The Germans and and Vlad Tepes


Okay Indulge me in a what if game, what if Vlad Tepes was more of a diplomat and was more "caring" to the Saxons in Transylvania.
I suspect that his name wouldn't have been found in the volume that Bram Stoker found his name in, and perhaps Dracula might have been a she. If your wondering look up the history of the Countess of Transylvania. It's a rather interesting read in a person who came closer to being an actual "vampire."
He did have something else, a wife. Two in fact, although not at the same time. I think His first wife was the more interesting of the two. In addition to enemies in Transylvania, he had enemies in the Ottomans and the Turks. There was always raids, and his first wife

His first wife was aware of the price that she would get as Vlad wife if she were ever captured by the Turks. Although history does not reveal her name, her story survived. In 1462, when the Turks began an attack near the castle she was living in, she jumped to the river below. This was upon hearing of the impending arrival of the Turkish army by a messenger. Later the part of the river where she jumped to her death would be renamed the Lady’s River in her honour.
What if she had lived? If not captured, would Vald remained somewhat mroe balanced? Would she have gained fame in her own right?
A fun game of What if...

Comments

Ampbreia said…
I've often wondered if her death was really what pushed him into insanity. I doubt it though. He and his brothers were sent under treaty to live in the Sultan's court when they were just boys and must have been terribly affected by that. Turkey then was under the strictest Sharia law at that time and if you've ever gotten an upclose look at that, you'll know how insanely cruel it is. I saw them put a pike through a man once just for leaving Islam for Christianity. That was just a few years. The cruelty of Sharia law knows no bounds. When Vlad returned from Turkey to take the throne, he must have vehemently hated the Turks. But it seems he'd developed a taste for blood anyhow and enforced simular draconian laws on his own people... not just the Saxons