The Supreme Macedonian Committee chetas' action in 1895 was an armed expedition of several chetas from Bulgaria into the Ottoman-ruled

Macedonia Macedonia most commonly refers to: * North Macedonia, a country in southeastern Europe, known until 2019 as the Republic of Macedonia * Macedonia (ancient kingdom), a kingdom in Greek antiquity * Macedonia (Greece), a traditional geographic reg ...

and Thrace in the period of June-August 1895. Its aim was to provoke a general uprising in the area and to draw the attention of the

Great Powers A great power is a sovereign state that is recognized as having the ability and expertise to exert its influence on a global scale. Great powers characteristically possess military and economic strength, as well as diplomatic and soft power in ...

to non-compliance of the Treaty of Berlin (1878), and the provided reforms in European Turkey. The

Supreme Macedonian Committee Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee (SMAC), ( bg, Върховен македоно - одрински комитет, (ВМОК)), also known as Supreme Macedonian Committee was a Bulgarian paramilitary and political organization, active i ...

invited about 40 active and reserve officers from the Bulgarian army, as well as some old

vojvode Voivode (, also spelled ''voievod'', ''voevod'', ''voivoda'', ''vojvoda'' or ''wojewoda'') is a title denoting a military leader or warlord in Central, Southeastern and Eastern Europe since the Early Middle Ages. It primarily referred to the me ...

s from Macedonia. Among them were Boris Sarafov,

Toma Davidov Toma Kostov Davidov (2 May 1863 - 15 March 1903) was a Bulgarian Army officer and participant in the Macedonian Revolutionary Movement, a vojvode of the Macedonian Supreme Committee, later becoming a commander in the Internal Macedonian Revolution ...

Mihail Apostolov Mihail Raynov Apostolov ( bg, Михаил Райнов Апостолов; 1871 – March 21, 1902), also known as Mihal Postolov or Popeto, was an officer in the Bulgarian army and a worker of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization, ...

Yordan Venedikov Yordan is a given name and less often a surname. Notable people with the name include: Surname *Philip Yordan (1914–2003), American screenwriter Given name *Yordan Álvarez (born 1997), Cuban baseball player *Yordan Angelov (born 1953), Bulg ...

, etc. The number of the rebels was about 800 people, divided into four detachments. After invading Macedonia, the separate detachments headed to

Strumica Strumica ( mk, Струмица, ) is the largest city2002 census results
in English and Macedon ...

, Melnik and

Dospat Dospat ( bg, Доспат) is a town in the very south of Bulgaria, part of Smolyan Province, situated in the Rhodope Mountains, close to Dospat Dam. It is the administrative centre of the homonymous Dospat Municipality. As of December 2010, t ...

, respectively, but generally did not achieve much success. The failure of the action caused disagreements in the organization. The Ottoman government took advantage of the attack of the Pomaks populated Dospat and spread information about the atrocities in the European press. The Great Powers did not react as expected to the raising of the Macedonian question and instead of putting pressure on the Ottoman Empire, they put pressure on the Bulgarian government.Anna M. Mirkova, Muslim Land, Christian Labor: Transforming Ottoman Imperial Subjects into Bulgarian National Citizens, 1878-1939; Central European University Press, 2017, , p. 139.

Footnotes

See also