The Bulgarian Horrors

The war grew out of atrocity. As revolts against Ottoman misrule spread through the Balkans in the 1870s, the Bulgarian April Uprising of 1876 was suppressed with appalling savagery by irregular bashi-bazouks and Circassian troops, who massacred whole villages — tens of thousands killed at places like Batak. When the news reached Western Europe, it caused a sensation: William Gladstone's furious pamphlet on the 'Bulgarian Horrors' turned British opinion against propping up the Ottomans, and across Russia Pan-Slavic feeling demanded action to protect fellow Slavs and Orthodox Christians.

Serbia and Montenegro went to war with the Ottomans in 1876 and were beaten, deepening the crisis. Diplomacy failed to force reform on the Sultan, and Russia — humiliated two decades earlier in the Crimean War and eager to restore its prestige and influence in the Balkans — saw both a moral cause and a strategic opportunity.

On April 24, 1877, Tsar Alexander II declared war, proclaiming Russia the liberator of the Balkan Christians. Romania allowed Russian armies to cross its territory and soon joined the war for its own independence. The great question hanging over the conflict from the first day was how far the other Powers — above all Britain and Austria-Hungary — would let Russia go before they intervened to stop it.