Martial Rights of the Macedonian Army

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Martial Rights of the Macedonian Army

Article 11: Every volunteer, rebel, and haiduk from all nations, Christian and otherwise, will be accepted into the uprising. But first he must swear an oath of honesty and faith to the Rebel Head Command. Then he will be signed into the numbers of the rebels.

Article 12: Any rebel who refuses to submit to command or acts for himself in the name of the Rebel Leadership will be prosecuted in the name of the Rebel Command and will be executed.

Article 15: Any Christian, Muslim, Macedonian, Turk, Albanian, Vlach, or anyone else who acts contrary to the uprising and/or the Rebels will be prosecuted and punished.

Article 22: All peasants who can bear arms will take part, according to need, as soldiers of the Macedonian Army during battle; when peace returns, they will return to their work.

Article 24: In every village a village commission will be created consisting of three members. Its task will be to arm every able-bodied peasant, to know the whereabouts of every resident, and to call them to arms for the Macedonian army in time of need. The commission will not accept bribes to release anyone from his duty. Anyone caught offering or accepting bribes will be executed.

Article 32: According to this Constitution, the officers are to select a captain to be judge for many villages. The officers will draw up a document, as a Constitution, to determine who will govern the area.

Article 32: According to this Constitution, the officers as a regular army, always prepared, for this order appears to be fair to all.

Article 36: On every high place there is to be stationed a guard to watch over the village: two changes every ten days. Land owners are not to be exempt from guard duty, for it has been observed that they tend to shirk their duty to the fatherland and, still worse, spread rumors that excite the residents.

Article 48: When our Macedonian Rebel Army liberates a village or town, plunder is forbidden, even if the town is Turkish. Each rebel will carry food in his own pack, and in the event the supply units fail to arrive and he is without food, he must endure. He who enters into a Turkish house to look for food or anything else will be treated as a looter and will be punished by death.

Article 58: All peasants who give food and other supplies to the Macedonian volunteer army should demand an official receipt, for they will be reimbursed after the liberation.

Article 69: Do not send foreign volunteers to the Macedonian uprising without permission from Rebel Headquarters. We have people and fighters, but we don't have weapons.

Article 70: The volunteers sent from abroad without a note of verification from the Macedonian Rebel Headquarters are not to be accepted by the hundreds into the detachments. Determine who has been sent as a spy, and send the spies back.

Article 71: If it becomes apparent that one is a spy, or a propagandist, or a bandit having come from Turkey, Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, Russia, Bosnia, or wherever, determine who sent him, to what end, and what he has done while a member of the rebel forces. He is either to be punished according to the gravity of his deeds, or to be sent back.

Article 72: If it is determined that a volunteer already accepted into the ranks of the Macedonian volunteer army is a spy for another country or has worked against the aims and interests of the Macedonian uprising. He is to be punished as an internal, according to the laws of the Macedonian Rebel Army.

Article 82: Aside from the regular army forces, the Macedonian Rebel Army consists of all Macedonian inhabitants from both liberated and non-liberated areas. And each is in some way a Macedonian soldier, man or woman, young or old, and each is obliged to aid the uprising in whatever way he can.

Article 86: The Rebel Committee will make a list of all peasants who are involved in the ranks of the Macedonian Rebel Army.

Article 102: No one but the Macedonian Rebel Headquarters is to negotiate with the enemy for the surrender of the Macedonian army or liberated territory. Should anyone bring such a decision, the army is not to honor the order. The person or persons bringing such a decision are to be sentenced to death, and the execution is to be carried out publicly before the village.

Article 125: From what we have seen, it is impossible to bring all of Macedonia into the uprising. So we have decided to incite local uprisings in the eastern region and to liberate villages and towns with internal forces. However, we are faced with the much larger task of liberating all of Macedonia. Now we are conducting partisan warfare against the Turks, but our intention is to send rebel detachments into Macedonia to incite an uprising there as well. Our first detachment will leave for Bitola to initiate activity there. The detachment, consisting of 300 rebels, is led by the voivodes, Karaiskaki, Stevo, Pavlé, and Kara Kosta. That detachment will act on its own authority in carrying out its orders. With couriers it will inform the Macedonian Rebel Headquarters and will seek whatever council necessary.

Article 126: When the first detachment reaches the Mariovo Mountains, it is recommended that the voivodes accept local residents into their ranks. That will constitute the rebel army in that area.

Article 128: The authority of the Macedonian Rebel Committee will extend to all fields of Macedonia. In compliance to the authority, all areas will rise up and rebel.

Article 129: In each area of the rebellion, a regional Macedonian Rebel Committee will be established to lead the rebel forces and to maintain communication by courier service with the Macedonian Rebel Committee.

Article 130: Because rebel detachments under the leadership of local voivodes have appeared in Kostur, Maleshevo, in the Prilep and Veles areas, in the Dzhumaya region, in Skopje, and in other areas throughout the fatherland, the Macedonian Rebel Committee, as a central command for all of Macedonia, recommends all voivodes to report their assessments of the situation to Headquarters for the benefit of the general uprising.

Article 132: Our Macedonian uprising is an internal affair, and we are commanding our own forces. Our neighbor, the Bulgarian Principality, is not demonstrating a brotherly acceptance. They are sending our messangers back without weapons. We are left without enough, and we cannot aid our own brother Macedonians in Macedonia. Thus, we are compelled to advise them about supplying weapons and about patronage.

Article 136: A great number of Macedonians in Serbia express a wish to join the Macedonian uprising and attack the Turkish forces from the northern border. However, there are no weapons. If they can find weapons, and if they accept our Constitution with their hearts, we will accept them.

Article 139: By consent of this general assembly, composed of representatives from all committees throughout Macedonia, this document will now stand as the Rebel and Civil Constitution by which we will be governed and which will be enforced until the liberation.