Macedonian struggle

Macedonian Struggle
The geographical region of Macedonia
Date 1893–1908 Location Macedonia, predominantly Greek Macedonia Result Conflicts were stopped after the Young Turk Revolution
Belligerents
Hellenic Macedonian Committee Ethniki Etaireia	Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization Supreme Macedonian-Adrianople Committee Bulgarian Secret Revolutionary Brotherhood Boatmen of Thessaloniki	Serbian Chetnik Organization	Ottoman Empire
Commanders and leaders
Konstantinos Mazarakis-Ainian Lambros Koromilas Ioannis Demestichas Georgios Katechakis Ion Dragoumis	Apostol Petkov Dame Gruev Hristo Tatarchev	Milorad Gođevac Baceta	Abdul Hamid II Hüseyin Hilmi Pasha
Strength
2,000
Casualties and losses
>700 Fighters 1,250 Civilians

The Macedonian Struggle (Greek: Μακεδονικὸς Ἀγών, Makedhonikos Agon) or Greek Struggle in Macedonia (Bulgarian: Гръцка въоръжена пропаганда в Македония, "Greek armed propaganda in Macedonia") was a series of social, political, cultural and military conflicts between Greeks and Bulgarians in the region of Ottoman Macedonia between 1893 and 1908. The conflict was part of a wider rebel war in which revolutionary organizations of Greeks, Bulgarians and Serbs all fought over Macedonia. Gradually the Greek bands gained the upper hand, but the conflict was ended by the Young Turk Revolution in 1908.

Since the creation of the modern Greek state in 1830, the Megali Idea, an irredentist concept of a Greek state, dominated Greek politics. The Megali Idea project called for the annexation of all ethnic Greek lands, including Macedonia, parts of which had participated in the Greek War of Independence in the 1820s, were unsuccessful and remained under foreign rule. There was a rebellion in 1854 aiming to unite Macedonia with Greece, but it failed.

Initially the conflict was waged through educational and religious propaganda, with a fierce rivalry developing between supporters of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, who generally identified as Greek, and supporters of the Bulgarian Exarchate, which had been established by the Ottomans in 1870.

As Ottoman rule in the Balkans crumbled in the late 19th century, competition arose between Greeks and Bulgarians (and to a lesser extent also other ethnic groups such as Serbs, Aromanians and Albanians) over the multi-ethnic region of Macedonia. The defeat of Greece in the Greco-Turkish War of 1897 was a loss that appalled Greeks. The Ethniki Eteria was dissolved by Prime Minister Theotokis.

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