The Organization of the Uprising and the Clash with the Representatives of the Beneficience Committee
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Organization of the rebel forces was introduced before the rebels took action. But immediately after the first reported successes, some changes were made. The Commander in Chief, the Ataman, was a Russian officer, Adam Ivanovich Kalmikov. Also, a rebel headquarters was established. Dimitar Pop Georgiev from Berovo was elected as Commander in Chief of the rebel headquarters. And because of the attitude toward Russia at the time, all, save one, of the detachments organized and subordinated to the rebel headquarters were named after the distinguished Russian leadership in Bulgaria.
The military organization of the rebel forces went through a number of changes. During the uprising, the influx of rebels grew abruptly, and the number of leaders and detachments grew accordingly. At least nine detachments were formed. Later, with the straining of relations among the soldiers and between nations, the rebel command ordered the names of the rebel detachments to be changed. It was the rebels' rebuke to the Russian policy on the Balkans. And in the end, when the rebel detachments were forced to retreat, each carried
the banner of utter independence from the Beneficience Committee, for the split between the rebels and the Committee was far too wide to be bridged.
Liberated territory posed the problem of establishing a government - how to maintain peace and order, how to prevent plunder and looting, how to deal with enemies and deserters. On 17 October, 1878, the "Office of the Chief of Police" was formed in Kresna. Aside from keeping the peace, the Chief of Police was assigned to recruit rebels from captured territory, gather taxes from those incapable of participating in the rebellion; and send materiel to those in battle.
Another important problem for the successful development of the uprising was how to recruit new forces and, further, how to supply them with food, weapons, and ammunition.
The Beneficience Committees were established with the blessings of the Bulgarian bourgeoisie to generate and supply rebel forces by whatever means necessary. At the outset these committees began gathering volunteers, distributing weapons and pay, and then, when favorable conditions arose, all was sent to do battle against the Turks. The chief source of volunteers was the former Macedonian soldiers who had volunteered in the Russian army. As the rebel struggle continued, these committees gathered volunteers wherever and however they could, and in some areas men were conscripted by force.
All Beneficience Committees worked to gather and send volunteers. Some volunteers were sent to Greece, others to organize other detachments. By the end of 1878, there were a total of 417 volunteers. According to the records of the Beneficience Committee in Sofia, not all of these participated in the Kresna Uprising.
In any event, the largest source of people for the uprising were the areas in which the battles took place. According to Dondukov, there were 1500 rebels throughout Macedonia in 1878. The majority of these men took part in the Kresna Uprising, which indicates that the majority of the participants were from that area.
Despite the fact people readily responded to the call to arms, and the ranks were thus full, supplying them with weapons and ammunition was a difficult problem. The Beneficience Committee, which was in charge of such matters, was chronically unable to supply the need for weapons simply because there was neither the money nor the weaponry to be had. In addition, the Committee's allocation policy was woeful: late and misdirected. Of course, this affected the development of the uprising and the relations between the rebels and the Committee.
Even in Berovski's first letter, in which he informed the Committee of the attack on Kresna, there was a demand for ten shipments of guns and ammunition. The appeal for weapons was repeated in almost every letter. Hoping to make the supply of weapons to the rebels more regular, Berovski and Kalmikov proposed that the Committee should appoint one of the two representatives in Srbinovo (Brezhanovo) to take charge of a supply line. But nothing came of the proposal, and the need of weapons grew daily. So, for example, in the letter dated 10 October, aside from the news about another rebel victory, Berovski again pleaded for weapons. He asked that not a minute be wasted. The impulse for rebellion would wane without weapons. He asked for 2000 to 3000 rifles and for 50 shipments of munitions. Berovski expressed surprise over the Committee's cold blooded treatment of the uprising in Kresna and the useless surplus of weapons sent to Kyustendil.
An insufficient supply of weapons on the one hand, and the constant influx of new rebels, most of them without weapons, on the other, provoked dissatisfaction and unrest among the rebel ranks. Breeding mistrust resulted in conflicts between the Committee and the conflicts revealed the cross-purposes at play.
The first sign of trouble occurred not between the Committee and the rebels but among the rebels themselves: between the foreign volunteers who had pretensions to leadership positions and the experienced voivodes native to the terrain.
All available information indicates that the rift among the rebels, or to be more precise, between the internal and the external members of the rebel leadership, occurred during the attack on the Turkish army in Kresna. Kalmikov was ordered to lead the rebels through the assault on Kresna; thereafter, Berovski was to be head commander. Moreover, it should be noted that the victory was due to the efforts of the peasants from Kresna, Vlahi, and Oshtava.
According to Todor Strahinov, the attack on the Turkish army began under the command of Kalmikov, but because of his ineptitude as a commander, the people shifted their allegiance to Stoyan Karastoilov, an experienced and highly respected voivode. That initiated the schism between the externals, the foreign volunteers, and the internals, those native to the Macedonian soil. Kalmikov, evidently taken by the pompous title of Ataman, refused to relinquish command, thus exacerbating the situation.
The struggle for power was actually set off by the rivalry between two foreign leaders, Kalmikov and Louis Voitkevich. Voitkevich, a Pole, another adventurer, had joined the rebels with his own detachment of volunteers. Voitkevich had arrived in Vlahi from Kyustendil on 18 October, and by 22 October he submitted his resignation.
Unfortunately, this old rivalry between the two, both of whom represented the interests of the Beneficience Committee, did not remain merely a personal affair. Because of Kalmikov's capriciousness and churlishness, the rebels deserted his detachment. Voitkevich, instead of trying to assuage the rebels, went from man to man trying to persuade each to come under his command.
The situation among the rebels was coming to its flashpoint. There is a chance, Berovski said, that we may have the rebels fighting themselves. On 20 October, the rebel headquarter command tried to put an end to the trouble by constituting two separate command chiefs, a first and a second. Kalmikov was the first commander, Voitkevich the second. Indeed, the rebel forces were reconciled to the idea of making neither subordinate to the other, their authority equal. Of course, as headquarter commander, Berovski reserved his right to "sanction the general command of the uprising and its organization." However, neither Kalmikov nor Voitkevich accepted the decision, so the rebel headquarter command had no choice to demand their expulsions. At this point, according to Strahinov, the voivodes "lifted Stoyan Karastoilov high up on their shoulders and proclaimed him temporary commander of the uprising."
Thus the command of the uprising was taken into the hands of those native to the battleground. Voitkevich was tried and found guilty of attempting to obstruct the rebellion. He was ordered to report to the Beneficience Committee in Dzhumaya, and if he refused to leave the territory, he was to be shot.
This incident was not merely the product of petty ambition and a lust for power. The reasons ran deeper and at bottom one finds pure politics. It was the tactics of two distinct aims and purposes for the rebellion that were at war here. Those who were expelled from key positions of the rebel leadership were proponents of a single policy, a single conception of the rebellion. The aims of the Macedonian rebels were foreign to them. Yet it was the Macedonian rebels who had to contend with the disunity, who had to settle accounts if their aims were to be realized.
If the clashes within the rebel ranks were a result of two conflicting policies, two conflicting viewpoints, then it logically follows that soon the protagonists of the two sides would come into conflict: a rift between the internals and the externals.
The first signs of this were expressed in Berovski's letter of 10 October, 1878 sent to the president of the Dzhumaya Committee. Berovski criticized the Committee's policy for supplying the rebels in Kresna with arms. He was furious with the "cold blooded treatment" toward the rebels. While in Kresna they were suffering from insufficient weapons, "There are troops in Kyustendil that have yet to serve any purpose at all."
The Beneficience Committee's treatment of the uprising as it developed slowly but surely led to the straining of relations. The internals, i.e., the Macedonian rebels, began to jealously guard their leadership positions, and every attempt at interference from the Unity Committee provoked reactions. The Committee piqued the leaders of the uprising by trying to supersede their authority. For example, the Committee sent written compliments to certain voivodes without consulting the rebels themselves.
Venting his anger, Berovski wrote in a letter dated 19 October, 1878: "Voivodes should only be honored by among us."
Public protest and personal doubt about the Unity Committee's intentions festered among the rebels. Reflecting on how the rebels had been hampered by these proponents of the Beneficience Committee, Berovski wrote in the letter dated 22 October, 1878 addressed to the Dzhumaya Committee: "And how do such people get involved in such hallowed work, to sully it, to ruin it? We will discuss this incident and the Committee plans. We were not aware of how much of the Committee was among us.
The expulsion of Kalmikov and Voitkevich from the uprising cut off the extended hand of the Bulgarian
bourgeoisie, and control fell into the hands of the internals, the Macedonians themselves. Toying with notions of conquest, the Bulgarian bourgeoisie could not tolerate an in dependent rebel leadership, and repercussions were a certainty. The Beneficience Committee had to take quick action to bring the development of the uprising back under its wing, to retain it as an instrument of Greater Bulgarian policy.
This could not be achieved with Berovski at the head of the rebel leadership. The leaders would have to be people who would fulfill Committee orders without balking.
Thus, one of the first steps taken by the Committee was to seek the removal of Berovski. With the letter of 23 October, Berovski was requested to report to Gorna Dzhumaya. However, fully aware of the reasons for this request, and knowing further that Kalmikov and Voitkevich were in Dzhumaya, Berovski refused to comply. Ten "leaders and detachment leaders" replied in a letter dated 24 October, 1878: "We can understand the need for our chief of headquarters, Berovski, to report to Gorna Dzhumaya. However, Kalmikov and Voitkevich are both in Dzhumaya despite having resigned from the uprising. And until we receive word of their departure from Gorna Dzhumaya, we have just cause for refusing to send Dimitar (Berovski) to Dzhumaya."
The letter shows clearly that the rebel leadership had not only lost faith in the Committee, but also begun to rally around the leadership of Dimitar Pop Georgiev Berovski. Relations were becoming more and more strained.
The best expression of the feeling among the rebels toward Committee policy was stated in Dimitar Berovski's letter of 25 October, 1878 to the president of the Dzhumaya Committee, K. P. Bosilkov. He wrote frankly and without equivocation:
"We see that the hope we had is lost. We see that you are only playing with us. Great sums are being spent, but you have directed it to where it is not needed. People with weapons are needed here. You have detained people and supplies for some days, and then you sent them who knows where. What do you expect us to do? I believe it is your duty to assist us with the means for war, and beyond that, you need simply observe. To our minds, the Committee has been derelict in its duties, and I consider it my duty to inform you that if this continues, we will soon be forced to begin our own. But, the responsibility for our blood will be yours. So, we ask you for a positive or negative response. Finally, would you please tell us why you failed to send us arms and ammunition on time? You sent us unarmed men. We have no munitions factory here, we have no supplies to give them. And in Razlog, this is not the time for you to be considering an uprising there. Think seriously; with what forces do you intend to open such a wide front, and how do you intend to supply them? You allowed a few detachments to be taken in Palanka. For God's sake, think. With the first and last shipment of 60 rifles, how many detachments do you think we can form…?"
Berovski's conception, indeed the entire rebel leadership's conception, of the Beneficience Committee's role in the development of the Macedonian uprising would eventually become embodied in their Constitution. In Article 5 of the Prescripts of the Macedonian Rebel Committee, it states:
"The so-called Beneficience Committees outside of Macedonia are permitted to aid the uprising. However, the main subject and concern of their aid should be: the collection of financial aid, weapons, clothing, and food. And they should stand ready to supply the needs of the uprising when the needs arise."
And in Article 135 of the Prescripts, it was explicitly recommended to Macedonian patriots abroad who were willing to contribute to the struggle for Macedonian liberation to send their aid directly to the Macedonian Rebel Committee rather than to the Committees in the Bulgarian Principality, as was done in the past.
Berovski's attitude also demonstrates the vast gap between the two points of view, a gap that precluded any cooperation. And the gap deepened, for the dispute among the leaders was transferred to the rebel ranks. They were divided between the local rebels and the volunteer soldiers. On the 28th of October, when the regular Turkish army broke the cease fire and launched an attack on rebel positions, the volunteers began to desert. Although the Turks outnumbered the rebels, the "internals" left to fight alone were able to repel the Turks and hold their positions. Berovski wrote to the president of the Beneficience Committee in Dzhumaya that "yesterday's victory is ours, won with the courage of the Macedonian soldiers. The volunteers deserted... Long live the soldiers and their voivodes!"
This did not correspond with the intentions and aims of the Beneficience Committee. Berovski, justly taking a portion of the credit for the victory, could not have accepted his removal from the leadership without risking defeat. Thus, he took most energetic measures to retain his leadership role, even at the cost of losing some captured territory, even at the cost of losing his popularity among the people.
Immediately after receiving the news about Kalmikov's and Voitkevich's expulsion from the uprising, the Sofia Committee (which characterized the situation in Macedonia now as "anarchy") sent the following directive to the Beneficience Committee in Gorna Dzhumaya:
"From your two letters of 25 October as well as from the verbal reports of the Generals Ataman Kalmikov and Peko Pavlovich, we discovered with sadness what disorder has befallen the uprising in Macedonia. Such disorder can only result in unwanted consequences. So, we have decided to arrest the headquarters commander, Dimitar Pop Georgiev, and to appoint a provisional commission consisting of three members... [This commission] will be responsible for the financial, postal, and administrative affairs in newly captured areas. Your committee should submit a list of names to the commission of those who will represent the Central Committee. For the arrest of Dimitar Pop Georgiev, you should abide by the orders issued by the commission. In the future, regarding the activities, your committee will correspond only with the commission and with the committee here in Sofia..." The directive is signed by the president of the Sofia Committee, Miletiy, a Bulgarian bishop.
With this directive, the Sofia Committee suspended both the leadership of the uprising and the leadership of the Dzhumaya Committee and transferred the authority to the Commission. Conferring authority on the Commission was the first step in eliminating the independent character of the uprising. The second step would require the coarse removal of the internal leadership.
Writing about the function of this new Commission, Urumov, one of the members, stated that it should be a kind of provisional government vested with the authority of supreme supervision over the uprising. It should maintain ties with the Sofia Committee, distribute weapons, clothing, money, food, and other materials. Furthermore, it should establish administrative order in the liberated territory: appoint village mayors, town guards, vineyard guards, and other administrative functionaries. However, its chief task was to lead the uprising through the following newly appointed leaders: Commander in Chief, Kalmikov; his adjutant, Peko Pavlovich (Boshkovich) from Montenegro; Panta Srechkovich, an officer from the Serbian army; and Walter Schultz, the military engineer.
The Commission's first concern was to remove Berovski from the uprising. On 2 November, 1878, he was given twenty-four hours to leave the uprising and appear before the members of the Commission.
In Berovski's letter of 7 November to the Sofia Committee, he reported, "In order to leave, I had to compromise. And I left the voivode, Stoyan, in charge." He left for Dzhumaya. "On the evening of the 3rd, I met with the Commission. Kalmikov said that by order of the Committee, I was placed under arrest to separate me from the uprising," and that he "had been authorized to take command."
In the presence of the Commission, Berovski was subjected to scurrilous attacks from Kalmikov and Voitkevich. They told him that if he didn't comply peacefully with the order, he would be bound and gagged.
Whether or not Berovski was actually imprisoned cannot be determined by the information available. However, three days later the Sofia Committee conveyed instructions to have Berovski expelled not only from the uprising, but from Dzhumaya as well.
How was the Sofia Committee's action accepted by the leadership of the Macedonian uprising? How was it accepted among the rebels?
In his letter of the 7th of November, Berovski condemned Kalmikov's return as an act whose aim was to "totally destroy the hallowed work of the people." He blamed the Sofia Committee and said that they were to be responsible for the consequences. "If you have actually gone as far as to punish and destroy the rebellion by expelling me, you will have to answer to God and to the people."
It appears that after Berovski was removed from the uprising, the Commission carried out their orders covertly to facilitate their tighter involvement with the rebel leadership. One of the participants of the events described the incident which shows the covert nature of their activities. "Ten days later [after the expulsion of Berovski], the same major returned - Adam Kalmikov. He presented a letter to Stoyan. The letter said that Stoyan was to recognize Kalmikov as the new Commander in Chief and that Stoyan was to serve him, for he was a Russian representative. The major pretended that everything was in accord, and he even said that he would lay down his life for Stoyan."
Independent of the covert activities and the naive open-mindedness of the rebel leadership, Kalmikov's return was met with discontent and resistance from the ranks.
"One of the voivodes," wrote Strahinov in his memoirs, "advised Stoyan twice to drive Kalmikov out. The kindhearted Stoyan believed that like himself, everyone else would accept Kalmikov without vindictiveness."
Stoyan's agreement to accept Kalmikov provoked trouble in the rebel ranks. Many voivodes, expecting the worst, abandoned their positions in the uprising.
"That's why," wrote Strahinov, "the voivodes Kapcho, Stefo, Pop Bufski, and others left Vlahi. They passed through Struma and went to the villages of Troskovo, Padezh, Leshko, and other places. Georgi Saatchiyata and the temporary headquarters commander, Mite Popov, submitted their resignations. They had discovered other great men: Petar Pavlovitch, a Montenegrin, Dimitri Nemets, Pando Velkovich, and others. These were close friends of the major, and they passed themselves off as close friends of Stoyan." Strahinov finished his description of these dramatic events by listing all the ways in which the leadership of the Macedonian uprising was liquidated.
The Bulgarian Committee's reckless behavior wreaked tragic consequences on the development of the uprising as well as on the destiny of some of its leaders, as was the case with the voivode, Stoyan Karastoilov.
With Kalmikov again imposing himself at the head of the uprising, the Sofia Committee provided itself a vehicle for the further intrusion of their own Greater Bulgarian policies.
