Basti Osman was correct in his assessment relevant to the Bulgars.  The change of attitude in the community gradually became distinct. Both the urban and the rural population were looking for a change, a phenomena which was manifested by their action. 

            Osman’s estimates were based on on his own deductions as a layman.  The actual developments taking place in closed quarters and at distant places were beyond his reach.  He was concerned about the future of his own people. 

            The Bulgar revolutionaries had gone underground in the aftermath of the 1867 rebellion.  They used the Church as their front organization in propagating the idea that the Bulgarian demand for independence was legitimate as those of the Serb, Greeks and Romans had been. 

            Russia was the principal supporter of the Bulgarian revolutionaries. The vanguard  revolutionaries were trained in Odessa and in the border towns of Romania.  The Russian Consulates in Bulgaria functioned as the nerve center of  the Bulgarian secessionist movement.  The ostensible diplomats in the  Russian Consulates in Filibe and Ruscuk had prepared an action plan aimed at creating an atmosphere conducive to a general uprising.  They had been instrumental in the organization of local revolutionary committees in various counties. 

            The primary target of the brain center of the movement in the Snack of Filibe was to block the south to north communication line, thereby detaching a significant part of the empire. 

            The choice of  Filibe, located relatively closer to Istanbul, the seat of the Ottoman Empire, as the center of the projected rebellion, though a daring attempt, was practical one. 

            The Ottoman intelligence organization had timely detected the conspiracy in and around Filibe, and apprehended the revolutionaries based in Eski Zağra, Çarpan and Hacıköy. 

            Not a single one of the captured revolutionaries confessed his guilt; and all of them claimed having been arrested on framed up charges. 

            Through the representation of Ignatief, the Russian Ambassador in Istanbul, Prime Minister Mahmut Nedim Paşa ordered the release of the revolutionaries.  Hurşit Paşa, the Governor of Edirne, and the County Officers of Filibe, Zağra and Kızanlık, who had ordered the government action, were removed from their respective posts. 

            The Russians and Bulgarian revolutionaries had been greatly encouraged by the démarche of the Ottoman Central Government. 

            St. Petersburg appointed Naydankerof, a Bulgar by extraction and formerly a Russian intelligence operative during the Crimean War, as the Russian Consul in Filibe.  Istanbul granted acceptance for his appointment, notwithstanding his non-Russian background. 

            Naydankerof was a topnotch revolutionary.  He was well informed on the geography and social fabric of  Bulgaria.  Availing himself of diplomatic immunity he enjoyed as a  Russian Consul, engaged in conspiracy to carve out a Bulgarian State out of the Ottoman Empire, bordering with Istanbul.  His brother, a medical student on Vienna, was to help him as his closest lieutenant.  An all out rebellion was to be launched when the situation was ripe. 

            The village of Otlu and the Avratalan forests on the skirts of the Greater Balkan Mountain Ranges were elected as the insurgency strongholds.  The area, from where the insurgency was to be directed, was to be fortified. 

            The plan of the Russian Consul of Bulgar extraction was based on terrorizing the masses.  The initial targets were the Filibe and Pazarcık counties.  Subsequently the villages inhabited Turks and Muslims were planned to be attacked and destroyed and the population were to be massacred to create maximum terror among the people, and to provoke intervention by European powers and Russia.  The Bulgarians were to play the innocent and victimized side. 

            Naydankerof had planned to start the rebellion in May 1876.  The Bulgarian peasants, the target of instigation,   however,  acted late in April, by attacking their own  Turkish and Circassian neighbors. 

            Aziz Paşa, the Mutasarrif of Filibe,  having detected suspicious activities, had requested reinforcement from Istanbul.  Prime Minister Muhmut Nedim Paşa was still under the sedative influence of  the Russian Ambassador.  He advised that there was no need to be needlessly fearful.  He did not concede to the request for reinforcement. 

            In the absence of a serious counter action on the part of the Government forces, the Bulgarian insurgents were emboldened.  They cut the telegraph lines,  disrupted communication between the villages and the county center,  captured the stragetic mountain passes on the Greater Balkan Mountains, and established a strong defense line, severing the north from the south. 

            It was at this juncture when the Circassian irregulars, the “Başıbozuk” according to the Ottoman official jargon, arrived to the scene. 

           There were a significant number of Circassian villages in the neighborhood of Filibe and Pazarcık.  The inhabitants of those villages organized mobile cavalry groups, and offered strong resistance to the Bulgars, began raiding the Bulgar villages in retaliation.  They destroyed Bulgar villages in the neighborhood. 

            There were powerful government garrisons in Şumnu and Ruscuk in the north.  Hence the insurgency was less active in those areas. 

            Meanwhile Anton, the notorious leader of Kilise, in the upstream Yantra basin, however,  was not idle. He commanded raids against Akıncılar and other villages in neighborhood populated by the Turks.  Finally Anton attacked the Circassian villages on the left side of the Yantra. 

            Osman did not have a precise knowledge of the extent of the rebellion.  Osman