The Turks were by this period in an inevitable decline. Although Turkish rule extended over parts of three continents, the Turks continued to expand their conquests. Military expenses became a staggering burden. The Turkish economy was in an unfavorable position, and the Turks were beginning to lose battles to increasingly well trained European armies. The original Spartan life-style of the sultans and army officers was becoming one of luxury and indulgence. All the signals for the fall of the Turks were in evidence.
As the movement toward national revolution grew up in the mid-nineteenth century in Bulgaria, an ideological schism separated the movement into two schools. The "moderates," led by a Bulgarian group in Constantinople, favored negotiations with the Turks. The "radicals" felt that such an approach would lead to inevitable failure. Although the radicals turned to the West—France, Great Britain, Italy, and Switzerland—for models of revolution and to Russia for practical assistance in freeing Bulgaria from the Turks, in fact they hoped to free the country from all foreign domination. Ironically, in light of Bulgaria's later history, one radical leader wrote, "If Russia comes to liberate, she will be met with great sympathy, but if she comes to rule, she will find many enemies."
The leaders of the radicals were Georgi Rakovsky and Vasil Levski. Rakovsky continued for twenty-five years to organize armed detachments along the borders of neighboring countries. Levski, for his part, realized that a social revolution as well as a national revolution was imperative for the true liberation of the Bulgarian people. He worked sub rosa in Bulgarian villages and organized a network of committees for the revolution, known as the Internal Secret Revolutionary Organization. In 1873 he was captured by the Turks and hanged.
By the early 1870s the seeds of revolution were sown as Bulgarians won some political victories over their conquerors. In 1870, primarily because of the activity of the Bulgarian priests, the Bulgarian Orthodox Church was reestablished. Although the Bulgarian clergy was in large part responsible for this action, it was probably tolerated by the Turks because of their anger with the Greeks, who were then embroiled in a revolt in Crete. In 1872 the Bulgarian Revolutionary Central Committee was formed in Bucharest; by 1875 this group became active in the uprisings in Bosnia and Herzegovina, uprisings that were not easily quelled by the Turks.
As Bulgarian revolutionary sentiments grew, the Bulgarians turned to Russia to help win freedom from the Turks. Although the motives of the Russians and the Bulgarians were not identical, both wanted to rid the Balkans of Turkish oppression. The Russians perceived the Ottoman Empire as a very dangerous rival that they hoped to annihilate, thus gaining control of Western European trade. The Bulgarians, although their motives were also pragmatic, felt a deep sense of kinship with the Russian people. The Russians, like the Bulgarians, were Slavs. Their religion was identical. Even their language was similar. Thus, they sensed a commonality not only of interests but also of cultures.
The precursor to the liberation in 1878 was an unsuccessful uprising in 1876. The Bulgarians, at this point, were ill prepared for war, politically and strategically. Thousands of Bulgarians were killed in April of that year. Soon thereafter Turkish reprisals followed. Fifteen thousand Bulgarians were massacred in Plovdiv alone. The savagery of these reprisals was so brutal that Western public leaders spoke out in protest. The governments of the West, however, fearing an increased Russian penetration in the area, refused to act against the Turks.
Although the revolution of 1876 had met with failure, it had succeeded in loosening the Turkish grip on the country and in increasing the feeling of the Russians that the time to attack was imminent. Finally, after the Russo-Turkish war of 1877, the Russians invaded Bulgaria, liquidating the Turkish army by March 1878. In these battles for Bulgarian liberation, the Russians lost over 200,000 lives, a sacrifice the Bulgarians never failed to recognize.
The results of 1878 were mixed, and the outcome of the original peace treaty was reversed within five months of its signing. Bulgaria became an autonomous tributary of the Turkish sultan; complete independence was not established until 1908. The original peace treaty, the Treaty of San Stefano, signed on March 3, 1878, granted Bulgaria additional territories, including Thrace and the much-valued Macedonia. This treaty was reversed, primarily because of Western fear of Russian encroachment, by the Congress of Berlin; the Treaty of Berlin, signed on July 13, 1878, unlike the Treaty of San Stefano, delimited Bulgarian territories. The Bulgarians were forced to give Thrace and Macedonia back to the Turks. Bulgaria itself was carved into two separate entities: the principality of Bulgaria, including northern Bulgaria and Sofia, and eastern Rumelia, or southern Bulgaria.
LIBERATION AND ITS AFTERMATH
Although the 1877-78 war freed Bulgaria from Turkish rule, the outcome of the Congress of Berlin once again denied to Bulgaria the land that it perceived to be rightfully Bulgarian, thus setting the tone for an irredentist foreign policy that lasted through World War II. Because the West, particularly Great Britain, played a significant role in carving up the Balkans, and Bulgaria in particular, in hopes of curbing Russian power, many historians speculate that Bulgaria's alliances with Germany in both World War I and World War II were products of irredentist sentiment that grew out of the Treaty of Berlin.