How the Romanians put up a formidable against the Ottoman Turks in the rear and slowed down their advance towards Constantinople.
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According to al-Bukhari [d. 869] an early Muslim jurist; "In the Muslim community, the holy war is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the [Muslim] mission and [the obligation to] convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force…"
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In the fourteenth century, the Ottoman Turks expanded their empire from Anatolia to the Balkans. They crossed the Bosporus in 1352 and crushed the Serbs at the battle of Kosovo Polje, in the south of modern-day Yugoslavia, in 1389. Walachia’s (ancient Romania) Prince Mircea the Old (1386-1418) sent his forces to Kosovo to fight beside the Serbs; so soon after the battle Sultan Beyazid marched on Walachia and imprisoned Mircea until he pledged to pay tribute.
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Fifteenth century Wallachian prince Vlad Tepes (or Prince Vlad III) fought fire with fire. He is credited with being the legendary Dracula, the vampire-count featured in the classic horror story Dracula (1897) written by novelist Bram Stroker. Many historians make an association between the mythical vampire and the historical figure of Prince Vlad III, known in his homeland as Vlad Tepes (Vlad the Impaler), prince of Wallachia three times, in 1448, 1456-1462 and 1475.
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After a failed attempt to break the sultan’s grip, Mircea fled to Transylvania and enlisted his forces in a crusade called by Hungary’s King Sigismund. But unfortunately the campaign ended miserably: the Turks routed Sigismund’s forces in 1396 at Nicopolis in present-day Bulgaria, and Mircea and his men were lucky to escape across the Danube.
Mongol Assault on the Ottomans gave respite to Romania from a renewed Jihadi attack
In 1402 Walachia gained a respite from Ottoman pressure as the Mongol leader Tamerlane attacked the Ottomans from the east, killed the sultan Beyazid, and sparked a civil war among the Ottomans.
When the Mongol threat had passed, the Ottomans renewed their assault on the Balkans. In 1417 Mircea after more than half a century of resistance, finally capitulated to Sultan Mehmed I and agreed to pay an annual tribute and surrender territory.
Ottomans use a fake peace treaty to regroup and launch an assault deeper into the heart of Europe
But this truce was a deceptive one that was used by the Ottomans to regroup, to launch an assault deeper into the heart of Europe, by attacking Poland. In this assault, launched in 1444 the Ottomans routed European forces at Varna in contemporary Bulgaria. And when Constantinople succumbed in 1453, the Ottomans cut off Genoese and Venetian galleys from Black Sea ports, trade ceased, and the Romanian principalities’ isolation deepened.
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Prince Vlad Tepes (made popular in the Dracula fable) impaling the Turks who had invaded his homeland Romania. Vlad achieved renown beyond Wallachia’s borders as a successful fighter against the Turks and a ruthless ruler. Notorious for his brutal punishment methods, he gained the name Tepes (Impaler) after his favorite form of punishing his Muslim enemies – impaling them on a wooden stake.
But not many know that Vlad Dracula had originally learnt this habit of impaling the Turks on stakes from the tactics used by the Turks themselves during his campaigns against them along with the famous Hungarian hero, Janos Hunyad. Before Vlad, there has been no mention of impaling of thousands of captured enemy prisoners in European History.
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At this time of near desperation, a Magyarized (Hungaryianized) Romanian from Transylvania, János Hunyadi, became regent of Hungary. Hunyadi, was to become a hero of the wars against the Ottomans. He mobilized Hungary against the Turks, equipping a mercenary army funded by the first tax ever levied on Hungary’s nobles. He scored a resounding victory over the Turks and liberated Belgrade in 1456, but unfortunately died of plague soon after the battle. Childhood brutalities at the hands of the Ottomans deeply seared Prince Vlad’s psyche against Muslim depredations
In one of his final acts, Hunyadi installed Vlad Tepes as the regent of Romania, around whom evolved the legend of count Dracula. Vlad had an eventful reign from 1456 to 1462. he had seen from his early childhood, the depredations of the Turks against the Romanians. He also had a traumatic childhood, fleeing from the Turks and consequently had cultivated an abhorrence for them.
These childhood experiences influenced his character and when he grew up, he took abnormal pleasure in inflicting torture and watching his Turkish victims writhe in agony. He also defied the Sultan by refusing to pay tribute. In 1461 Hamsa Pasha tried to lure Vlad into a trap, but the Walachian prince discovered the deception, captured Hamsa and his men, impaled them on wooden stakes, and abandoned them. Sultan Mohammed later invaded Walachia and drove Vlad into exile in Hungary. Although Vlad eventually returned to Walachia, he was murdered shortly thereafter, and Walachia’s resistance to the Ottomans softened.
Moldavia’s resistance to the Muslims
Meanwhile in Eastern Romania, in Moldavia and its prince, Stephen the Great (1457-1504), were the Romanian principalities’ last hope of repelling the Ottoman threat. Stephen had proved his mettle when he drew on Moldavia’s peasantry to raise a 55,000-man army and repelled the invading forces of Hungary’s King Mátyás Corvinus in a daring night attack. Stephen’s army also invaded Walachia in 1471 and defeated the Turks when they retaliated in 1473 and 1474. After these victories, Stephen implored Pope Sixtus IV to forge a Christian alliance against the Turks. The pope replied with a letter naming Stephen an "Athlete of Christ," but he did not heed Stephen’s calls for Christian unity.
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The Romanians’ last hero before the Turks closed their stranglehold on the principalities was Walachia’s Michael the Brave (1593-1601). Once enthroned, however, he rounded up extortionist Turkish lenders, locked them in a building, and burned it to the ground. His forces then overran several key Turkish fortresses. Michael’s ultimate goal was complete independence.
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During the last decades of Stephen’s reign, the Turks increased the pressure on Moldavia. They captured key Black Sea ports in 1484 and burned Moldavia’s capital, Suceava, in 1485. Stephen rebounded with a victory in 1486 but thereafter confined his efforts to secure Moldavia’s independence to the diplomatic arena.
Frustrated by vain attempts to unite the West against the Turks, Stephen, on his deathbed, told his son to carry on the struggle against the infidel Turks and expel them from Europe. But unfortunately succession struggles weakened Moldavia after his death.
In 1514 greedy nobles sparked a widespread peasant revolt in Hungary and Transylvania. Hungary was vulnerable to outside aggression. Taking advantage of these unsettled conditions, the Ottomans stormed Belgrade in 1521, routed a feeble Hungarian army at Mohács in 1526, and conquered Buda in 1541
. They installed a Pasha (Governor) to rule over central Hungary; Transylvania became an autonomous principality under Ottoman suzerainty; and the Habsburgs assumed control over fragments of northern and western Hungary.
After the Ottomans conquered Buda, Walachia and Moldavia lost all but the veneer of independence and the Ottomans exacted heavy tribute. The Turks chose Walachian and Moldavian princes from among the sons of nobles as hostages to be taken to Constantinople for being enlisted as Janissaries in the ottoman army. A few of the princes chose death to a life of servitude.
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Legend and folklore also helped in the fight against the tyrannical Muslim Turks. In many of the wars of liberation, the Romanian kings told their soldiers that angels from heaven would bless them, if they secured martyrdom while fighting the infidel Muslim Ottoman Turks. One such illustrious king was Michael the Brave who inspired not just the Romanians but all peoples of the Balkan nations to struggle against the Turks for national freedom. All these nations have suffered greatly – and bear the scars – of the Ottomans. In the case of Albania, this process is particularly marked, with the effects being less prominent in Romania, Bulgaria and Greece only by the measure of the population change in these regions. In the case of Albania, the entire original Christian population was forcibly converted to Islam and so Christianity was fully supplanted by Islam.
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The Romanians’ last hero before the Turks closed their stranglehold on the principalities was Walachia’s Michael the Brave (1593-1601). After he was enthroned, however, he rounded up extortionist Turkish lenders, locked them in a building, and burned it to the ground. His forces then overran several key Turkish fortresses. Michael’s ultimate goal was complete independence. In 1600, Michael conquered Moldavia.
For the first time a single Romanian prince ruled over all Romanians, and the Romanian people sensed the first stirring of a national identity. Michael the Brave grew more impressive in legend as in life, and his short-lived unification of the Romanian lands later inspired not just the Romanians but all Christian peoples of the Balkan nations to struggle against the Muslim Turks for national freedom.
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There have been very few instances in the history of the Islamic Jihad, where the inveterate brutality of the Muslims was surpassed by their adversaries. They included the Nubians of Southern Sudan, the Franks of France, the Crusaders, the Mongols under Hulagu Khan who massacred the entire city of Baghdad and the Romanians (of the Dracula legend). All these people had one thing in common – they successfully checkmated and defeated the Islamic Jihadis.
In this string of people, it was the Romanians and the Crusaders who excelled in overawing the Jihadis in their monstrosity. While the Crusaders are reputed to have roasted and eaten the Jihadis in Anatolia, during the fury of the first Crusade, it was the Romanians who instituted the practice of impaling thousands of captured Jihadis who made up the Ottoman Turkish army. Among the Romanian kings who were particularly ruthless was Vlad the Impaler (circa 1420-1476) who became notorious as Dracula.
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All the Balkan nations have suffered greatly – and bear the scars – of the Ottomans. In the case of Albania, this process is particularly marked, with the effects being less prominent in Romania, Bulgaria and Greece only by the measure of the population change in these regions. In the case of Albania, the entire original Christian population was forcibly converted to Islam and so Christianity was fully supplanted by Islam.
The Legend of Dracula and the Lessons of the Romanian Struggle against the Jihad
There have been very few instances in the history of the Islamic Jihad, where the inveterate brutality of the Muslims was surpassed by their adversaries. They included the Nubians of Southern Sudan, the Franks of France, the Crusaders, the Mongols under Hulagu Khan who massacred the entire city of Baghdad and the Romanians (of the Dracula legend). All these people had one thing in common – they successfully checkmated and defeated the Islamic Jihadis. In this string of people, it was the Romanians and the Crusaders who excelled in overawing the Jihadis with their raw monstrosity. And this is precisely why they could defeat the Jihadi Terrorists.
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After every battle, Vlad used brutal terror tactics against the Muslim Turks, impaling tens of thousands of them upon stakes, thereby earning his nickname. His name has also been associated in western literature as a vampire – although this is completely unrelated to his real activities, since he never drank the blood of his Muslim adversaries, as against the Crusaders who have been documented to have roasted and consumed their Muslim adversaries. For the terror he instilled in their hearts, the Turks never forgave Vlad and by deceit they succeed in eventually getting him murdered. So much was their paranoia that they had his head delivered to the Sultan of Turkey on a platter, as proof that their great enemy was actually dead!
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While the Crusaders are reputed to have roasted and eaten the Jihadis in Anatolia, during the fury of the first Crusade, it was the Romanians who instituted the practice of impaling thousands of captured Jihadis who made up the Ottoman Turkish army. Among the Romanian kings who were particularly ruthless was Vlad the Impaler who became notorious as Dracula (circa 1420-1476).
Vlad used brutal terror tactics against the Turks, impaling tens of thousands of them upon stakes, thereby earning his nickname. His name has also been used in Western literature as a vampire – although this is completely unrelated to his real activities, since he never drank the blood of his Muslim adversaries, as against the Crusaders who have been documented to have roasted and consumed their Muslim adversaries.
For the terror he instilled in their hearts, the Turks never forgave Vlad and by deceit they succeed in eventually getting him murdered. So much was their paranoia that they had his head delivered to the Sultan of Turkey on a platter, as proof that their great enemy was actually dead.
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Vlad was in fact the terror of the Jihadi Ottoman Empire for many years, and through his sheer terrorism he inflicted some of the greatest defeats upon the Ottomans during their long reign in the Balkans. And his raw monstrosity was precisely why he could defeat the Jihadi Terrorists as long as he lived.
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But while he lived, with his overawing brutality Vlad Dracula, managed to terrorize the Turks. He even managed to liberate Walachia from the Turks for a short while. Although his name has been appropriated for another completely unconnected use in western literature (as a vampire), Vlad was in fact the terror of the Jihadi Ottoman Empire for many years, and through his sheer terrorism he inflicted some of the greatest defeats upon the Ottomans during their long reign in the Balkans.
Romanians learnt the technique of Impaling from the Jihadis
But not many know that Vlad Dracula had originally learnt this habit of impaling the Turks on stakes from the tactics used by the Turks themselves during his campaigns against them along with the famous Hungarian hero, Janos Hunyad. Before Vlad, there has been no mention of impaling of thousands of captured enemy prisoners in European History.
In 1461, Walachian soldiers took a Turkish fort called Giurgiu near the Turkish center of Nicopolis and slaughtered all the Turks they could find, impaling them on stakes, with the tallest stake being reserved for the Turkish Pasha (Governor) of Nicopolis, Hamza Pasha.
In one instance Vlad Dracula impaled 20,000 Turks – the sight of the massacre so shook an invading Turkish army that they turned back rather than face the man who could do such a thing – even though, ironically, Vlad had learned the impaling trick from the Turks themselves. Vlad the Dracula continued impaling all the Turks he could lay his hands on all along the Danube to the Black Sea, sending a message back to the Hungarian court that "we have killed 23,884 Turks". Accompanying this message, Dracula sent two bags full of Turkish heads, ears and noses to underline his point.
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In 1462 in a series of battles along the Danube river, Vlad’s forces were joined by female conscripts, who fought the Turks with a ferocity unexpected of women. In one of these skirmishes, the Turkish Sultan himself barely escaped capture when a Walachian party led by a contingent of lady warriors raided his camp in the Carpathinian mountains overlooking Tirgoviste. Thousands of Turks were captured and killed in this engagement – and when the Sultan advanced upon Tirgoviste itself, he found a mile long gorge filled with 20,000 impaled Turks. The brutal display was too much even for the notoriously cruel Turks.
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By 1462, the Ottomans had drawn up an overwhelming army of 60,000 men to wipe out this bold and brave Walachian Prince who threatened to uproot Turkish tyranny from the Balkans. The Turks advanced in two parts – half of them sailed along the Danube River while the other half marched overland through Bulgaria.
Vlad’s men kept the Turks shadowed along the Danube – when the Turks started disembarking, the Walachians burst upon them from the forest on horseback and drove them back into their boats with the ferocity of their attack. However, Vlad knew that he could not face the Turks in open battle, as he did not have the numbers to defeat the Jihadis in this manner. So he decided to wage a guerrilla war against the Turks, combining it with a scorched earth policy. Constant raids and food shortages then took their toll on the invading Turkish army.
In 1462 in a series of battles along the Danube river, Vlad’s forces were joined by Romanian female conscripts, who fought the Turks with a ferocity unexpected of women. In one of these skirmishes, the Turkish Sultan himself barely escaped capture when a Walachian party led by a contingent of lady warriors raided his camp in the Carpathinian mountains overlooking Tirgoviste.
Lessons from the Impaling of Turkish soldiers for us today in the War on Terror
Thousands of Turks were captured and killed in this engagement – and when the Sultan advanced upon Tirgoviste itself, he found a mile long gorge filled with 20,000 impaled Turks. The brutal display was too much even for the notoriously cruel Turks. They withdrew without joining battle for Tirgoviste, with the Sultan complaining that he could not "win this land from a man who does such things".
Herein lies a heart-wrenching but unavoidable strategic reality that only if you are more cruel than the Muslims do you stand a chance to beat them off on the battlefield. Battling and defeating the Muslims is not the job for the faint-hearted and lily-livered. In the Muslims we face a blood-thirsty enemy, and we need an antidote that is stronger than the venom of Islam, if we are to outmatch Islam.
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Romanian resistance Turkish rule continued uninterrupted until the end of the 16th Century, when another Walachian prince, Michael the Brave, led a revolt against the Ottomans and succeeded in liberating Walachia, Moldavia, and Transylvania, uniting these regions for a brief period until 1601. Michael is to this day the national hero of Romania for his part in this uprising and for being the first to combine the three territories that were to form Romania.
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Now the Turks resorted to subterfuge, and promised the throne of Romania to Vlad’s (Dracula’s) brother who was held by the Turks in captivity and had been brought up a leader of the Janisaaries and was Muslim by conviction. This brother began exploiting the divisions in the ranks of the Romanians. As Vlad’s ruthless march against the Turks had earned him enemies amongst those traitor Romanians who had been appointed to high rank by the Turks as Tax collectors, and who had been stripped of their rank and privileges by Dracula, they united against Vlad.
Seizing the divisions among the Romanians, Vlad’s brother led the Jannisaries who were joined by the traitor contingents, who wanted to over throw Vlad and regain their privileges. Sadly for Romania, Vlad was defeated and then deposed as Prince of Walachia by his traitor brother who collaborated with the Turks.
After being attacked by his brother’s forces, Vlad fled to the Hungarian capital, where he was given refuge. In 1476, he once again became prince of Walachia after liberating Romania with a new army. His reign did not last long. He was ambushed by the Janisarries outside Bucharest, his headless corpse was found in a swamp. His head was delivered on a platter to the Turkish Sultan at Constantinople – the Jihadis final revenge on the Romanian prince who had inflicted so many defeats upon them. Walachia then fell once again under Ottoman rule.
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While Prince Vlad lived, with his overawing brutality he managed to terrorize the Turks. He even managed to liberate Walachia from the Turks for a short while. Although his name has been appropriated for another completely unconnected use in western literature (as a vampire and Dracula), Vlad was in fact the terror of the Jihadi Ottoman Empire for many years, and through his sheer audacity he inflicted some of the greatest defeats upon the Ottomans during their long tyranny of over five centuries in the Balkans.
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Romanian resistance Turkish rule continued uninterrupted until the end of the 16th Century, when another Walachian prince, Michael the Brave, led a revolt against the Ottomans and succeeded in liberating Walachia, Moldavia, and Transylvania, uniting these regions for a brief period until 1601. Michael is to this day the national hero of Romania for his part in this uprising and for being the first to combine the three territories that were to form Romania.
The rise of Imperial Russia under Tsarina Katerina (Catherine the Great) proved to be Romania’s eventual salvation. Declaring Russia to be the protector of all Orthodox Christians, the Tsarina Katerina of Russia coerced the Ottomans to relent and allow a measure of autonomy in Walachia and Moldavia. This was to culminate in 1829 when the two regions were to be formally attached to Russia as protectorates. The two regions still were however obliged to pay tributes to the Ottomans – a sort of blackmail to prevent further military in
tervention.
Romania’s Final Independence from Ottomans
By 1857, the regions of Moldavia and Walachia had built themselves up to the point where they were prepared to declare themselves independent. In that year the two states’ legislative bodies (made up out of a limited franchise) voted for political union and independence, creating a state with the name Romania. The Ottomans were finally removed as a factor from the Romanian state – after a 500 year occupation – following a Russian-Romanian victory over the Ottomans in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78.
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* For those uninitiated, PBUH expands to Perpetual Battle Upon Hagarism (Islam) – founded by the mass-murderer and pedophile pretenderprophet Mohammed-ibn-Abdallah (Yimach Shmo – May his name and memory be obliterated).
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Select Bibliography
Samson Blinded: A Machiavellian Perspective on the Middle East Conflict, by Obadiah Shoher
Jihad in the West: Muslim Conquests from the 7th to the 21st Centuries (Hardcover) by Paul Fregosi
The Sword of the Prophet: History, Theology, Impact on the World by Srdja Trifkovic
Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions About the World’s Fastest Growing Faith by Robert Spencer
Studies in Muslim Apocalyptic (Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam) by David Cook
Why I Am Not a Muslim by Ibn Warraq
Onward Muslim Soldiers by Robert Spencer
Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis by Bat Ye’Or
Islam and Dhimmitude: Where Civilizations Collide by Bat Yeor
What the Koran Really Says: Language, Text, and Commentary by Ibn Warraq
Islam and Terrorism: What the Quran Really Teaches About Christianity, Violence and the Goals of the Islamic Jihad by Mark A. Gabriel, Mark A. Gabriel
A Concise History of the Crusades by Thomas F. Madden
The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) by Robert Spencer
The Great Divide: The failure of Islam and the Triumph of the West by Marvin Olasky
The Myth of Islamic Tolerance: How Islamic Law Treats Non-Muslims by Robert Spencer
Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions About the World’s Fastest Growing Faith by Robert Spencer, David Pryce-Jones
The Koran (Penguin Classics) by N. J. Dawood
Don’t Keep me Silent! One Woman’s Escape from the Chains of Islam by Mina Nevisa
Christianity And Islam: The Final Clash by Robert Livingston
Holiest Wars : Islamic Mahdis, Their Jihads, and Osama bin Laden by Timothy R. Furnish
The Last Trumpet: A Comparative Study in Christian-Islamic Eschatology by Samuel, Ph.D. Shahid
Unleashing the beast: How a fanatical islamic dictator will form a ten-nation coalition and terrorize the world for forty-two months by Perry Stone
Contemporary Muslim Apocalyptic Literature (Religion and Politics) by David Cook
Islam and the Jews: The Unfinished Battle by Mark A., Ph.D. Gabriel
The Challenge of Islam to Christians by David Pawson
The Prophetic Fall of the Islamic Regime by Glenn Miller, Roger Loomis
Prophet of Doom : Islam’s Terrorist Dogma in Muhammad’s Own Words by Craig Winn
The False Prophet by Ellis H. Skolfield
The Approach of Armageddon: An Islamic Perspective by Muhammad Hisham Kabbani
The Cube and the Cathedral: Europe, America, and Politics Without God by George Weigel
Infiltration : How Muslim Spies and Subversives have Penetrated Washington by Paul Sperry
Unholy Alliance : Radical Islam and the American Left by David Horowitz
Unveiling Islam : An Insider’s Look at Muslim Life and Beliefs by Ergun Mehmet Caner
Perfect Soldiers : The Hijackers: Who They Were, Why They Did It by Terry McDermott
Islam Revealed A Christian Arab’s View Of Islam by Anis Shorrosh
Leaving Islam: Apostates Speak Out by Ibn Warraq
The Origins of the Koran: Classic Essays on Islam’s Holy Book by Ibn Warraq
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