The uprising, named after the village of Rakovica in south-central Croatia where it started, lasted only four days in October 1871, and ended in defeat for Croatian rebels.

[2] Kvaternik planned a revolt without notifying anybody from Party of Rights, including its leader Ante Starčević.

[2] Another bad condition for the revolution was its location; the village of Rakovica and the area of Kordun was mostly populated by Orthodox Serbs of Croatia.

Soon he gained supporters from the villages of Rakovica, Broćanac, Brezovac, Mašvina, Plavča Draga and Gornja Močila.

[4] In order to get to the border with Bosnia Vilayet which was part of the Ottoman Empire at the time, the rebels concluded they needed to capture the village of Drežnik.

On October 16, Franjo Rački informed Josip Juraj Strossmayer about one of Kvaternik's plans if the revolt would have been successful.

In letters found with the corpses of Kvaternik and Bach, it was stated that they would eliminate Ivan Mažuranić (who led a friendly policy with Austria at the time), Matija Mrazović [hr], Franjo Rački, Đuro Crnadak and Nikola Krešić.