army officers was
becoming one of luxury and indulgence. All the signals for the fall of
the Turks were in evidence.

As the movement toward national revolution grew up in the mid-nineteenth
century in Bulgaria, an ideological schism separated the movement into
two schools. The "moderates," led by a Bulgarian group in
Constantinople, favored negotiations with the Turks. The "radicals" felt
that such an approach would lead to inevitable failure. Although the
radicals turned to the West--France, Great Britain, Italy, and
Switzerland--for models of revolution and to Russia for practical
assistance in freeing Bulgaria from the Turks, in fact they hoped to
free the country from all foreign domination. Ironically, in light of
Bulgaria's later history, one radical leader wrote, "If Russia comes to
liberate, she will be met with great sympathy, but if she comes to rule,
she will find many enemies."

The leaders of the radicals were Georgi Rakovsky and Vasil Levski.
Rakovsky continued for twenty-five years to organize armed detachments
along the borders of neighboring countries. Levski, for his part,
realized that a social revolution as well as a national revolution was
imperative for the true liberation of the Bulgarian people. He worked
sub rosa in Bulgarian villages and organized a network of committees for
the revolution, known as the Internal Secret Revolutionary Organization.
In 1873 he was captured by the Turks and hanged.

By the early 1870s the seeds of revolution were sown as Bulgarians won
some political victories over their conquerors. In 1870, primarily
because of the activity of the Bulgarian priests, the Bulgarian Orthodox
Church was reestablished. Although the Bulgarian clergy was in large
part responsible for this action, it was probably tolerated by the Turks
because of their anger with the Greeks, who were then embroiled in a
revolt in Crete. In 1872 the Bulgarian Revolutionary Central Committee
was formed in Bucharest; by 1875 this group became active in the
uprisings in Bosnia and Herzegovina, uprisings that were not easily
quelled by the Turks.

As Bulgarian revolutionary sentiments grew, the Bulgarians turned to
Russia to help win freedom from the Turks. Although the motives of the
Russians and the Bulgarians were not identical, both wanted to rid the
Balkans of Turkish oppression. The Russians perceived the Ottoman Empire
as a very dangerous rival that they hoped to annihilate, thus gaining
control o