“It is better to have a few faithful men than many who are useless.”
— Vlad Țepeș
Attributed to Vlad III (Vlad the Impaler), Voivode of Wallachia, reflecting his documented policy of ruthlessly eliminating disloyal boyars and maintaining a small, fiercely loyal fighting force against Ottoman expansion.
I ruled Wallachia three times, seized power, lost it, reclaimed it by blood. In 1456 I returned to the throne and faced a boyar class that had murdered my father and blinded and buried my brother Mircea alive. I could not build a kingdom on men who bent with every wind. When the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II came with his armies in 1462, I had already burned my own fields and villages to starve them. My five hundred impaled men on the road to Târgoviște made even Mehmed turn back. Loyalty was the only currency that kept Wallachia free.