Having clarified the situation, Franz watched the commotion with equanimity. Deep down, he had already mourned for the Bulgarian Revolutionary Party, which had initiated an ill-timed uprising.
If they had chosen another moment, the Tsarist Government might have compromised. For example, a few years ago during the Prusso-Russian War, if they had launched the uprising then and ridden the coattails of the victors, they would have successfully gained independence by now.
Unfortunately, at that time the Russian Empire was too powerful, and domestic public sentiment was stable; nobody really believed that Russian rule could be overthrown.
It wasn't until after Poland's successful independence that the ethnic independence movements in Russia began to grow. Bulgarian nationalism also started to spread only in recent years, and the agriculture crisis exacerbated the contradictions.
