Vlad the Impaler The True History of His War Against the Empire He was a hostage prince raised in the shadow of the court that would eventually conquer Constantinople. Returning to a fractured homeland caught between two superpowers, he became a ruler who utilized absolute terror as a calculated administrative and military tool. This is the story of Vlad III, Voivode of Wallachia known to history as the Impaler and his desperate, decades-long struggle to maintain the autonomy of his principality