kind of clears the path for this Ottoman Empire’s expansion into the Balkans. So like, I feel like it was important to just give you that bit of information there because it’s another stepping stone in the grand scheme of things.
And all of those guys will come back to play later. So it additionally goes on to pave the way for bigger conquest like Constantinople in 1453. On the Christian side, losing the king and much of the army, super weak and hungry and Poland’s influence in the region. And Pop at this point takes the throne back, but he leaves Mehmed with the title of Sultan. So basically he’s like the, he’s ruling, but he’s ruling. Like at this point Mehmed is just ruling in name, but his dad’s doing the work, if that makes any sense.
Theresa: That does. That’s kind of like when we had Fred again in Brunhild, how they ruled his region.
Angie: Yeah, he’s definitely in this case the region and he is handling business. Now this goes on until Mirad’s death in 1451. Now at this point Mehmed’s about 19 and he takes sole, I don’t know if I like the better phrase, sole custody of the Ottoman Empire. And is almost immediately invaded by a man called Ibrahim of Karaman and he invades this disputed area and instigates revolt.
And so Mehmed’s first actual campaign is against this guy. Now meanwhile, and I think this is wild, the Byzantians, they threatened to release another Ottoman claimant to the throne called Orhan. Now Orhan is a prince of the same dynasty, but he’s like a cousin, so he’s not like in the direct line of succession here, but he is, he is the son of Suleiman Sulebi and Sulebi and Mirad, they share a granddad. If the way I understand their family tree, like it’s he’s either their granddad or their great-grandfather. So to make a long story short, this Orhan is basically Mehmed’s only rival. He is the only other living male member of his family at the time. So the Ottomans, I love this, pay the Byzantians to keep him there so he can’t be a rival claimant to the Ottoman throne. Like we’ll just slip you 100 under the table to keep him occupied. I kind of like that. Yeah, I think it’s pretty awesome. Like they’re also their enemy, right?
Like their nemesis. But if you just keep holding onto him, we’ll keep paying y’all. Like you keep him busy. And I love that. Now you may be asking why there are no other males in the family or not. You’ve probably already figured that out.
Theresa: I mean, I’m assuming you just start smothering them in a cradle.
Angie: Pretty much. Any that were remaining, and I think at this point it was only like maybe one or two, are murdered. I think the youngest one was like maybe nine or ten months old. And it seems to be, I wouldn’t say directly like it wasn’t like something you chat about in court gossip, but it seems to be something that is understood.
But still obviously an aggressive act. Mehmet does this because Ottoman tradition, like I said earlier, does not automatically make the eldest son the next ruler. And the surviving sons, when the Sultan dies, are expected to fight it out for who takes the throne next. Oh, there’s always this sort of tension, right?
Like you’re raised in the harem with these other boys, but you know what? At some point it’s either make or break, like killer be killed, right? And Mehmet grows up having known that prior to him, like two generations back, there is a decade-long civil war that’s fought in 1403 over just this. So he’s like, yo, we just got to stamp the problem out right quick. I’m just going to off all the other heirs, all the other claimants done, problem solved. And he makes fratricide legal because that solves the problem. Right.
And it remains so until 1603 when Mehmet III would kill all 19 of his brothers. 19. Yeah. Hot damn. After this, and I should say he didn’t personally kill them because that would be wrong. His men did it.
Theresa: I’m glad that that would be wrong. You know, I think you’ve got morals.
Angie: Right. So after that, there’s this resolution that’s put in place that is just simply that we won’t kill them. We’ll just lock them in the palace. So hey, you can remain living, but you have no chance of ever stealing the throne from me.
Theresa: So it’s good luck. I think Richard and the boys in the tower sort of deal.
Angie: Pretty much. Yeah. That’s the way that I understand it. And I had thought that it was, I knew fratricide was a thing and I had thought that it was the thing up until like the 1800s.
So I was kind of like, wow, we were, we were trying to solve problems all the way back in 1603, but it didn’t, I don’t feel like it really went well either way. Now. Back to our guy.
Right. He is the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. He has reformed his army. He’s reorganized the treasury. He’s expanded the Ottoman Navy and he, and most importantly, begins planning for the siege of Constantinople because right since the day he was born, this has been the prophecy on his life. Now he knows that brute force alone is not going to be enough. He needs something with a little flair, a little panache. And he hears of this guy called Orban, who is a Hungarian engineer and a master cannon maker.
And under his patronage, Orban builds what would become one of the most powerful weapons of the age, the Basilica cannon, a monstrous bronze gun capable of firing stone balls that weigh over half a ton. Geez. Yeah, like, it’s huge. So at the time, this is basically like, just we are warfare is like coming from the ashes like a Phoenix with this thing.
Like it’s changing the game across the board. At the same time that this super cannon is being built, Metmed constructs a massive force on the Vosperis. It’s called Rumeli Hisari and it sits directly across from an early Ottoman fort. Now the idea is that between the two, they can choke off any aid reaching Constantinople by sea. So like, it’s what is it, two of by land, one of by sea or whatever, like, we are going to take every opportunity we can to make life hell for Constantinople.
On April 6th of 1453, the siege begins. Metmed forces number around 80,000 men. And this includes the Janissaries. Are you familiar with them? They’re mercenaries, aren’t they? Essentially. Just a quick aside, they are trained mercenaries, but often.
And I’ll mention this a little bit later, but often they are other stolen children from other European households that have been raised and indoctrinated in their Muslim faith and in step become like these fanatical fighters. So they’re elite, like they’re the elite of elite. Radu and Vlad himself were Janissaries.
Theresa: Okay, I didn’t realize they had that training. Yo, yeah. And I think this was the first time you said Radu. And Radu is Vlad’s little brother and his nickname is Radu the handsome.
Angie: And he chooses to stay on the side of the Ottomans the whole time. Like, he’s a big fan of the Ottoman lifestyle. See, about these 80,000 men, you have the elite troops, you have cavalry, you have artillery, and you have a naval fleet.
Inside the walls of Constantinople, Emperor Constantine, he commands maybe 70,000 defenders, maybe, and some foreign mercenaries that are led by a Genoesee captain called Giovanni Gustini. And I just love that. Like, the idea that there’s not a single war ever on this planet that was just fought between two sole people that did not include an Italian and a Scotsman are wild to me. They all always have that.
Theresa: I’ve never made that connection.
Angie: I mean, when you think about it, wait a minute.
Theresa: No, no, Japan. Look at Odin-Umenaga, the reunification wars.
Angie: You’re telling me there wasn’t a single white guy in that fight?
Theresa: I am because the very first foreigner, like we had the missionary stand by, they weren’t in the fight. We had Yasuke, the African, but we did not have a white dude.
Angie: Okay, that’s impressive. So I’ll let you have Japan. And you think of anywhere else that doesn’t include something like that.
Theresa: I mean, off the top of my head, no, but I mean. Okay.
Angie: So that said, you can guess that the odds are not looking great for the Byzantines, right? Like they’re looking out the window and they’re like, oh shucks, but they know that their stronghold has held for a thousand years and they have survived far worse according to them. For 53 days.
Theresa: Are you about to tell me that they’re about to pull a hell deep and say that this place hasn’t fallen or ago? We’re fine.
Angie: I mean, that’s kind of what they thought. So yeah, I guess they’re going to pull homes deep, but there will be no one there on the third day when the sun rises. And now I got to go watch Florida the Ring.
So thanks for that. The Battle of Homes Deep is my favorite scene in the entire series. For 53 days, the city, it endures the siege. Ottoman cannons, thunder day and night, tearing chunks of the Dojian walls. But the defenders patch them up endlessly like the wall gets a new hole.
They patch the hole. They’ve got Greek fire. They’ve got arrows and there’s all sort of desperate little bits like keep attacking at the bay, right?
We have little sorties out in the water. Now Mehmed, for his part, he is watching this whole thing from his command tent and he is relentless. Every day he’s adjusting tactics.
He’s testing weak points. He’s moving troops. He’s ordering attacks by land and sea. And when the Ottomans can’t breach the harbor because the harbor has one of those chain barriers, you know what I’m talking about? When he figures out that they’re not going to reach it, he pulls off one of the most audacious maneuvers in military history.
And I love it so much. Under the cover of night, he orders the ships dragged over land across Greece logs from the boss for us to the golden horn and he bypasses the Byzantine defenses entirely. When Constantinople wakes up the next morning, Ottoman ships are inside their harbor and they’re like, oh crap. So on the night of May 28, Mehmed gathers his troops. He gives them a rousing speech, I’m sure, that includes things like destiny, faith, glory, all of that. And then he declares something like, this city belongs to us. Either I will take it or I will die beneath its walls. At dawn, the final assault for the city begins.
Wave after wave after wave, strike and strike and strike and they fight to the last. Even Constantine, he has got sword in hand and he is defending his city, but he will die with that sword in his hand. By mid-morning, the Ottoman flag rises above the wall.
Constantinople, after more than a thousand years, has finally fallen. By that afternoon, Mehmed enters the city. And according to some chroniclers, he gets off his horse before the Haggis of Thea enters its vast halls and kneels in prayer. The ancient cathedral is transformed into a mosque as both a symbol of conquest and continuity. And then Mehmed immediately sets about rebuilding Constantinople and this is where we get the name Istanbul, the city of Islam. And I need you to know that while I was writing my notes, all I could say was Istanbul was once Constantinople and my husband might actually kill me.
Theresa: I mean, you’re saying that and I want you to know that I have been, pardon me, I have been choking that back the entire time. It’s so hard. But I will tell you, it’s nobody’s business but the Turks. Honestly.
Angie: So at this time, he invites back Greek, Armenian and Jewish families who had fled. He rebuilds the markets, the mosques, the churches and the schools. And he declares that the city is now the new capital of the Ottoman Empire and he thinks that as a bridge between the two worlds. Under his vision, Istanbul becomes this sort of melting pot of cultures. You have merchants from Venice meeting scholars from Persia and you have artisans from Italy that are working with Turkish architects, which I think kind of gives that really romantic image of what you think life should look like.
And I love that. I can’t speak to any atrocities here, but I just think that that idea of what he’s going for here is kind of the pinnacle of what society should be. He also formalized something called the millet system, which is allowing for religious minorities to govern themselves under their own leaders. Nice. Right. And this idea is obviously to keep the peace in such a vast empire, right?
So I think that’s pretty cool. Now, interestingly enough, Emperor Constantine had died without any children. If his empire hadn’t been taken by the Ottomans, it’s likely that his nephews would have taken his place. After the fall of Constantinople, those boys were brought into the palace of Mehmet and given new names. The older nephew was renamed Has Murad Pasha and he becomes one of Mehmet’s favorites and was put in charge of the Balkan region as a Baylor Bay or their governor. And the younger nephew renamed Mash Pasha becomes the Admiral of the Ottoman Navy and the regional governor of Gapoli.
So, and the regional governor of Gapoli. Later on, he also rises to a very high position and he serves as the Grand Vizier twice under Mehmet’s son, Bayeziz II, which I think is phenomenal when you can take your enemies and make them your, like…
Theresa: Let me back up a second. This is the dude who murdered 19 brothers because they were two…
Angie: That was one of his successors. He only murdered, like, two brothers. Oh, well, okay.
Theresa: So I’m not saying that’s better, but… He offered his own kin, but then said, you who have a direct tie to this throne prior to me coming, I shall let you live. Yeah. I mean, that’s just… that’s impressive.
Angie: I think, for me, I think his understanding here is that keeping them alive benefits him more than killing them. And then he realizes that they have knowledge and information that he can use. And so he puts them to use and they, in turn, are incredibly loyal to him, right?
Like it sort of makes sense. Why you can’t do that with your own brothers is sort of beyond me. But in this case, he’s just scheming stepmoms. Well, yeah, right, exactly.
And he’s got like a boatload. Although I will say, I was going to talk about this at the end. His mother had long since passed away, but he had a very respectable, very affectionate relationship with his father’s actual wife. Like primary woman. Yeah. Um, that like she, she remains a stronghold for him his entire life in up till her death. That of constant like, she’s an advisor to him. She’s loyal to him. He ensures that she’s well cared for and he even refers to her as mother. But the other interesting thing is that I think as a whole, he has respect for the women in his life because he constantly refers to women, especially older women as mother, whether they’re in his hair or not.
Theresa: Is that cultural? So I think because I know in Japan, it’s, you know, closer women are older sister or
Angie: I feel like it is a bit cultural, but I also feel like in the one case, I’m thinking of a particular writing, like a letter that he wrote and he refers to his adversary’s mother as mother. Like he’s, it’s, I think it’s a respect thing.
Right. Like you, I honor her. I honor mine.
You should honor yours. This is what mother believes and he just like their mother to us all sort of thing. But I do think it is probably a very cultural thing. That would make sense. Now you would think after he got Constantinople, he’d be done conquering right?
No, absolutely not. He turns his attention to any remaining independent independent Byzantine territories and he goes against the, for his first move is against the desperate of Moria desperate or desperate. Despotate. I said it wrong. D. S. P O T A T E. It’s like a independently governed area of a bigger area. Despotate.
Theresa: Yes. One more time. I’ve just, I’ve got to, I’ve got to figure this out. D E S P O T A T E. Like this spot. Tate.
Angie: In fact, that’s where the term despot comes from.
Theresa: So it is a territory ruled by a despot. Oh, okay. Okay. See, I was just, it’s a crazy word.
Angie: I had to look it up too. I was like, wait a minute.
Theresa: I’m a desperate in my house and my, my home is the desktop. Yes.
Angie: That is the perfect way of describing this.
Theresa: Well done. For those of you looking to pray for my daughter or to start a go fund me, I’m joking. I’m joking.
Angie: You can reach out to tree said unhinged dodge. That’s also where you can send the therapy bills. So he goes after this. He campaigns there from 1458 to 1460 and eventually brings the region their Ottoman rule in 1468. 61. He captures the empire of trabizond and this is in northeastern Anatolia. And I am telling you, there are so many words here that I was like, I don’t even begin to know how to say this.
And that was one of them. So if you are someone that is fluent and could explain the proper way to say all these names, I would really appreciate it because in my effort to be respectful, I’m probably not.
Theresa: And the real email is unhinged.historypod at gmail.com. Thanks for that.
Angie: With those two conquests, the last major fragments of the Byzantine world were absorbed into the Ottoman Empire. The fall of Constantinople had already brought about huge prestige and glory to the Ottoman state. And these follow victories, they further solidify its power and reputation in the region. There is a belief, and I love this part so much, that about 10 years after conquering Constantinople, which is now assembled, Mehmed visits the site of Troy.
This is super important to me. And he boasted that he avenged the Trojans by conquering the Greeks, which I for one think is delightful and implies that they knew where Troy was all along. However, something cannot be discovered until a white man finds it. So that actually didn’t happen until 1870 when German archaeologist Henrik Schwellman began excavations based on his reading of Homer’s The Iliad.
And he worked alongside an Englishman called Frank Calvert, who had previously identified the same spot. However, I don’t know if you know this. I am a huge fan of the Trojan story. And when I read that he knew like he visited Troy and like saluted the Trojan army there and I knew that Troy hadn’t been discovered until 1870. I was like, hold on, you’re telling me the Ottoman Empire knew where it was. And here we are just being white again.
Theresa: You know, that sounds about white. I mean, truthfully, like how many times do we go? Oh, the indigenous people of whatever group couldn’t possibly have. And it’s like, oh, no, no, they’ve done it many, many times before.
Angie: For like, I don’t know, a thousand years they’ve been on to this. So I thought that to know that he went there to know that he did that made me laugh so hard.
I was like, good for him. Now. He also turns his attention to Serbia, which had been a pretty inconsistent vassal of the Ottoman Empire. Since 1389 and in 1454 using his familial connections with his stepmother, he finally and he also has an alliance here. It’s hungry demands control over certain Serbian castles. When Serbia refuses, Ottoman forces invade quickly capturing several fortresses and besieging their capital. However, news of the approaching Hungarian relief force under Higyandi met midwistralis’ forces. I’ve mentioned him earlier in the Battle of Varna.
Theresa: That’s the I’ve already forgotten him. So thank you for you. You’re welcome.
Angie: Although a smaller Ottoman force was defeated by a Hungarian Serbian coalition in October, the Ottomans achieved victory. I want to say triply that that’s where the victory is, but I’m going to spell it because that is not how you say it. It is T-R-I-P-O-L-J-E.
Theresa: The J-E. Wow.
Angie: Yeah. Yeah. A treaty follows requiring Serbia to pay tribute and recognizes the Ottoman territorial gain as well as 50,000 Serbian prisoners being taken. In 1455, met mid launches another campaign where he besieges a mining town and does this for 40 days before it surrenders. And then in 1456 at the siege of Belgrade, this is disastrous for met mid.
Despite extensive preparations, he’s got 22 large cannons and a naval force. The Ottomans failed to prevent Higyandi’s relief from crossing the Danube. And the Ottoman navies defeated. Higyandi is able to reinforce the siege defenders and a final assault. And then there is a final assault on July 21, which initially breached the walls but was repulsed. And Christian forces counterattacked and reached the Ottoman camp. Met mid at this point personally enters the battle, killing three of enemies before he’s wounded.
His courage prevents a complete route, but the weakened Ottoman army, they are forced to lift the siege. Things are not going great for them. Got a little bit more conquering, a little bit more campaigning that goes on. But then Wallachia enters the picture.
Yes. I mean, they’ve been around, they’ve been doing stuff for a while, but it’s time to zoom in. And I should say, if you had not listened to episode 66, Wallachia and its relationship with the Ottoman Empire is why I know anything about met mid at all. So for a portion of this bit, met met is still a teenager and dad is still alive because Vlad Pepish and met men’s lives do not exist in a vacuum.
They are happening at the same time, right? So met mid father is still alive and he is sultan met mid is growing up. He is essentially the promised prince, but there is another prince who is literally just trying to survive in the world.
His father is creating and changing from the early 1400s. The Wallachian region was caught between the two major powers of the area. You’ve got the Ottoman Empire and the kingdom of Hungary. Now the Ottomans, they view Wallachia as this kind of buffer zone and they wanted to pay tribute, but largely keep your affairs to yourself. But each side wants Wallachia as a vessel and it’s this super tangled mess that Vlad III, our guy, Vlad and Hitler, and his brother become pawns. But the Ottomans basically hold them hostage as children to ensure that their father plays nice. In the meantime, the boys are educated in the Ottoman fashion and are taught Islam.
And as I mentioned earlier, this is a common practice to acquire children of other European families and raise them up in this lifestyle. So Vlad and his brother, Radu, they are both trained with the Turkish Janissary Corps. And as I said earlier, this is the sultans like elite warrior group.
Theresa: And they’re not in the harem, right? They’re not next to Makhmed.
Angie: I don’t think they’re raised together, but I think they certainly know each other. I don’t think they’re going to be allowed to play in Mamed’s harem at all, but I think that they’re definitely on the training field together. And as I mentioned earlier, these children, they’re often converted to Islam and they’re raised as fanatical Muslim warriors. Long story short, the Janissary are bad-ass and they’re trained by the Ottomans. And so when Vlad is an adult and causing all sorts of headaches, it’s kind of their dad’s fault on both parts. Because Vlad’s dad can’t play nice and Mamed’s dad’s like, hey, let’s train that kid up to be one hell of a soldier, right? And Vlad’s dad goes on this long spree of trying to play and placate both the Hungarians and the Ottomans, and it finally catches up to him.
Vlad’s father basically breaks his promise to stay neutral and the Ottoman sultan, who at the time is Murad, he at this point imprisons Vlad and his brothers, but he doesn’t kill them. But to say that is wild.
Theresa: He has his kiddos as captives and the dad’s playing fast and loose.
Angie: Right. And the sultan is like, well, I can use them as leverage. Like, this is going to be helpful. But while they’re imprisoned, Vlad witnesses numerous executions in the courtyard that’s right below his cell. And this is where he learns the use of entailment, driving the stake through victims of punishment. Yeah, shish kebobbing another man. Yeah. They believe these brutal killings like repeatedly had this really disturbing effect on Vlad’s brain and behavior.
Theresa: Surprise. Surprise. I mean, now, okay. Now, hey, at some point earlier on, he had head trauma and was wetting the bed and playing with fire and…
Angie: Right. Now, so while he’s imprisoned, his dad tries to appease the sultan by signing a treaty that gives the Ottomans control of Wallachian land along the Danube River. But this angers Zunyari, who we met earlier, and he is still bitter about losing the battle of Varna. So he sees a chance to restore his reputation and invades Wallachian 1447. This triggers a rebellion by the Wallachian boyers. So those playing at home, a boyer is like a local Wallachian nobleman.
Theresa: Let’s say it sounds like, you know, a cyst that appears that just needs to get… Yeah.
Angie: They’re facing attacks from Hignani’s army and another one of dad’s rivals, a man called Vladislav, his forces and also the rebellious nobles. At this point, Vlad Dracul, Vladian paler’s dad, he is overwhelmed, to say the least. He tries to escape, but he’s caught and executed. And then his eldest son suffers an even worse fate.
He is tortured by the rival nobles and then buried alive. Cool. So what a good way.
What a good way to go. Now Vlad Dracul’s father and older brother are both dead and Vlad Tepeche is 17 years old and finally freed from captivity. He is the oldest surviving son in the Order of the Dragon, which I didn’t mention earlier, but you may have mentioned in your podcast, is a Christian military order designed to keep the Ottomans out. And Vlad inherits his father’s sacred duty to fight against the Ottomans. And I feel like he just really takes that to heart, you know?
Theresa: I mean, I don’t know if I mentioned that he inherited that sacred duty or if I just said, boy, had a bone to pick.
Angie: Yeah, he sure did. So as he adopts the name Dracula, son of the dragon, to claim his father’s legacy, 1448 rolls around and with Ottoman support, he briefly ceases the Wallachian throne from Valdeslav, but he is driven out after just two months by Zunyadi’s forces. So at this point, Vlad Tepeche, he flees to Turkey and then Moldova. Well, his protector, the Prince of Moldova, is assassinated in 1451. And so Dracula or Vlad Tepeche escapes to Transylvania, which is now controlled by his enemies because life can’t just be easy for any of these people. And then fortune shifts for Vlad Tepeche because the Sultan Murad has died and Mehmed takes power.
So now we are back to where we started. Mehmed is in power, Vlad is a pain in the butt. He is Mehmed. He’s threatened Hungary and the Balkans, and Hinyandi needs allies. He’s been betrayed by Valdeslav and he turns to Vlad Tepeche and is like, hey, you want to help a brother out? You look like just the guy.
Theresa: Yes, the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Angie: Yeah, Vlad Tepeche joins Hinyandi’s army and he’s defending Transylvanian borders while Hinyandi achieved this legendary win at the Demise, which was that absolute blemish on Mehmed’s record earlier that I mentioned. It was just a train wreck for him. In 1456, they defeat Mehmed’s 90,000 strong army and Tepeche invades Lulakia and reclaims his throne. And then Hinyandi dies of the plague. I did not think I was going to be saying that this week.
Theresa: You know, I forget the plague overlap.
Angie: Honestly, yeah. Like, oh yeah, the plague. I thought I was only going to mention syphilis.
Theresa: Here we are. The plague. That old chestnut.
Angie: So Vlad Tepeche immediately confronts the boyars who had his father and brother killed and in a calculated actor event, he invites 200 rival nobles to a feast and then forces them to march 50 miles to rebuild his ruin castle. Many die from exhaustion and the elderly in weak aren’t paled immediately. And this is where he earns the nickname Vlad the Impaler. And this is also the moment that marks the beginning of his reign and his whole scorch earth tactics. So after the massacre, Tepeche titans control by creating a secret police force called the Armasi and they’re composed of foreigners, mercenaries and just kind of general outcasts and they help him enforce his brutal vision of law and order.
We’ve talked about this before. He executes people for minor offenses using like horrific means like he’s crushing them under carts. He’s getting victims alive. There’s the good old impalement. He’s roasting them over cold. Did you know that historians estimate his regime killed between 50,000 and 100,000 people?
Theresa: You know, he’s got to get up very early to really accomplish everything on his list. I mean, he’s not doom scrolling his days away.
Angie: I’m just thinking Beyonce’s life could be so different.
Theresa: My life could be so different if I had a different mission.
Angie: Right. His worst atrocities. They occur in Transylvania between 1457 and 1459. He launches these devastating raids on German trading towns. He’s burning cities. He’s impaling hundreds of merchants. He’s boiling victims alive.
And these massacres, they spark German propaganda all over the place against him, which is kind of where we get a lot of the Dracula stories from is this German propaganda. When I was writing my thesis paper, I had the pleasure of actually reading some of it. It was so much fun. Like the guys writing at the time were hilarious. And I’m like, you do understand that this cannot have happened, right?
Theresa: Okay, but don’t let a good story get in the way of facts or reverse that.
Angie: Yeah. Don’t let facts get in the way of a good story. I mean, propaganda is going to propaganda no matter what century you’re in. Now, initially, he pays the tribute to Sultana Minton. But when Pope Pius II, your guy calls for a new crusade in 1459. He stops payment and he kills the Turkish recruiters. Because they refuse to remove their turbans in his presence. So Tepechez, the turbans nailed to their heads and he sends the bodies back to the Sultan.
Theresa: I mean, honestly, I love the smart alechness of it. I don’t. I mean, as much as I like to think I’m a baddie, I perhaps don’t have that level of tenacity within me. But I appreciate the plan. I love it, right?
Angie: Now, to me, the best part about this is he knows that these ambassadors are not removing their hats because they only remove their turbans in the presence of God. So he is like, I know this game and I’m just going to have a little bit of fun with it. He’s just being a jerk. Yes, 100%. He then captures the forest of Grigiri.
Theresa: He’s basically disguised as a forest. Every tree is in handcuffs. Fortress. Fortress, not forest.
Angie: I love the image of a forest in handcuffs. Fortress. He’s disguised himself as a Turkish officer and launches winter raids along the Danube. 18,000 troops invade and he ambushes them and kills over half of them. This makes him a European hero, by the way, which I think is wild.
Theresa: Why does that make… Why does that… Why do you think that’s wild?
Angie: Because I am seeing the connection between like the real life history here and the moment in some movies where Dracula takes on the European contingent by himself. And so obviously he has men to help him. It wasn’t just him over there, right?
Killing during this ambush. But it makes it really easy to see how one can get the story from it. Fair.
That’s all. I love it so much. Now, this clearly pisses Met Med off. Why would that be, Angie?
He’s joking. I just, you know, when 9,000 of your guys show up dead and he invades with a massive army in 1462. Tepes’s 25,000 strong force is one-tenth the size of the Sultan’s army and he retreats into the mountain. He’s entwining scorched earth tactics and night-time cavalry raids. And when Met Med reaches, and I’m going to pronounce this wrong because I do it every time, Trigovist, he encounters what is called, quote, a forest of thousands of impaled Turkish corpses. At which point Met Med’s like, yeah, mom’s calling, gotta go, bye. Yeah.
Theresa: I think I’m going to go reorganize my sock drawer, actually.
Angie: As it turns out, I left the oven on. I gotta go. Huh.
Theresa: I want to just be anywhere but here. Yeah.
Angie: And I just get the image of that exact face, anywhere but here, sounds so nice. You know, actually I’m an overdue library book.
Theresa: My dad retired about this age. What am I doing?
Angie: Yeah, exactly. I am just not stepping up. So, though this is celebrated as a victory, the campaign, it’s devastated Laulacchea. The sultan leaves Tepesh’s brother, Radu, there with a small force, and what’s left of the war-weary boyars. And they are quite tired of Tepesh’s reign of terror, and they support Radu’s claim to the throne. So, now he’s dealing with both internal rebellion and external invasion, so he’s forced to flee. After fleeing Laulacchea, Tepesh sought help from the Hungarian emperor Matthias Corvinus, who was the son of his former ally, Njandi. And Corvinus?
Theresa: He’s the son of Njandi, because I brought up him. Yeah. I didn’t hit daddy, right?
Angie: Okay. There’s a lot of weird daddy dirt in this one.
Theresa: I mean, so he disagreed with the pope and his involvement with Vlad.
Angie: Anyhow, go on. I’m just excited. Yeah, well, okay. So, as you almost just said, he sees no value in supporting and opposed Pennyless Prince. So, he recognizes- Listen to your poor mouth.
Pretty much, yeah. He recognizes Radu as Laulacchea’s legitimate ruler, and he imprisons Tepesh. To justify this, there are- Corvinus, he presents these forged documents that are created by what they call a vengeful German merchant, claiming that Dracula, or Vlad Tepesh, has secretly allied with the sultan. And once publicized, these documents destroyed any of the remaining popular support that Tepesh formerly had.
Theresa: But that thing is like wild. Right? That is- I mean, wild.
Angie: At what point would you think, yeah, I think he teamed up with the sultan when like, not that long ago, he just killed 9,000 of his men in a river raid. You know? Yeah. Yeah.
Theresa: You also didn’t even hit on the fact that Netmet killed his wife.
Angie: Oh, yeah. There’s that. In fact, I don’t hit on many of the women here in this at all, actually. I will have to come back. I’ll have to circle back to the ladies.
Theresa: Tepesh- It’s all right. I don’t think I covered that in mine either.
Angie: We did- I don’t think there’s a ton of information. Like, I tried to find information on Netmet’s mother. There’s like a sentence. And his stepmother has a little bit of information, but I don’t know if it’s just because there’s women- because there are women in history or because we are in the western world that it lacks the ability to have access to them. My guess is just because there are women in history. That would be my guess. Yeah. I wanted to know.
I wanted to know about her whole life. But anyway, Tepesh spends 12 years in prison. And he allegedly passes the time by torturing and impaling the rodents in his cell.
Theresa: I mean, you’ve got a surplus of them and you’ve got a gift. God forbid a dude have a hobby. Just saying.
Angie: Despite the German pressure to execute him, Corvinus allows Tepesh to marry one of his cousins and they do have children together. I think this is wife number two. But I’m not 100% sure. I didn’t write that part of the timeline down. In 1473, Radu is overthrown and negotiating for peace with the Ottomans begins. And this is super alarming for Corvinus and prompts him to release Tepesh. And he joins the empire or the emperor on a Bosnian crusade and invades Wallachia for the third time in 1476. And he reclaims his throne. But his reign only lasts two months before his bloody headless corpse was discovered in a field. The exact circumstances of Dracula’s death remain unknown, but he had countless enemies. You’ve got German merchants that are seeking revenge, Orthodox priests angered by his conversion to Catholicism, the nobles who are exhausted by his killing spree, rival claimants to the throne, and of course the Turkish Sultan himself. While the identity of this killer is sort of lost to history, the legends that surround him have obviously proved immortal, including the one that states Metmeh demanded Tepes’ head upon his death to know for sure that he was dead because he was that big of a pain in his side. My favorite bit about this legend is that he sends out part of his elite fighting force to bring back Dracula’s head.
And no one knows where it is. And I just love that. But to finish Metmeh off, he continues to conquer and expand his empire while balancing court life. Beyond the battlefield, he is a man of intellect and curiosity. He gathers scholars from across the Islamic world as well as Europe. He translates Greek and Latin texts into Turkish and Arabic. He commissions phenomenal works of architecture, including the Tupkapi palace, which becomes the heart of the Ottoman administration. He invites Italian painter Bellini to his court, who paints one of the first realistic portraits of a Muslim ruler ever made. And for Metmeh, this was a statement that basically said, I don’t belong just to the east, but to the world as a whole, which I think is pretty cool.
Under his rule, the Ottoman Empire became not only powerful, but enlightened a blend of cultures, idea, and tradition that would define the region for centuries. In the spring of 1481, Metmeh prepares for another campaign. The destination is kind of uncertain. Some think he was planning to conquer Italy, but others think maybe Egypt. Either way, he would never reach it. His army sets up camp, and he suddenly falls ill, and on May 3rd, 1481, at the age of just 49 years old, the great conqueror dies.
His lifetime ushered in the renaissance of the Ottoman Empire, and I think that’s kind of one of my favorite parts about him. Nice. Oh, yeah. That’s the story of Metmeh too, and I could be here for six more hours, but I didn’t figure you would want all six hours of that.
Theresa: I mean, I appreciate the synopsis because that gives me the opportunity to deep dive. Yep.
Angie: That’s kind of what always my thought is. If something is interesting to you, please go find all the things. You know? Like, I’m the type of person that will hear, as you have witnessed, the throwaway line and be like, wait, what? I need to know all the things about this one thing now. And so I kind of love doing the Grand Overview because then there might be something in there that triggers somebody else to be like, oh, I need to know. And I love that.
Theresa: And you’re right. You did take the whole episode. So you can blame my husband. I will not. I’ve enjoyed every little bit. One of the things I recently watched, I don’t remember, it was a, I’ll say docuseries, right?
But it was one of those very click baby. They don’t go deep. They make me frustrated the whole time, but I still fascinated and I still watch them. And then I realized I’m just angry and frustrated. But they were talking about the curse of Vlad Tepeș. You heard about it?
Angie: A little bit. I probably could not tell you verbatim because I get a lot of his stories mixed up, but there you are.
Theresa: The concept was that Vlad cursed the people of Romania because of their betrayal of him and how everything went. And I’m like, huh, I’ve never heard about this. And so of course they’re talking about like all of the plague and the disasters are a thing, but they’re like hundreds of years in between everything.
Yeah. But like you talk to the Romanians or they did on the show. I didn’t reach out to any of my friends in Romania and be like, so do you believe in this? Because it sounds like hogwash. But of course on this show, they’re like, hey, so do you believe in this curse? Oh, yes, in our blood. And it’s just like interesting.
Angie: My understanding is that and I, and this is where I think I could be convoluted with other information. But my understanding is according to the story, don’t, doesn’t he put that curse on the people right after his wife is killed?
Theresa: Good question. Can’t say that they spent a ton of time on it. So I didn’t retain.
Angie: Yeah. There’s a letter. So his legend is so big and so huge. And I think what’s fascinating about it is that it seems like it’s ever evolving to fit the next generation. Yeah.
Theresa: Then we all just take it and do what we need to. Yeah.
Angie: And I think kind of a lot of legends are like that, but his is, I think always so relevant. And it’s curious to me that it is like he’s always going to be on my top 10.
Theresa: You look at it like, I think we, when I heard Mulan, I talked about how she wasn’t apparently based off a real person, but she’s just this small snippet of a poem. That has just been reimagined to what every generation needs. I wonder if that’s what we’ve done with him.
Angie: I think so. And I think obviously Brem Stoker helped, right? Like bring his story to the forefront of popular imagination. But it makes sense sometimes the world to quote the movie Dracula and told sometimes the world does not need another hero. Sometimes the world eats a monster. Fair point. It’s actually my favorite of the Dracula movies.
Theresa: Well, if you have a favorite of the Dracula movies, note someone who does rate, review, subscribe, send this to another human who just needs to understand why Vlad was Vlad and celebrate the all that was Muck Med and the Ottoman Empire. And on that note, goodbye.
Theresa: Bye.
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