April Uprising of 1876

BelligerentsBulgarian Revolutionary Central CommitteeOttoman EmpireCommanders and leadersGeorgi Benkovski†
Ilarion Dragostinov†
Panayot Volov†
Hristo Botev†Hafiz Pasha

Strength Around 10,000 men Around 100,000 menCasualties and losses 15,000–30,000 killed (including civilians) 200–4,000 killed

The April Uprising (Bulgarian: Априлско въстание, romanized: Aprilsko vastanie) was an insurrection organised by the Bulgarians in the Ottoman Empire from April to May 1876. The rebellion was suppressed by irregular Ottoman bashi-bazouk units that engaged in indiscriminate slaughter of both rebels and non-combatants (see Batak massacre).

The American community around Robert College in Istanbul, the Protestant mission in Plovdiv headed by J.F. Clarke as well as two other Americans, journalist Januarius MacGahan and diplomat Eugene Schuyler, were indispensable in bringing knowledge of Ottoman atrocities to the wider European public.

Their reports of the events, which came to be known in the press as the Bulgarian Horrors and the Crime of the Century, caused a public outcry across Europe and mobilised both common folks and famous intellectuals to demand a reform of the failed Ottoman model of governance of the Bulgarian lands.

The shift in public opinion, in particular, in the Ottoman Empire's hitherto closest ally, the British Empire, eventually led to the re-establishment of a separate Bulgarian state in 1878.