Principality of Wallachia

Wallachia was the Romanian south from 1330 to 1859, the land south of the Carpathians the Romanians call the Romanian Country itself. Basarab, a Vlach voivode under Hungary's crown, refused his tribute and in 1330 lured Charles of Hungary into the Posada ravine, where his mountaineers rolled the royal army down the slopes: independent Wallachia was born in an ambush. Mircea the Old held the Danube against Bayezid, fighting beside the crusaders at Nicopolis. Then Vlad, third of the name, the Impaler: he nailed turbans to heads, dined among the staked, and in 1462 crept by night into Mehmed the Conqueror's camp itself, missing the Sultan's tent by luck and teaching Europe the word Dracula. Michael the Brave briefly joined Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania in 1600, the first Romania, before his murder. The Phanariot century followed, Greek princes bought from Constantinople milking the land for Ottoman wars. Russian protectorate, Organic Regulations, the 1848 blaze: in January 1859 the assemblies of both principalities elected the same colonel, Cuza, and Wallachia walked with Moldavia into Romania, its Dracula legend travelling the world while its throne dissolved.