Following the failure of the September Uprising, Georgi Benkovski reorganizes the BRCC and makes plans for a new revolt.

The April Uprising of 1876 is more widespread, but it also suffers from poor coordination.

Poor security allows the Turks to locate and destroy many local groups before unified action is possible.

Massacres at Batak and other towns further outrage international opinion by showing the insincerity of recent Turkish reform proposals.

The deaths of an estimated thirty thousand Bulgarians in these massacres spur the Bulgarian national movement.

An international conference in Constantinople produces proposals to curb the Muslim fanaticism responsible for the Bulgarian massacres and give local self-government to the Christians on European territory in the empire.

Two autonomous Bulgarian regions were proposed, one centered at Sofia and the other at Turnovo.

When the sultan rejects the reforms, Russia declares war unilaterally in early 1877.

This is Russia's golden opportunity to gain control of Western trade routes to its southwest and finally destroy the empire that has blocked this ambition for centuries.

Britain, shocked by the Turkish massacres, does not oppose Russian advances.