Helped to Power by the Ottomans
When Vlad Dracul died in 1447, his son was still a prisoner at the Ottoman court. Tepes only learned of Dracul’s passing months after the event owing to the slow pace of news being spread between Wallachia and Adrianople, but the information was at least given to him in person by Murad II. We know not whether Tepes was saddened by the news, but the immediate consequence of his father’s death was to release him from captivity. He was made an officer in the Turkish army, and informed that the Sultan had been impressed by his sternness and leadership skills.
The Ottomans saw an opportunity to install a voivode in Wallachia who was loyal to them and so, in 1448, when John Hunyadi was away from Transylvania trying to muster a new Christian army after two inglorious defeats, Tepes was sent into Wallachia in the company of Turkish cavalry and infantry lent by the pasha Mustafa Hassan. He successfully took the throne after ousting Vladislav II, a loyal servant of Hunyadi whom scholars suspect was behind the slaying of Vlad Dracul. Unfortunately, Tepes was deposed after only 2 months when Vladislav invaded with support from the Hungarian army.
Whilst in exile, Tepes stayed with his uncle, Bogdan II of Moldavia, and used the time (about which we know very little) to form diplomatic alliances with Hungary. Despite his earlier associations with the Ottoman Empire, Hungary’s hated enemy, when Tepes invaded Wallachia for a second time in 1456 it was with Hungarian support, and Vladislav II was killed. His allegiance to the Ottomans lasted only as long as they were useful to him, and in his first letter as voivode he told the townsfolk of Brasov, Transylvania, that he would help them if the Ottomans invaded again.
There is another indirect way in which the Ottoman Empire helped Tepes regain the throne of Wallachia. Although Vladislav was helped to oust Tepes by the Hungarians, he began shortly afterwards to make overtures towards the Ottomans, whom he sensed were in the ascendency. Hunyadi wavered in allegiance to Vladislav when he found out, and the continued threat of Ottoman invasion meant that he needed a fierce and ruthless ally like Tepes. Hunyadi gave Tepes a role in his army and a dwelling in Sibiu, with instructions to the locals that they must tolerate his largely-unpopular presence in the town.
When the Ottomans – under Murad’s son, Mehmed II, an extravagant and high-handed ruler – sacked Constantinople in 1453, Hunyadi correctly suspected that it marked the beginnings of a march West, with the important fortress of Belgrade next in line. Once this fell, Mehmed planned to use it as a base from which to attack Hungary. Hunyadi left Tepes in Sibiu to watch the Transylvanian passes and to ensure Vladislav II (now entirely loyal to the Ottomans) did not make any movements. The miraculous defeat of the Ottoman army and Tepes’s loyalty to Hunyadi meant that Dracula’s day had finally come.