The rebellion was suppressed by irregular Ottoman bashi-bazouk units that engaged in indiscriminate slaughter of both rebels and non-combatants (see Batak massacre).

Clarke as well as two other Americans, journalist Januarius MacGahan and diplomat Eugene Schuyler, were indispensable in bringing knowledge of Ottoman atrocities to the wider European public.

Additionally, more immediate causes for the greater mobilisation compared to earlier revolts were the severe internal and external problems which the Ottoman Empire experienced in the middle of the 1870s.

In 1875, taxes levied on non-Muslims were raised for fear of state bankruptcy, which, in turn, caused additional tension between Muslims and Christians and led to the Herzegovinian rebellion and the Stara Zagora revolt in Bulgaria.

[11] In November 1875, activists of the Bulgarian Revolutionary Central Committee met in the Romanian town of Giurgiu and decided that the political situation was suitable for a general uprising.

The territory of the country was divided into five revolutionary districts with centers in Vratsa (leader-Stoyan Zaimov), Veliko Tarnovo (Stefan Stambolov), Sliven (Ilarion Dragostinov), Plovdiv (Panayot Volov—who later gave his position to his assistant Georgi Benkovski) and Sofia (Nikola Obretenov).

On 14 April 1876, a general meeting of the committees from the fourth revolutionary district was held in the Oborishte locality near Panagyurishte to discuss the proclamation of the insurrection.

As a result, the Ottoman police made an attempt to arrest the leader of the local revolutionary committee in Koprivshtitsa, Todor Kableshkov on 2 May [O.S.

The Bulgarian Revolutionary Central Committee's minutes from 17th of April 1876 chaired by Benkovski discuss retaliation against the Turkish and Muslim population in mixed regions opposing the uprising.

In conformity with the decisions taken at Oborishte, the local rebel committee attacked and surrounded the headquarters of the Ottoman police in Koprivshtitsa on 20 April 1876.

[16][17] The Porte's refusal to send additional regular army detachments, and the decision of the Beys of Edirne and Filibe to instead arm bashi-bazouk forces greatly determined the number of casualties and the aftermath of the uprising's suppression.

[18][19] Thus, the village of Bratsigovo, which was one of the best prepared centres of the rebellion and managed to fiercely resist enemy attacks for days, suffered only 250 casualties, very few of whom civilian, after fighting a regular Ottoman army unit.

By contrast, Perushtitza, Panagurishte and Batak, which faced bashi-bazouk forces, all suffered enormous casualties, estimated by Schuyler at approx.

[22] In view of the poor preparation of the insurgents, but the enormous repercussions of their deeds, American Protestant missionary and author Henry Otis Dwight called the revolt "the maddest freak that ever led men to death".

He learned about the events from faculty members at Robert College, who feared that the coming investigation of Englishman Walter Baring would turn into a cover-up because of the British Empire's strongly pro-Ottoman official stance and his own reputation as a Turkophile.

[31] While contemporary witnesses are unanimous on the scale of destruction of human life and property among the rebels and agree that there were few Muslim casualties, there is disagreement on both issues among modern Western historians.

Thus, American historian Justin McCarthy claims that more than 1,000 Muslims were slaughtered and many more expelled during the revolt, while putting Bulgarian casualties at 3,000–12,000.

On the other hand, Barbara Jelavich, who admits that the beginning of the April Uprising was accompanied by a massacre of Muslim civilians, upholds Baring's estimate of 12,000 Bulgarian casualties.

[36] According to the report written by Schuyler and American journalist Januarius MacGahan, the Ottoman government at the time did not claim more than 500 Muslims killed—most of whom in battle.

[40] McCarthy, Shaw and Millman all blame the accounts of Baring, MacGahan, Schuyler and Gladstone's actions on a colonial mindset, an ingrained anti-Turkish bias, "othering", preconceived ideas of Turkish barbarism and guilt or, at best, on pro-Russian leaning.

[41][42][34] McCarthy has since dedicated an entire book to the issue, where he attributes all negative perceptions of Turkey in the US to 19th century American missionaries—such as pastor James F. Clarke, who first gave an alert about the treatment of the Bulgarian rebels.

[44][45][46][47][48] Most relevant in the context of the April Uprising's casualty figures is fellow historian Hakem Al-Rustom's critique that "Justin McCarthy is an apologist for the Turkish state and supports the official version of history, which denies the Armenian genocide.

An article about the massacres in the Daily News on 23 June provoked a question in Parliament about Britain's support for Turkey, and demands for an investigation.

Schuyler's official report, published in November 1876, said that fifty-eight villages in Bulgaria had been destroyed, five monasteries demolished, and fifteen thousand people in all massacred.

[61] Liberal Party leader William Ewart Gladstone published a pamphlet on 6 September 1876, Bulgarian Horrors and the Question of the East,[62][63][64] in which he attacked the Disraeli government for its indifference to the Ottoman Empire's violent repression of the April Uprising.

According to Turkish historian Sinan Akıllı, his attempts manifested mixed results and were only partially successful in reversing the public opinion.

By splitting the autonomy in two and ensuring extensive international oversight of provincial affairs, the proposal reflected all of the British Empire's wishes and allayed its fears that the provinces would become Russian puppets.

The Russians had already apportioned Ottoman holdings in Europe amongst themselves and Austria-Hungary by virtue of the secret Reichstadt Agreement and Budapest Convention and stood to lose the most from a Bulgarian state that was not under their control—namely, their century-old dream of controlling the Turkish Straits and having a warm-water port (a.k.a.

[72][73] The date of finalisation of the Budapest Convention, 15 January 1877, mere five days before Midhat Pasha's rejection of the autonomy proposal, and its clauses, where the Russian Empire explicitly undertakes not to create a large Slavic state but rather two small autonomous Bulgarian principalities/provinces north and south of the Balkan mountains have even caused several researchers to call the Treaty of San Stefano a "trick" or a "charade".