The Bulgarian uprising of 1903 sounded the alarm in Athens, which realized -- albeit belatedly -- that merely having many schools was not the best way of balancing the dynamism of the Bulgarian committees.
The start of the Greek armed defensive can be attributed to the initiative of the metropolitan of Kastoria Yermanos Karavangelis, the diplomat Ion Dragoumis and the Macedonian Committee, an ostensibly private organization with substantial state backing, based in Athens.
The manning of the Greek bands with chieftains from Macedonia and volunteers from the Greek mainland and Crete led to a four-year undeclared and unconventional war between bands of troops. This war tipped the balance of power in favour of Greece, but at the same time provoked no end of European interventions.
The conflict formally ended with the coup of the Young Turks, officers in the Turkish army who forced the drafting of a constitution which was expected to improve the administration of the Empire and smooth the relations among its peoples.
