Massacre de Stara Zagora

« This very able and moderate survey provides evidence on a number of points hitherto misunderstood in England: (1) That the Circassian settlers were deliberately introduced into Bulgaria, in order to strengthen Muslim predominance, and drove the Christian peasanty to desperation; (2) that the Bashibazuks were in the main Christian peasants, undisciplined, but armed against their Christian neighbours; (3) that the "liberal" Midhat Pashad during three terms of office in Bulgaria "suppressed with a strong hand all national currents"; that throughout the war, the Turks were constantly executing Bulgarian and intellectuals and Sofia and Plovdiv and that in certain towns and villages—notably, Karlovo, Kalofer, Kazanlak, Nova and Stara Zagora (which in June 1879 they still found "like a charnel house") there was a general massacre after the first Russian retreat; (5) that the fearful sufferings of the Turkish population, which fled before the final Russian advance, were due hardly to all the Bulgarians, and still less to the Russians, but in the main to the ravages of typhus and to the Porte's utter lack of any means to for dealing with them; and (6) that the alleged ill treatment of Moslems by the new Bulgarian authorities was in the main confined to the attempt to prevent the return of those guilty of massacre. The general conclusion, based on the progress already evident in the brief space of time since the fall of Turkish rule, was that despite every horror, liberty has been well purchased. »

« The representative example is the fate of the Stara Zagora (Eski Zağra) during the War – the city was burned down in July 1877. The Bulgarians accused the Turkish troops led by Suleyman Pasha of that crime. After setting fire to Christian houses, the Ottoman soldiers blocked the escape route – some of the Bulgarians were murdered, some of them were held captive.69 According to Bulgarian accounts, the Muslim inhabitants of the city took part in the atrocities. No Bulgarian man survived, the women and children were enslaved. Nobody tried to extinguish the burning Stara Zagora, in which many Bulgarians died »