Russo-Turkish War · War Crimes & Atrocities
The war was born in atrocity and produced more of it. The Ottoman suppression of the Bulgarian April Uprising in 1876 — the 'Bulgarian Horrors' that scandalised Europe — was among its principal causes, and the fighting of 1877–78 brought fresh massacres of Christian civilians by irregular bashi-bazouks and Circassian troops, as well as brutal reprisals against Muslim civilians and the flight and death of hundreds of thousands of Muslim refugees from the Balkans. Ethnic and religious massacre by both sides was woven through the conflict.
15,000+
deaths
Victims: Bulgarian villagers of the Rhodope region(Estimates of those killed in suppressing the April Uprising range from about 15,000 to 30,000; at Batak alone some 3,000–5,000 were slaughtered.)
14,000+
deaths
Victims: The Bulgarian population of Stara Zagora(Thousands were killed and the town largely destroyed; precise figures are uncertain amid the general flight of the population.)
200,000+
deaths
Victims: Muslim (Turkish, Circassian, and Tatar) civilians of the Balkans(Modern estimates suggest that on the order of 200,000–300,000 Balkan Muslims died and over a million became refugees during and after the war, from massacre, exposure, starvation, and disease.)