The night attack at Târgoviște (Romanian: Atacul de noapte de la Târgoviște) was a battle fought between forces of Prince Vlad III of Wallachia and Sultan Mehmed II of the Ottoman Empire on Thursday, 17 June 1462. The battle started after Mehmed II, who already had tense relations with Vlad, discovered his alliance with Hungary's king Matthias Corvinus and ordered his forces to ambush him. Vlad foiled the attack and invaded Bulgaria. In response, Mehmed raised a great army with the objective to conquer Wallachia. The two leaders fought a series of skirmishes, the most notable one being the conflict where Vlad attacked the Turkish camp in the night in an attempt to kill Mehmed. The assassination attempt failed and Mehmed marched to the Wallachian capital of Târgoviște, where he found a few men with cannons. After leaving the capital, Mehmed discovered 23,844 impaled Turks whom Vlad had killed during his invasion of Bulgaria. The number is mentioned by Vlad himself in a letter to Matthias Corvinus. The sultan and his troops then sailed to Brăila and burned it to the ground before retreating to Adrianople. Mehmed's forces returned home with many captured slaves, horses, and cattle.
Background
After the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453, Mehmed set his sights on other campaigns. In Anatolia, the Greek Empire of Trebizond was still resisting the Ottomans, and to the East the White Sheep Turkomans of Uzun Hasan, together with other smaller states, threatened the Ottomans. In the West, Skanderbeg in Albania continued to trouble the Sultan, while Bosnia was sometimes reluctant in paying the jizya. Wallachia controlled the left bank of the Danube, and Mehmed wanted to have control over the river, as naval attacks could be launched against his empire all the way from the Holy Roman Empire. On 26 September 1459, Pope Pius II called for a new crusade against the Ottomans and on January 14, 1460, at the Congress of Mantua, the Pope proclaimed the official crusade that was to last for three years. His plan, however, failed and the only European leader that showed enthusiasm for the crusade was Vlad Țepeș, whom the Pope held in high regard. Because of a lack of enthusiasm shown by Europeans for the crusade, Mehmed took the opportunity to take an offensive stand. Later that same year (1460), he captured the last independent Serbian city, Smederevo, and in 1461, he convinced the Greek despot of Morea to give up his stronghold; soon thereafter, its capital, Mistra, and Corinth followed suit and surrendered themselves without struggle.
Vlad Țepeș's only ally, Mihály Szilágyi, was captured in 1460 by the Turks while traversing Bulgaria. Szilágyi's men were tortured to death, while Szilágyi was sawed in half. Later that year, Mehmed sent envoys to Vlad to urge him to pay the delayed jizya. Vlad Țepeș provoked Mehmed by having the envoys killed and in a letter dated 10 September 1460, addressed to the Transylvanian Saxons of Kronstadt (today: Brașov), he warned them of Mehmed's invasion plans and asked for their support. Vlad Țepeș had not paid the annual jizya of 10,000 ducats since 1459. In addition to this, Mehmed asked him for 1,000 boys that were to be trained as janissaries. Vlad Țepeș refused the demand, and the Turks crossed the Danube and started to do their own recruiting, to which Vlad reacted by capturing the Turks and impaling them. The conflict continued until 1461, when Mehmed asked the Prince to come to Constantinople and negotiate with him.
At the end of November 1461, Vlad Țepeș wrote to Mehmed that he could not afford to pay the jizya, as his war against the Saxons of Transylvania had emptied his resources, and that he could not leave Wallachia and risk having the Hungarian king take over his domains. He further promised to send the Sultan plenty of gold when he could afford to and that he would go to Constantinople if the Sultan would send him a pasha to rule over Wallachia in his absence. Meanwhile, the Sultan received intelligence reports that revealed Vlad's alliance with Hungarian king, Matthias Corvinus. He sent the bey of Nicopolis, Hamza Pasha, to stage a diplomatic meeting with Vlad at Giurgiu, but with orders to ambush him there; and thereafter, take him to Constantinople. Vlad was forewarned about the ambush and planned to set an ambush of his own. Hamza brought with him 1,000 cavalry and when passing through a narrow pass north of Giurgiu, Vlad launched a surprise-attack. The Wallachians had the Turks surrounded and fired with their handgunners until the entire expedition-force was killed. Historians credit Vlad Țepeș as one of the first European crusaders to use gunpowder in a "deadly artistic way". In a letter to Corvinus, dated 11 February 1462, he wrote that Hamza Pasha was captured close to the former Wallachian fortress of Giurgiu. He then disguised himself as a Turk and advanced with his cavalry towards the fortress where he ordered the guards in Turkish to have the gates open. This they did and Vlad Țepeș attacked and destroyed the fortress. In his next move, he went on a campaign and slaughtered enemy soldiers and populations that might have sympathized with the Turks; first in southern Wallachia, then, in Bulgaria by crossing the frozen Danube. While in Bulgaria, he divided his army into several smaller groups and covered "some 800 kilometers in two weeks", as they killed over 23,000 Turks. In a letter to Corvinus, dated 11 February 1462, he stated:
I have killed peasants men and women, old and young, who lived at Oblucitza and Novoselo, where the Danube flows into the sea, up to Rahova, which is located near Chilia, from the lower Danube up to such places as Samovit and Ghighen. We killed 23,884 Turks without counting those whom we burned in homes or the Turks whose heads were cut by our soldiers...Thus, your highness, you must know that I have broken the peace with him (Sultan Mehmet II).
The Christian Bulgarians were spared and many of them were settled in Wallachia. His precise numbers were counted as such: At Giurgiu there were 6,414 victims; at Eni Sala, 1,350; at Durostor 6,840; at Orsova, 343; at Hârsova, 840; at Marotin, 210; at Turtucaia, 630; at Turnu, Batin, and Novograd, 384; at Sistov, 410; at Nicopolis and Ghighen, 1,138; at Rahova, 1,460. When hearing about the devastation, Mehmed—who was busy besieging a fortress in Corinth—sent his grand vizier, Mahmud, with an army of 18,000 to destroy the Wallachian port of Brăila. Vlad Țepeș turned back and defeated the army, and according to the Historia Turchesca of Giovanni Maria Angiolello, sometimes attributed to an Italian chronicler Donado da Lezze, only 8,000 Turks survived. Vlad Țepeș's campaign was celebrated among the Saxon cities of Transylvania, the Italian states, and the Pope. A Venetian envoy, upon hearing about the news at the court of Corvinus on 4 March, expressed great joy and said that the whole of Christianity should celebrate Vlad Țepeș's successful campaign. An English pilgrim to the Holy Land, William Wey, passing through the island of Rhodes while on his way home, wrote that "the military men of Rhodes, upon hearing of Vlad Țepeș's campaign, had Te Deum sung in praise and honour of God who had granted such victories....The lord mayor of Rhodes convened his brother soldiers and the whole citizenry feasted on fruit and wine." The Genoese from Caffa thanked Vlad Țepeș, for his campaign had saved them from an attack of some 300 ships that the sultan planned to send against them. Many Turks were now frightened of Vlad and left the European side of their empire and moved into Anatolia. Mehmed, when hearing about the events, abandoned his siege at Corinth and decided to go against Vlad Țepeș himself.
Preparations for war
Turks
Mehmed sent messengers in all directions to assemble an army, "which in numbers and armaments must have been equal to that which he had employed on the siege of Constantinople." On 26 April or 17 May 1462, the sultan moved with his army from Constantinople with the objective of conquering Wallachia. The Sultan himself wrote in a letter addressed to Ibrahim Bey of Qaraman that he had gone on the expedition with 15 tumens, a Turco-Mongol military unit traditionally consisting of 10,000 men at full strength. The Greek historian Laonikos Chalkokondyles wrote of Mehmed's army as "huge, second in size only to the one that this sultan had led against Constantinople." He estimated the force at 250,000, while the Turkish historian Tursun Bey mentioned 300,000. The same numbers were put by an anonymous Italian chronicle found in Verona, believed to have been written by a certain merchant named Cristoforo Schiappa. A letter of a Leonardo Tocco to Francesco I Sforza, duke of Milan, wrote that Mehmed had recruited 400,000 men from Rumelia and Anatolia, with 40,000 being constructors of bridges armed with axes. A smaller estimate of the size of the Turkish forces was made by the Venetian envoy at Buda, Tommasi, who mentioned a regular force of 60,000 and some 30,000 irregulars. These consisted of the janissaries (the elite slave troops); infantry soldiers; sipâhis (the feudal cavalry); saiales (the sacrificial units composed of slaves who would win their freedom if they survived); Akinji (the archers); silahdârs (the custodians of the sultan's weapons who also protected the flanks); azabs (the pikemen); beshlis (who handled the firearms) and the sultan's personal bodyguards. Vlad's half-brother, Radu the Handsome, who willingly served the sultan, commanded 4,000 horsemen. In addition to this, the Turks brought with them 120 cannon, engineers and workers that would build roads and bridges, priests of Islam (ulema) and muezzin, who called the troops to prayer, astrologers who consulted Mehmed and helped him make military decisions; and women "reserved for the night pleasures of the men." Chalkokondyles reported that the Danube shipowners were paid 300,000 gold pieces to transport the army. In addition to this, the Ottomans used their own fleet that consisted of 25 triremes and 150 smaller vessels.
Wallachians
Vlad Țepeș asked the Hungarian king for assistance. He received no support despite promises made by Corvinus and instead called for a mobilization that included "not only men of military age, but also of women and of children from the age of twelve up; and included Gypsy slave contingents." Various sources mention the strength of his army to be between 22,000 and 30,900, with the most popular accepted number set at 30,000. The letter of Leonardo Tocco which put the numbers of the Turkish army at an exaggerated strength of 400,000, exaggerated also the Wallachian strength which was estimated at 200,000. The majority of the army consisted of peasants and shepherds, while the boyars on horseback—who were few in numbers—were armed with lances, swords, and daggers and wore chainmail as armour. Vlad's personal guard consisted of mercenaries from many countries and some Gypsies. Before battle, it is believed that Vlad told his men that "it would be better that those who think of death should not follow me".
Battle
The Turks first tried to disembark at Vidin, but were pushed back by an archery attack. On 4 June, a contingent of janissaries landed in the night, at Turnu Severin, where 300 of them died from Wallachian attacks. The Serbian-born janissary, Konstantin Mihailović, recounted their encounter with Vlad Țepeș:
When night began to fall, we climbed into our boats and floated down the Danube and crossed over to the other side several miles below the place where Vlad's army was stationed. There we dug ourselves trenches, so that cavalry could not harm us. After that we crossed back over to the other side and transported other janissaries over the Danube, and when the entire infantry had crossed over, then we prepared and set out gradually against Vlad's army, together with the artillery and other equipment that we had brought with us. Having halted, we set up the cannon, but not in time to stop three hundred janissaries from being killed ... Seeing that our side was greatly weakening, we defended ourselves with the 120 guns which we had brought over and fired so often that we repelled the prince's army and greatly strengthened our position ... Vlad, seeing that he could not prevent the crossing, withdrew. After that the emperor crossed the Danube with his entire army and gave us 30,000 coins to be distributed among us.