Pearl Harbor (7 December 1941)

Pearl Harbor (7 December 1941)

 

Overview

 

Belligerents: USA and Japan

 

Casualties: 2043 sailors, soldiers and civilians killed, approximately 1000 injured. 4 battleships sunk, 4 battleships damaged, 29 aircraft destroyed, 74 aircraft damaged.

Background

 

A good starting point can be over ten years prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor: the Manchurian Crisis of 1931. Japan invaded Manchuria (in China), and had implemented dynamite along a Chinese railway, which in turn blew up a Japanese train. It was made to look as if the Chinese had done so maliciously, so that the Japanese had a reason to invade. They did so, with little hesitation, and established the puppet-state of Manchukuo.

Over the next decade, Japan continued invading areas of China, and a Japanese attack on the USS Panay on 12 December 1937 helped to turn Western opinion against the Japanese. But how did the invasion of an area of China – before the attack on the USS Panay – spark American interest in Japan and China?

 

America was particularly unhappy with Japan’s increasingly belligerent attitude towards China. The Japanese government believed that the only way to solve its economic and demographic problems was to expand into China’s territory and take over its import market. Eventually, Japan declared war on China in 1937. In response, the US imposed a number of economic sanctions and trade embargoes on Japan, which only made the Japanese more determined to stand their ground. During the months of negotiations between Tokyo and Washington DC, neither side would budge, making war seem almost inevitable.

The Japanese route to attack Pearl Harbor

 

Fearing a Japanese invasion, the US, UK and France assisted China with its loans for war supply contracts, further aggravating the Japanese. In mid-1940, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved the Pacific Fleet from San Diego, California to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. He also ordered a military build-up in the Philippines, too, in an attempt to discourage Japanese aggression in the Far East.

 

By July 1941, the US had frozen Japanese assets in the US following the seizure of French Indochina after the Fall of France, thereby imposing a virtual embargo on all trade, including oil. This step made it all but certain that Japan would have to seize oilfields to fulfil its strategic needs, while ejecting the US from the Asian theatre.

 

On 17 August 1941, Roosevelt warned Japan that American was prepared to take opposing steps if “neighbouring countries” were attacked. Japan was now faced with a dilemma: either withdraw from China and lose face, or seize new sources of raw materials in the resource-rich European colonies of Southeast Asia.

 

However, because the Japanese High Command was (mistakenly) certain that any attack on Europe’s Southeast Asian colonies – including Singapore – would bring the US into the war, a devastating preventive strike appeared to be the only way to prevent American naval interference.

 

The Attack

 

Pearl Harbor in Hawaii is stituated about 2000 miles from the US mainland, and about 4000 miles from Japan, and that was exactly the problem: nobody thought – or expected – the Japanese would start a war with an attack on the distant islands of Hawaii. Instead, American intelligence officials were confident that any Japanese attack would take place in one of the European colonies in the Pacific: the Dutch East Indies, Indochina or Singapore. As a result of the American military leaders not expecting an attack so close to home, Pearl Harbor itself was left relatively undefended. Almost the entire Pacific Fleet was moored around Ford Island in the harbour, and hundreds of aeroplanes were packed onto adjacent airfields. To Japan, Pearl Harbor was an irresistibly easy target.

The USS Arizona explodes as a bomb
is dropped onto its deck, killing everyone
onboard

 

Japan’s plan was simple: destroy the Pacific Fleet. By doing that, the US would be unable to fight back as Japan’s armed forces would spread across Europe’s South Pacific colonies. After months of tactical planning, Japan launched their attack.

 

At 7:48am, on Sunday 7 December 1941, the skies over Pearl Harbor were filled with Japanese planes, and bombs and bullets rained onto the vessels below, moored in the harbour like sitting ducks. At 8:10am, an 1800-lb bomb smashed through the deck of the battleship USS Arizona and landed in its forward ammunition magazine. The ship exploded immediately and sank with more than 1000 American men trapped inside. Torpedoes pierced the body of the USS Oklahoma, and it rolled onto its side, sinking, with 400 more Americans onboard.

 

Boats attempting to extinguish the fires
raging on a US battleship

Remarkably, the devastating surprise attack lasted less than two hours, and every single battleship in Pearl Harbor – USS Arizona, USS Oklahoma, USS California, USS Maryland, USS Nevada, USS Pennsylvania, USS Tennessee, USS Utah and USS West Virginia – had sustained significant damage. All but USS Arizona and USS Utah were eventually salvaged and repaired.

 

The Impact of the Attack

 

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor had crippled almost twenty American ships, and over three hundred aeroplanes. Airfields were likewise destroyed. 2043 soldiers, sailors and civilians were killed, along with 1000 more injured.

 

But – thankfully, from an American point of view – Japan had failed to destroy the Pacific Fleet. By the 1940s, battleships were no longer the most important naval vessels in war: aircraft carriers were. As it happened, all of the Pacific Fleet’s aircraft carriers were away from Pearl Harbor on 7 December, as some had returned to the mainland USA, and others were delivering planes to troops stationed on Midway and Wake Islands. Additionally, the attack on Pearl Harbor had left the base’s most important onshore facilities undamaged, including oil storage depots, submarine docks, shipyards, and repair shops. As a result, the US Navy was able to rebound fairly quickly from the attack.

 

Responses to the Attack

 

The US Ambassador to the UK, John G. Winant, was having dinner with the Prime Minister of the UK, Winston Churchill, when they heard of the news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on the radio. Winant recalled Churchill’s ‘excitement’ at hearing the news: “Churchill jumped to his feet and started for the door with the announcement: ‘We shall declare war on Japan.’” When Roosevelt telephoned Churchill, his first words to his UK counterpart were “We are all in the same boat now.”

 

President Roosevelt addressed a joint session of the US Congress on Monday 8 December 1941, a day after the attack. He used one of the most widely remembered lines in US history, when he referred to the attack as: “Yesterday – December 7, 1941 – a date that will live in infamy – the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.” He went on to add that “[I] will make very certain that this form of treachery shall never endanger us again.”

 

For the first time during the years of negotiations with Japan throughout the 1930s, the American people were united in their determination to go to war. Japan’s aim from the attack was (rather naively) to goad the US into dropping the economic sanctions against them: instead, they had pushed America into a global conflict that ultimately resulted in Japan’s first occupation by a foreign power.

 

Later in the day on 8 December, Congress approved Roosevelt’s declaration of war on Japan. Three days later, on 11 December 1941, Japan’s allies Germany and Italy declared war against the US. For the second time in three days, Congress reciprocated, declaring war on both Germany and Italy. More than two years after the start of the Second World War, the US had entered the conflict.

 

The Legacy of Pearl Harbor

 

The legacy of the Pearl Harbor attack was bringing the US into the Second World War. Quite obviously, the European powers would not have won the war without the assistance of the US. However, there are some negative sides which I wanted to shine a light on: internment camps.

 

The attack on Pearl Harbor threw the US Pacific Coast, and especially California, into a mass panic, with California being deemed as the next location for a Japanese attack. The Japanese advance across Burma, Malaya and the Philippines not only presented a threat to the European colonies, but also to Australia. It was this rumoured invasion scare which ultimately led to the mass arrest and internment of Americans of Japanese ancestry across the US, but particularly centred in California.

 

On the same day as the attack, the FBI, assisted with the help of sheriff’s deputies, began rounding up suspected Japanese aliens in Los Angeles County. By 9 December 1941 – a mere two days after the attack – some five hundred issei(Japanese non-citizens) were in federal custody on Terminal Island in Los Angeles Harbor. On 19 February 1942, Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which allowed the War Department to remove suspicious or possibly dangerous people from military areas.

 

The incarceration was later – thankfully, and rightly so – deemed to be illegal and racially discriminatory. However, America regained the military initiative in the naval war in the Pacific in the Battles of Coral Sea (May 1942) and Midway (June 1942), and then began the long series of island-hopping campaigns to reconquer Japanese-held territory in the South and Central Pacific.

 

Ultimately, the US would go on to formally end the Second World War in Japan, with the atomic bombings of Hiroshima (6 August 1945) and Nagasaki (9 August 1945). 

 

Bibliography

 

Norman Davies, Europe: A History (2014)

Niall Ferguson, Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World (2003)

Philip Jenkins, A Short History of the United States (Fourth Edition) (2012)

Kevin Starr, California: A History (2005)

https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/pearl-harbor

The Gunpowder Plot (5 November 1605)

The Gunpowder Plot (5 November 1605)

 

Overview

 

Date: 5 November 1605

 

Location: Houses of Parliament, London, England

 

Reason: Religious differences, assassination attempt against King James I of England

 

Participants: Robert Catesby, Guy Fawkes, Francis Tresham and others

 

Outcome: Failure for the plotters, plotters executed

 

 

Events Leading to the Gunpowder Plot

 

Guy Fawkes pictured guarding
the barrels of gunpowder

The Gunpowder Plot, also known as Guy Fawkes Night or simply 5 November, was an English Catholic plot against King James I (r. 1603-25), who was a Protestant. He had ascended the English throne in place of Queen Elizabeth I (r. 1558-1603), who was also a Protestant, and his persecution of Catholics was arguably stronger than Elizabeth’s was, sparking the need for drastic action in the minds of the plotters.

 

Historian Ronald Hutton argues that English Catholics initially had high hopes that James I would end the Elizabethan persecution of them. He had encouraged these ideas initially (to win further support for his accession as the first Stuart monarch), but soon reverted to the Elizabethan-style persecution of Catholics because “the weight of English public opinion had become so hostile to Catholics and the fines levied on them were so lucrative.” As a result, those who were indeed Catholic radicals, tried to blow him and his entire Parliament blown up.

 

The Plotters

 

The plotters were led by a Catholic called Robert Catesby. His father had been persecuted in Elizabeth I’s reign for refusing to conform to the Church of England. In total, the plotters numbered 13: it was certainly an unlucky number for all of them in the end: the reason I mentioned three in the summary above is because (arguably) they are the three most significant of the thirteen. Nevertheless, the names of the thirteen plotters involved were as follows: Thomas Bates, Robert Catesby, Sir Everard Digby, Guy Fawkes, John Grant, Robert Keyes, Thomas Percy, Ambrose Rookwood, Francis Tresham, Robert & Thomas Wintour, and John & Christopher Wright.

 

Catesby (and some of the other plotters) put some money together to rent a cellar which was directly underneath the House of Lords building, and transported a total of 36 barrels of gunpowder on boats across the River Thames to store in the cellar. Guy Fawkes was put in charge of the explosives because he had ten years’ experience in the military from his time fighting for Catholic Spain in the Protestant Netherlands during the Dutch Revolt (1566-1648).

 

5 November 1605

 

A segment of the infamous letter which
rumbled the plot!

However, the plan did not go to action. Lord Monteagle (one of the Lords who was due to be sitting in James’ Parliament on 5 November), was also the brother-in-law of Francis Tresham. As the 5 November approached, Lord Monteagle received an anonymous letter (which, as Fawkes would confess under torture) was written by (or, rather, attributed to) Francis Tresham, warning his brother-in-law not to attend Parliament on 5 November, as the English political establishment would receive a ‘terrible blow’. 

Sensing danger, Monteagle alerted the government, but it was decided that the government wanted to catch the plotters red-handed, so decided not to search the vaults under the Parliament chamber until the night of 4 November.

 

At approximately 11:00pm, the search party entered the rented cellar and it was a man who was also a justice of the peace (Sir Thomas Knyvet) who discovered a man guarding 36 barrels of gunpowder, a pile of firewood and a fuse. That man was, of course, Guy Fawkes.

 

Aftermath

 

Guy Fawkes was immediately arrested and questioned, under the use of torture (including the infamous rack), in order that he also name his co-conspirators. All of the thirteen plotters were eventually tracked down, and all received the same punishment: hung, drawn, and quartered.

 

A record from the trail noted that each of them were to be drawn backwards from prison by a horse tail, hanged, cut down while still alive, “have his Privy parts cut off and burned before his face, as being unworthily begotten and being unfit to leave any generation after him. His Bowels and inlaid Parts taken out and burnt…after to have his head cut off.” Then, and only then, were their bodies to be quartered.

 

Fawkes’ trial was set for 31 January 1606, along with Robert Keyes, Ambrose Rookwood and Thomas Wintour. Fawkes had been drawn, but on his way up to the gallows, he jumped from a ladder, breaking his neck and dying. His body was never quartered, but was still chopped up into four different pieces and sent to “the four corners of the kingdom”, as a warning to other potential traitors.

 

Legacy

 

A torture rack, similar to
the one Guy Fawkes
would have been tortured
on

Surprisingly, the immediate political consequences were not huge. Although tough new laws were rushed through Parliament against Catholicism, there was no widespread persecution of Catholics in England, and the peace with Spain held out. The longer-term consequences were more serious, though. Anti-Catholic feeling directly from the Gunpowder Plot played into the hands of anti-Catholic propaganda in the later seventeenth century in England.

 

If the plot had not been betrayed, it would have been the most serious terrorist attack of the seventeenth century, and not just blown up Parliament, but the entire centre of Westminster. Ronald Hutton argues that “The appropriate comparison is not with [9/11], but with the impact of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.”

 

Obviously the most famous legacy of the Gunpowder Plot is Guy Fawkes Night (also known as Bonfire Night or Fireworks Night), which was established by Parliament in 1606, and has been celebrated ever since. It is celebrated in Britain on 5 November every year, and sometimes effigies of Guy Fawkes are burned on the bonfires, while fireworks are let off to symbolise the explosions that would have occurred, had the plotters not been discovered.

 

A contemporary engraving of eight out of the
thirteen plotters. Missing are Digby, Grant,
Keyes, Rookwood and Tresham.

Bibliography

 

Ronald Hutton, A Brief History of Britain, 1485-1660: The Tudor & Stuart Dynasties (2010)

 

Simon Jenkins, A Short History of England (2011)

 

David Starkey, Crown & Country: The Kings and Queens of England, A History (2011)

 

https://www.history.com/topics/british-history/gunpowder-plot

Vlad the Impaler

Personal Profile

Vlad III Dracul, 'The Impaler' 

Born: 1428-31, known as Vlad III, Vlad the Impaler or Vlad III Dracula

 

Died: December 1476 – January 1477

 

Reign: October – November 1448; 15 April 1456 – July 1462; December 1476 – January 1477

 

Marriages: Unknown first wife; Jusztina Szilágyi

 

Children: Mihnea (b. 1462), unnamed second son (killed 1486); Vlad Drakwyla

 

Dynasty: Drâculesti, House of Basarab

 

***NOTE***

 

Throughout this post, I will refer to Vlad the Impaler as either ‘Vlad’ or ‘Vlad the Impaler’. Any other characters called Vlad (and there are a few!) will be referred to in full, such as ‘Vlad II Dracul’ (Vlad’s father), or ‘Vladislav II’ (Voivode of Wallachia), so as to avoid any confusion. There is also a list of characters at the bottom of this post, and the characters are listed in bold.

 

Early Life

 

Vlad III, better known as Vlad Dracula or Vlad the Impaler, was born in Sighisoara, a part of Transylvania, modern-day Romania. He was the second illegitimate son of Vlad II Dracul – hence the name Dracula. His father was the Voivode (ruler) of Wallachia from 1436-42, and again from 1443-47. The nickname ‘Dracul’ came from Vlad II’s membership in the Order of the Dragon, a military fraternity founded by Sigismund, the Holy Roman Emperor, in 1408. It was dedicated to stopping the Ottoman Turks’ advance into Europe from the East.

Vlad’s date of birth is often contended, and there are no definitive sources as to when he was actually born. The dates are often presumed to be between 1428-31; he was old enough to be a candidate to the throne of Wallachia* in 1448, meaning his birth would have been between 20-23 years old at the time. What we do know, though, is that he was born in Sighisoara, where his father lived in a three-storey stone house from 1431-35.

As an adolescent boy, during the Crusade Varna (1443-44), Vlad was sent as a hostage to the court of the Ottoman Sultan Murad II

The present-day countries in and around
what was Wallachia

 (r. 1421-44, 1446-51). Vlad was exploited as a child sex slave, and the buggery to which he was subjected to can be considered the likely psychiatric source of his later obsessions.

 

*Wallachia was a historical region of what is modern-day Romania. It was situated north of the Lower Danube River and south of the Southern Carpathian Mountains.

 

Reigns

Vlad was not just on the Wallachian throne once, but on three separate occasions. Although his first and third rules were significantly shorter than his second rule, they are still relevant in any discussion about Vlad the Impaler.

First Reign, October-November 1448

Upon the death of his father and elder brother in 1447, Vlad became a potential claimant to the Wallachian throne. However, the current ruler, Vladislav II, had taken the throne before Vlad had chance to publicly put his claim forward. It is often believed that Vladislav II assassinated Vlad II Dracul (Vlad the Impaler’s father) in order to seize the throne. Vladislav II was assisted by John Hunyadi, a leading military figurehead in Wallachia, and part of a noble Transylvanian family. However, in September 1448, John Hunyadi launched a campaign against the Ottoman Empire. Vlad took advantage of Hunyadi’s absence, and broke into Wallachia in early October.

The Ottoman forces defeated Hunyadi’s army in the Battle of Kosovo between 17-18 October 1448. Hunyadi’s deputy, Nicholas Vizaknai, urged Vlad to meet him in Transylvania, but Vlad refused. Vladislav II returned to Wallachia with the remnants of his defeated army – but it was still enough to scare Vlad off. Vlad fled to the Ottoman Empire, and arrived in Edime on 7 December 1448, putting an end to his first reign as Voivode of Wallachia.

 

Second Reign, 15 April 1456 – July 1462

Vlad moved from Edime to Moldavia (which forms part of modern-day Moldova, Romania and Ukraine), where his uncle Bogdan II had taken the throne with John Hunyadi’s support in Autumn 1449. Vlad allegedly wanted to settle in Brasov (a city in Transylvania), but Hunyadi forbade the burghers (privileged citizens of medieval European towns) to let him settle there in a letter he wrote to them on 6 February 1452. Vlad instead returned to Moldavia.

Unfortunately – and not for the last time – there is a gap in the history of Vlad’s life here. We do know that he returned to Hungary sometime before 3 July 1456, because on that day Hunyadi informed the citizens of Brasov that he had tasked Vlad with the defence of the Transylvanian border from the Ottomans.

 

Once again, Vlad invaded Wallachia in Spring 1456, but instead of garnering support from the Ottomans, he instead tried with Hungarian support. He was successful this time in two ways: firstly, Vladislav II ‘the imposter’ in Vlad’s view, was killed in the invasion; and secondly, he was proclaimed Voivode of Wallachia. This was evident in a letter addressed to the burghers of Brasov on 10 September 1456. In this letter, he promised to protect them from an Ottoman invasion of Transylvania, but he also sought their support if the Ottomans occupied Wallachia. Perhaps the most important element of this letter, though, was when he stated: 

 

“When a man is strong and powerful, he can make peace as he wants to; but when he is weak, a stronger one will come and do what he wants to him.”

 

This quote is often the first bit of evidence many historians see as Vlad’s completely authoritarian personality coming out. Shortly after this infamous letter, Vlad began his purge. The contemporary Byzantine historian, Laonikos Chalkokondyles, recorded in his chronicle that “hundreds or thousands” of people were impaled (with the aid of a needle-thin greased staken which was rammed up the victim’s rectum and out through their mouth in such a way that the death throes could last for days) at Vlad’s order at the beginning of his Second Reign. He initially targeted the boyars (aristocrats) who had participated in the murder of his father and brother, or whom he suspected had conspired against him. Interestingly, Chalkokondyles also wrote that Vlad helped the Wallachian economy somewhat, by using the “money, property, and other goods” of his victims to help pay off any debts he had accumulated from his previous invasions, and to pay soldiers in his retinue.

 

The next major event in Vlad’s Second Reign also occurred early on. John Hunyadi died on 11 August 1456, and his son, Ladislaus Hunyadi, became the captain-general of Hungary. Ladislaus accused Vlad of having “no intention of remaining faithful” to the Kingdom of Hungary in a letter to the burghers of Brasov and ordered them to support Dan III (Vladislav II’s brother) against Vlad.

However, the King of Hungary, Ladislaus V, had Ladislaus Hunyadi executed on 16 March 1457. Hunyadi’s mother, Erzsébet Szilágyi, and her brother, Michael, stirred up a rebellion against the king. Taking advantage of the civil war in Hungary, Vlad assisted his cousin Stephen (son of Bogdan II of Moldavia) in his move to seize Moldavia in June 1457. Vlad also broke into Transylvania and plundered the villages around Brasov and Sibiu. Some early German stories from the early 1460s describe Vlad as carrying “men, women and children” from a Transylvanian Saxon village to Wallachia and having them impaled. Since the Transylvanian Saxons remained loyal to Ladislaus V, Vlad’s attack against them strengthened the position of the Szilágyis.

Vlad’s representatives participated in the peace negotiations between Michael Szilágyi and the Saxons. The burghers of Brasov agreed that they would expel Dan III from their town. Delighted, Vlad described Michael as his “lord and elder brother” in a letter dated 1 December 1457.

 

However, Ladislaus Hunyadi’s younger brother, Matthias Corvinus, was elected King of Hungary on 24 January 1458 upon Ladislaus V’s death. He ordered the burghers of Sibiu to keep the peace with Vlad on 3 March. In May 1458, Vlad ordered the burghers of Brasov to send craftsmen to Wallachia – he disregarded the Transylvanian Saxons in this respect, because he forbade the Saxons to enter Wallachia, forcing them to sell their goods to Wallachian merchants at border fairs. One Saxon merchant confiscated the steel that a Wallachian merchant had brought to him, and upon hearing about this, Vlad “ransacked and tortured” Saxon merchants in early 1459, according to a letter written by Basarab Laiota (a son of Dan II of Wallachia):

 

“…the officials and councillors of Brasov cried to us with broken hearts about the things which Dracula, our enemy did…[he] captured all the merchants of Brasov who had gone in peace to Wallachia and took all their wealth; but he was not satisfied with only the wealth of these people…he imprisoned them and impaled them, 41 in all…he became even more evil and gathered 300 boys from Brasov that he found in Wallachia. Of these, he impaled some and burned others.”

 

In response, Dan III broke into Wallachia, but Vlad defeated him and had him executed on 20 April 1460. Vlad then invaded southern Transylvania and destroyed the suburbs of Brasov, ordering the impalement of all men and women who had been captured. Peace was restored – simply through the people of Brasov fearing Vlad – by 26 July 1460, when Vlad addressed the burghers as his “brothers and friends”. Yet Vlad was not all about brotherly love and friendship – he had war on his hands.

 

The Ottoman Wars

 

The Ottoman Wars were a major part of Vlad’s Second Rule, and perhaps the most famous of these skirmishes was what was stylised as The Night Attack at Târgoviste.

This battle was fought between Vlad’s Wallachian forces and Sultan Mehmed II’s Ottoman forces overnight on Thursday 17 June 1462. It initially started when Vlad refused to pay the jizya, a tax on non-Muslim subjects, to the Sultan, and intensified when Vlad invaded Bulgaria in early 1462. In response, Mehmed raised an army of approximately 250,000 men (100,000 regular troops and 150,000 conscript engineers) with the aim to conquer Wallachia and annex it to the Ottoman Empire. Vlad raised an army of 30,000 men (22,000 of whom were light infantry and volunteers) and with a band of these soldiers, attacked the Ottoman camp overnight, in an attempt to kill Mehmed himself. The assassination attempt failed, and Mehmed marched to the Wallachian capital of Târgoviste where he discovered it had been almost utterly destroyed. Upon leaving the capital, and heading back to Constantinople, Mehmed and his men were horrified to discover a “forest of the impaled” – thousands of impaled Turks who had been killed during Vlad’s invasion of Bulgaria. The number 23,844 carcasses impaled is mentioned by Vlad himself in a letter to Matthias Corvinus in the same year. The historian Chalkokondyles wrote that:

 

“There were large stakes on which, it was said, about twenty thousand men, women and children had been spitted, quite a sight for the Turks and the Sultan himself…There were infants too, affixed to their mothers on the stakes and birds had made their nests in their entrails.” It was not hard to see why – even with an army eight times larger than Vlad’s – the Sultan retreated back to Constantinople.

 

Vlad’s Imprisonment (1462-75)

 

Stephen III of Moldavia

Shortly after receiving Vlad’s letter describing the gory details of the thousands of impaled Turks, Matthias Corvinus (or Matthias I of Hungary as he was titled) came to Transylvania in November 1462 upon Vlad’s request. Vlad was insistent on waging war against the Ottoman Empire, but Matthias was hesitant, despite the negotiations lasting for weeks. In the end, Matthias contacted a Czech mercenary, John Jiskra of Brandys, and he captured Vlad near Rucar in Wallachia, in order to imprison him.

Vlad was imprisoned in Hungary at Matthias’ request. In order to explain Vlad’s sudden imprisonment to Pope Pius II (r. 1458-64), Matthias presented three letters to him, allegedly written by Vlad on 7 November 1462, to Mehmed II, Mahmud Pasha (Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire, 1456-66, 1472-74) and Stephen III of Moldavia. In these letters, it was stated that Vlad had offered to join his forces with the Sultan’s army against Hungary if the Sultan restored him to his throne. Many historians agree that these letters were forged to give grounds for Vlad’s imprisonment.

Pope Pius II obviously bought the story of Vlad’s three letters and made sure he stayed imprisoned. He was first imprisoned in what Chalkokondyles refers to as “the city of Belgrade”, which strangely was not the modern-day capital of Serbia, but what is now Alba Iulia in Romania. He was then taken to Visegrád (Hungary), where he was held for thirteen years.                                                                                         As I mentioned earlier, there is unfortunately another gap in Vlad’s biography here. Absolutely no documents (that we know of yet!) have been preserved which refer to Vlad between 1462 and 1475.

What we do know, though, is that in Summer 1475, Stephen III of Moldavia sent his envoys to Matthias Corvinus, asking him to send Vlad to Wallachia, against Basarab Laitoa, who had submitted himself to the Ottomans. Stephen wanted to secure Wallachia for a ruler who had been an enemy of the Ottoman Empire, because “the Wallachians [were] like the Turks” to the Moldavians, according to his letter. Matthias accepted Stephen’s request, and he released Vlad from prison.

 

Third Rule and Death (1475-77)

 

Matthias recognised Vlad as the lawful prince of Wallachia, but he did not provide him military assistance to regain his principality. Vlad moved from Hungary to Transylvania in June 1475, before briefly returning to Pécs in Hungary to purchase a house. His house became known as Drakula Háza (Dracula’s House).

Mehmed II invaded Moldavia and defeated Stephen III of Moldavia in the Battle of Valea Alba on 26 July 1476. Meanwhile, Vlad stayed in Brasov, and confirmed the commercial privileges of the local burghers in Wallachia on 7 October 1476. Stephen of Moldavia and Vlad ceremoniously confirmed their alliance, and together they occupied Budapest, forcing Basarab Laiota to seek refuge in the Ottoman Empire on 16 November. Vlad informed the merchants of Brasov about his victory in a speech and urged them to come with him to Wallachia. He was crowned Voivode of Wallachia on 25 November 1476.

Mehmed II

However, Basarab Laiota returned to Wallachia with Ottoman support, and completely overwhelmed the Wallachian forces, taking them by surprise. Vlad was killed in fighting them sometime in either late December 1476 or early January 1477. He was aged between 45-49. In a letter written on 10 January 1477, Stephen III of Moldavia related that Vlad’s Moldavian retinue had been massacred. According to Leonardo Botta, the Milanese ambassador to Buda, the Ottomans cut Vlad’s corpses into pieces, and that his head had been sent to Mehmed II.

The site of Vlad’s burial is unknown – further adding elements of mystery to his life. According to popular tradition in the nineteenth century, pieces of Vlad’s body were reportedly buried in the Monastery of Snagov (Romania). However, when it was excavated in 1933, nothing was found – only adding to the horror stories and myths which surrounded the real-life Dracula!

 

Legacy

 

Works containing stories about Vlad’s cruelty emerged as early as the 1480s in the Holy Roman Empire. The invention of movable print in the 1450s thanks to Johannes Gutenberg meant that these stories and woodcuts could be published on mass and distributed across Europe – these stories made Vlad’s reputation become one of the earliest examples of a bestselling book. To enhance sales, many of the books were published with woodcuts on their title pages which depicted horrific scenes. Notable examples include the editions published in Nuremberg in 1499 and Strasbourg in 1500.

But where did the Dracula connection come from? We know he was called Vlad Dracul, but what about the vampiric element? Interestingly, Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula is the first time a connection was made between Vlad and vampirism. Yet it is not just the blood-sucking element which makes it so vastly different to Vlad’s life – numerous other similarities can be drawn. For instance, the fact that Stoker’s Count Dracula lives in a Transylvanian castle (as did Vlad), the stakes which can be used to kill vampires (such as Vlad impaling his enemies on stakes), and rumours of his body being buried in a church (which was popular in the nineteenth century regarding Vlad).

Historian Norman Davies contends that stories about Vlad’s cruelties serve to remind us about religious fanaticism and inherent evil which persisted in Western Europe as well as Eastern Europe. He draws upon examples of Mary I of England (“Bloody Mary”) and her persecution of protestants, as related in John Foxe’s Book of Martyrs (1563) as belonging to the same “sickening genre as the horrors of the Wallachian vampire-prince.”

 

I hope you enjoyed this one, and make sure you’ve got plenty of garlic in the house to keep those vampires away! Happy Halloween, everyone!

 

List of Characters

 

Basarab Laiota: a son of Dan II of Wallachia, and had five stints as Prince of Wallachia (November-December 1473, Spring 1474, September-October 1474, January 1475-November 1476, December 1476-November 1477)

Bogdan II: Prince of Moldavia (r. 1449-51), and uncle of Vlad the Impaler.

Dan III: Sometimes referred to as ‘Dan the Younger’. A pretender to the throne of Wallachia from 1456-60. Brother of Vladislav II.

John Hunyadi: Leading Hungarian military and political figure, descended from a noble Romanian family. Father of Ladislaus Hunyadi and Matthias Corvinus.

Ladislaus V: King of Hungary and Croatia (r. 1440-57), King of Bohemia (r. 1453-57).

Ladislaus Hunyadi: Eldest son of John Hunyadi, and a Hungarian nobleman. Older brother of Matthias Corvinus.

Matthias Corvinus: Also known as Matthias I. King of Hungary and Croatia (r. 1458-90), King of Bohemia (r. 1469-90), Duke of Austria (r. 1487-90). Youngest son of John Hunyadi and younger brother of Ladislaus Hunyadi.

Mehmed II: Also known as Mehmed the Conqueror, he was Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1444-46, then again from 1451-81.

Murad II: Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1421-44 and then again from 1446-51. Vlad the Impaler was sent to his court and abused there as an adolescent.

Stephen III of Moldavia: Also known as Stephen the Great and later canonised as a Romanian Saint, he was the Voivode (Prince) of Moldavia from 1457-1504. He was a cousin of Vlad the Impaler. He was the son of Bogdan II.

Vlad II Dracul: Vlad the Impaler’s father. Also known as Vlad the Dragon. He was Voivode of Wallachia from 1436-42, and again from 1443-47.

Vlad the Impaler: Our main man! Also known more officially as Vlad III, or Vlad Dracula, he was the son of Vlad II and Voivode of Wallachia. The inspiration behind Dracula for his abhorrent cruelty to citizens and strangers alike.

Vladislav II: Voivode of Wallachia (r. 1447-48, 1448-56). Rumoured assassin of Vlad II Dracul and placed on the throne by John Hunyadi. Killed by Vlad the Impaler. Brother of Dan III.

 

Further Research

 

Bram Stoker, Dracula (1897)

Norman Davies, Europe: A History (2014)

John Julius Norwich, The Popes: A History (2011)

Dictators Podcast (Spotify): Vlad the Impaler Pt. 1, Pt. 2

We Are History Podcast (Spotify): Vlad the Impaler, the original ‘Dracula’

Curious Characters Podcast (Spotify): Vlad the Impaler “Dracula”

Attila the Hun

Personal Profile

Born: c. 406

Reigned: 434-53

Died: c. March 453 (aged 46-47)

Title: King and Chieftain of the Hunnic Empire

Marriages: Kreka and Ildico (amongst others)

Children: Ellac, Dengizich, Ernak (amongst others)

Early Life and background context on the Huns (c. 406 – c. 440)

A depiction of Attila the Hun

As is often the case with historical characters who are not viewed as European or Eurocentric in the context of their lifetimes, we often know very little about their early childhood. I say this about Attila the Hun because simply his name denotes that: ‘the Hun’ – a foreigner, a barbarian, someone who was deemed as an outsider in contemporary Roman society. For many Romans, the ideology was very much ‘us vs them’.

What we do know is that Attila was born roughly around the year 406. The fifth century was a tumultuous period for the Western Roman Empire – only four years after Attila’s birth, Rome would be sacked by the Goths. Yet Attila was not the first of his name, like Genghis Khan was almost a thousand years later. The Huns had emerged as a major force in the 370s, but surprisingly, they had more often assisted the Roman Empire than assailed it – they were typically seen as the defenders of the borders (the Huns lived in the Balkans, almost half way between the Western and Eastern Empires’ borders).

Both Attila and his brother Bleda became joint rulers of the Huns in 434. Attila was described by contemporaries as ‘born into the world to shake nations, the scourge of all lands.’ Attila was the more powerful of the two brothers, and his appearance has been described as ‘short, swarthy, and snub-nosed, with a thin straggling beard, and beady little eyes’ as well as the fact that ‘his rolling eyes and alarming appearance terrified all who crossed his path.’ However, despite this, as a leader, a Hun contemporary denoted that Attila was also said to be ‘restrained in action, mighty in counsel, gracious to suppliants, and lenient to those who were received into his protection.’ Yet one Roman writer referred to the Huns as the ‘seedbed of evil, and exceedingly savage.’

A pretty interesting guy to say the least!

Leadership and Early Conflicts (c. 440 – c. 451)

The Hunnic Empire, c. 450

In 440, with their leadership united under Attila and Bleda, the Hunnic Empire stretched from the Black Sea to the Baltic, and from Germany to the Central Asian steppes – and the Huns were only just getting started on moving west. The following year, in 441, Attila invaded the Eastern Roman Empire and made a mockery of their resistance. An interesting fact to look at is that the Huns were actually the first ‘barbarian’ force to work out how to storm well-defended fortress towns, like those of the Eastern Roman Empire. The secret behind it was by using siege engines, battering rams and scaling ladders – techniques which they had directly copied from the Romans. Regardless, it worked, and the Huns succeeded. The effects of these attacks can still be seen in the massive destruction layers evident at various archaeological sites in Central Europe to this day.

Two years later, in 443, Attila brought his forces to the walls of Constantinople, but the Emperor Theodosius behind the walls of Constantinople managed to bribe the Huns (a tactic which was used throughout the Hunnic invasions) to withdraw from the walls with huge sums of cash. By either 444 or 445, Attila had his brother and co-ruler Bleda murdered. Very few sources exist regarding this, and it is not surprising – who would dare to enrage Attila by writing about him murdering his brother, and who would want to get on the wrong side of this fearsome leader?

Following the death of his brother, Attila took the leadership into his reins: he expanded his territory further east, starting with a second sweep through the Balkans and onto Constantinople. Again, he tried to conquer Constantinople, but was bribed to withdraw once more. This bribery from Theodosius soon came to an end with his militaristic successor, Marcian (r. 450-57), who refused to pay further bribes and drove the Huns from his territory altogether.

Upon his banishment from the walls of Constantinople in winter 450/51 – the one that got away in Attila’s case – he made his way west across Europe to Gaul (modern day France), and this is where the fun really begins.

Final Battles and Death (c. 451-53)

A depiction of the Battle of the
Catalaunian Plains

The major events in Attila’s life came in the years immediately preceding his death. As I mentioned earlier, he crossed Europe into Gaul. It was here that he met the largest European force amounted up to that date. Working together, the Western Roman Emperor, Aetius, a Roman general, Flavius, and a Visigoth King, Theodoric I, amassed an army of Romans, Franks, Goths, Burgundians and Celts to confront the Huns – what they all saw as a collective threat to the Roman Empire. Historian Simon Jenkins states that “It was the first time a coalition of Roman and Barbarian armies had combined to take the field against an external foe, a first ‘European army’.” 

The ensuing battle on 20 June 451 took place on the Catalaunian Plains (hence the name of the battle: The Battle of the Catalaunian Plains), near modern-day Châlons and Orleans. At the battlefield, the coalition of forces was decisively victorious against Attila’s forces. Interestingly, this was also the last great set-piece battle which the Western Roman army would fight, and it was the Visigoths who played the decisive role in the fighting (although this was according to an admittedly pro-Gothic contemporary), and ultimately secured a Roman victory. However, it was not all good news. The Visigoth king, Theodoric I, was killed in the battle – either by a spear or by being trampled to death.

Attila had never before suffered such serious defeat in his lifetime up until this point. He realised that if he was to maintain control of his empire, staying put at home and licking his wounds was not an option. So, in 452, he began his next campaign. Aetius was still in Gaul, so Atilla returned from his base in the Balkans and made his way straight for Italy: he wanted Rome.

The city of Aquileia was destroyed after a terrible siege, and then Milan was taken. The inhabitants of the north-eastern Veneto region of Italy feared what Atilla’s army would do to them, so they sought refuge from the Huns in the sporadically occupied islands of the coastal lagoon, and as a result, Venice was born. “Europe has Atilla to thank for its most glorious possession.”, in Jenkins’ words.

The reason why Attila never managed to take Rome is often credited to Pope Leo I, also known as Leo the Great (r. 440-61). The most popular version of the story states that Leo joined a deputation and met Attila on the banks of the Mincio River near Lake Garda, to persuade him to retreat to the Danube River, and the Huns consolidated their settlement in what is now Hungary. This version is likely to be true, but I personally prefer another version – which actually questions why this fearsome and determined pagan leader like Attila would simply obey the Pope – a man who had no meaning to him.

There are various theories surrounding this when we pose the question of why Attila would obey the Pope. A substantial amount of money (like Theodosius offered him in the 440s in Constantinople) is a likely theory, but also Attila (like the majority of the Huns) was incredibly superstitious, and Leo may well have reminded him of how the Gothic leader Alaric died almost immediately after his sack of Rome in 410, and how a similar fate was known to occur to every invader who dared raise their hand against the city of Rome. Another – and probably the likeliest theory – is that his subjects themselves persuaded him to retire: for instance, after all the devastation they caused to the countryside in their campaigns, they were beginning to suffer from a serious shortage of food, and that disease had broken out in the ranks, too. By the time this was all deliberated, news arrived to Attila that troops from the Eastern Roman Empire in Constantinople were beginning to arrive to supplement the imperial forces in the West: a march on Rome, it soon appeared, might not have been quite as straightforward as Attila initially thought.

Either way, Attila’s forces retreated. The following year, in 453, Attila was celebrating his marriage to a Gothic princess named Ildico. The Roman contemporary Priscus described the events of Attila’s wedding feast: “Celebrating excessively, [Attila] lay down on his back sodden with wine and sleep,” and in the process, is believed to have suffered a brain haemorrhage, and died in his sleep. “Thus,” continues Priscus, “drunkenness brought a shameful end to a king who had won glory in war.”

Atilla’s Legacy and the Future of the Huns (c. 453 – c. 475)

As Attila’s lifeblood flowed away, Europe breathed a sigh of relief. For his funeral, a specially selected group of captives placed his body in three coffins: one made of gold, one of silver and one of iron. The Roman historian Jordanes states why: “Gold and silver because he received the honours of both [the Eastern and Western Roman] empires…iron because he subdued the nations.”. Once Attila’s body had been lowered into the ground and covered over – first with the rich spoils of war and then with earth until the ground above the grave was level – all of those involved in the burial ceremonies were put to death. This was so that Attila’s last resting place would remain secret and inviolate forever.

Pope Leo I 'The Great'
(r. 440-61)

The Hunnic Empire, almost as quickly as it sprung up, disintegrated in the aftermath of Attila’s death. The Huns were dependent upon Attila’s authority, according to historian David Potter, and upon his death, the Hunnic Empire collapsed in civil war in 454. This was because the many Germanic peoples who Attila had once held in thrall rose up against their masters and defeated them in another huge battle in the central Balkans (the site of which is now unfortunately lost). The Huns withdrew to the north and then resumed their role as occasional mercenaries in Roman service.

Yet despite Attila’s defeat, the Hun invasion reinforced what Alaric’s invasion forty years prior to Attila’s had shown: that the new Europe was vulnerable to forces sweeping west across its central plains. Another legacy of this ideology is that many Roman citizens instead sought refuge in fortified towns (rather than the distant hope of imperial armies), where they gave allegiance to any leader who would offer them security. As a result, Empire gave way to Kingdoms. 

Still, nothing could bring peace to battered Italy. In 475, a Roman official named Orestes – who had served in Atilla’s retinue – seized power in Ravenna and appointed his fifteen-year-old son Romulus as Emperor. The following year, in 476, Romulus was ousted by a Roman soldier of Germanic origin, called Flavius Odoacer, who did not bother with emperorship, but instead took the title of King of Italy, with his capital situated in Ravenna. Accordingly, the year 476 is generally seen as the date of the formal demise of the “Roman Empire”, although the Eastern Roman Empire survived for almost another millennium in the form of Byzantium. 

To sum up Attila the Hun, I will turn to the words of the late, great historian John Julius Norwich “He was not a great ruler, or even a particularly able general; but so overmastering were his ambition, his pride and his lust for power that within the space of a few years he had made himself feared throughout the length and breadth of Europe: more feared, perhaps, than any other single man – with the possible exception of Napoleon – before or since.”

Hope you enjoyed reading this, feel free to share it with your friends and family!

Bibliography

Simon Baker, Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire (2006)

Peter Frankopan, The Silk Roads: A New History of the World (2015)

Peter Heather, The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History (2005)

Simon Jenkins, A Short History of Europe: From Pericles to Putin (2018)

John Julius Norwich, The Popes: A History (2011)

David Potter, The Emperors of Rome: The Story of Imperial Rome from Julius Caesar to the Last Emperor (2007)