Encamped in the region of Targoviste while campaigning in Wallachia, a large Ottoman army under Sultan Mehmed II (150,000-strong according to Doukas) was attacked 3 hours after sunset, or at midnight according to Kritovoulos, by Wallachian forces led by Dracula (Voivode Vlad Tepes). Although an eye-witness in Dracula’s army puts his forces at 24,000 men the attack seems to have been launched with only ‘a portion of his troops’, the commander of a second body, a boyar named Gales, who was to have attacked simultaneously from the opposite side of the camp, failing to support him. This may explain Kritovoulos’ view that the Wallachian attack was ‘disorderly’.
Chalkokondyles says that Dracula attacked with 7-10,000 men carrying torches and candles, their principal intention being to kill the sultan in his tent. However, in the darkness they had attacked the wrong portion of the camp and the tent against which they directed their attack was not the sultan’s. Despite this setback they were able nevertheless to wreak considerable destruction before pulling out at about 4 a. m., Doukas adding that in the confusion many Turks killed each other. Chalkokondyles claims that the Ottomans then pursued the fleeing Wallachians and captured 2,000, though the Wallachian eye-witness says the Turks did not dare to pursue (which probably means that they did not dare to pursue in the darkness). Doukas confirms that they withdrew to Adrianople forthwith.
Kritovoulos, apparently humouring his patron, Sultan Mehmed, claims that the Wallachians succeeded only in slaughtering camels, horses and mules, and that the Turks had retreated in the face of their attack simply to lure them deep into the camp, upon which nearly all of them were killed or captured. That the true situation was quite different can be seen from the account of Konstantin Mihailovic, who was present in Mehmed’s army. He confirms that despite the ditches with which the Ottoman camp was fortified, the Wallachians burst in and ‘massacred horses, camels and several thousand Turks’. Doukas says ‘countless numbers’ were cut down, while Balbi, a Venetian envoy, actually puts the Ottoman casualties at 15,000, though he adds that the Wallachians themselves lost 5,000. The only reference Mihailovic makes to Wallachian casualties is the execution of‘several hundred’ prisoners brought in the next day. Doukas states that the Ottoman army then withdrew to Adrianople ‘in disgrace’.
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