The
Herzegovinian Rebellion of
1875 (
Serbian and
Croatian:
Hercegovački
ustanak,
Cyrillic: Херцеговачки
устанак) is the most significant of the rebellions against the
Ottoman rule in
Herzegovina. The uprising was precipitated by
the harsh treatment of the mostly Catholic and Orthodox population
under the
Bosnian beys and
aghas of
the
Ottoman province of
Bosnia.
The reforms announced by the Turkish Sultan
Abdülmecid, involving new rights for
Christian subjects, a new basis for army conscription, and an end
to the much-hated system of tax-farming, were either resisted or
ignored by the powerful Bosnian landowners. They frequently
resorted to more repressive measures against their Christian
subjects. The tax burden on Christian peasants constantly
increased.
On
June 19 1875 the
Catholics in the Gabela
and Hrasno
districts of
lower Herzegovina, ignited by overtaxing, rebelled against the
Ottoman authorities under the leadership of don Ivan Music. An orthodox uprising
(popularly known as Nevesinje gun or
Невесињска пушка) started on July 9 around
the village of Nevesinje
in eastern Herzegovina. Subsequently, a
general uprising of the entire Christian population in Bosnia and
Herzegovina ensued.
More than 150,000 people took refuge in
Croatia
. The Ottoman armed response came both from
government troops under the recently appointed Bosnian governor and
from the local landowners and their own irregular troops. The
attempts to suppress the uprising proved unsuccessful.
The unrest
rapidly spread among the Christian populations of the other Ottoman
provinces in the Balkans (notably the
April Uprising in Bulgaria
). The
atrocities of the Ottoman Empire in suppressing unrest in the
Balkan provinces eventually led to the
Russo-Turkish War of
1877-78 , which ended in Turkish defeat, and the signing of the
Treaty of San Stefano in March
1878, followed
in July of the same year by the Treaty of Berlin, severely reducing
Ottoman territories and power in Europe. The
Congress of Berlin decided that Bosnia
and Herzegovina, while remaining nominally under Turkish
sovereignty, would be occupied and governed by
Austria–Hungary.
References