Eugene Schuyler - Schuyler and The Investigation of Turkish Atrocities in Bulgaria

Schuyler and The Investigation of Turkish Atrocities in Bulgaria

Schuyler left Russia in 1876. He tried unsuccessfully to be named Minister to Turkey, but that position went to a political appointee of the Grant administration. and he was given the position once more of the secretary of the legation, and also of consul general.

He arrived in Constantinople on July 6, 1876. Two months before, an uprising against Turkish rule had taken place in Bulgaria. The uprising had been repressed by force by the Ottoman Army, with the massacre of civilians. Schuyler learned of these massacres from the Bulgarian students and faculty of Robert College in Constantinople.

Vague reports of the massacres had first been printed in the British press on May 6. American Faculty members from Robert College collected more information and sent them to the British Minister to Turkey, with no result. They then sent the reports to the correspondents of The Times and the London Daily News. The London Daily News published its account on June 23, 1876. it caused an immediate sensation in London. The Bulgarian atrocities were discussed in Parliament on June 26, and the opposition Liberal Party demanded a full investigation. The Conservative government of Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli agreed to investigate the reports.

The British Government appointed a second secretary at their embassy in Constantinople, Walter Baring, to conduct the investigation. Fearing a cover-up, the faculty members of Robert College asked the American Minister to Turkey, Horace Maynard, to conduct his own investigation. Maynard gave the task to Schuyler.

Schuyler prepared to travel to Bulgaria to investigate the reports. By chance, Schuyler's friend from Russia, Januarius MacGahan, arrived in Constantnople to cover the Serbia-Turkish War. Schuyler invited MacGahan to accompany him on his journey to Bulgaria.

Schuyler and MacGahan left for Bulgaria on July 23. They were joined by a German correspondent and by a second secretary of the Russian Embassy in Constantinople, Prince Aleksi Tseretelev. They spent three weeks documenting the atrocities which had taken place at villages in southern Bulgaria three months earlier. After visiting a number of towns and villages, Schuyler stated in his report to the U.S. Minister to Turkey, Horace Maynard: " It is very difficult to estimate the number of Bulgarians who were killed during the few days that the disturbances lasted, but I am inclined to put 15,000 for the districts that I have named."

Schuyler gave a vivid account of what he saw at the village of Batak, three months after the massacres had taken place:

"...On every side were human bones, skulls, ribs, and even complete skeletons, heads of girls still adorned with braids of long hair, bones of children, skeletons still encased in clothing. Here was a house the floor of which was white with the ashes and charred bones of thirty persons burned alive there. Here was the spot where the village notable Trandafil was spitted on a pike and then roasted, and where he is now buried; there was a foul hole full of decomposing bodies; here a mill dam filled with swollen corpses; here the school house, where 200 women and children had taken refuge there were burned alive, and here the church and churchyard, where fully a thousand half-decayed forms were still to be seen, filling the enclosure in a heap several feet high, arms, feet, and heads protruding from the stones which had vainly been thrown there to hide them, and poisoning all the air. "Since my visit, by orders of the Mutessarif, the Kaimakam of Tatar Bazardjik was sent to Batak, with some lime to aid in the decomposition of the bodies, and to prevent a pestilence. "Ahmed Aga, who commanded at the massacre, has been decorated and promoted to the rank of Yuz-bashi..."

Schuyler's official report, and MacGahan's newspaper reporting, combined to cause a sensation in the British press. The Government of Benjamin Disraeli tried to minimize the massacres, saying that the Bulgarians were equally responsible, but these claims were refuted by Schuyler and MacGahan's eyewitness reports. When Russia threatened war against Turkey, Britain told the Turkish government that, because of the state of public opinion, it could not take the side of Turkey.

The Russian Government, moved by Pan-Slavic sentiment and a desire to help the Orthodox Christian Bulgarians, declared war on the Ottoman Empire and invaded Bulgaria in 1877. The Turkish Army was defeated and Bulgaria was freed from Ottoman rule in 1878, coming fully into the sphere of Russian influence.