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The highlands to the north of Dospat are as thickly wooded and thinly populated as any in the Rhodopes, with not a single village on the road to Batak, only hunting lodges and a hikers' chalet (US$9 and under) beside the Vasil Kolarov Reservoir. In such a lonely, peaceful setting, it's hard to imagine that BATAK was once a byword for infamy that reverberated across Europe. During the April Rising of 1876 the Turks unleashed bashibazouks and Pomaks from other settlements to rape, pillage and slaughter the populace. Five thousand people - nearly the entire population - were hacked to death or burnt alive, an act for which the Pomak commander responsible was decorated. Britain's Prime Minister Disraeli cynically dismissed the atrocities to justify the continuing alliance with Turkey, until the weight of reports by foreign diplomats and JA MacGahan of The Daily News became impossible to ignore. Yet only a sustained campaign by trade unions, Gladstone and public figures like Victor Hugo and Oscar Wilde prevented Britain's support of Turkey in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78. Although the defeated Turks were obliged to concede an independent Bulgaria under the Treaty of San Stefano, Disraeli ensured at the Congress of Berlin that Macedonia and Thrace were returned to the Ottomans, and the half of Bulgaria south of the Balkan range became the Turkish protectorate of Eastern Roumelia - in return for which Turkey rewarded Britain with Cyprus.
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