join the rebels. The rebels again petitioned Prince Milan, and the Russian Emperor, for unification with Serbia. With the Treaty of San Stefano on 3 March 1878 and announced establishment of Greater Bulgaria, more appeals were sent to Prince Milan for the unification of Macedonia with Serbia, against the threat of Bulgaria claiming Macedonia. On 10 May, an assembly was gathered, in which the representatives of the nahiya of Skopje, Tetovo, Debar, Kičevo, Prilep, Kratovo, Kočani, Štip, Veles, and Kriva Reka, among others, including the rebel leaders, kmets, and clergy, signed a petition addressed to Prince Milan, the Berlin Congress, and Russia, for the annexation of those territories to Serbia. They asked Prince Milan "on their knees" to unite "our land and the Holy Mother Serbia, and to not replace the hard and grim Turkish (Ottoman) enslavement with the worser and darker Bulgarian one". They also wrote that the inhabitants of the nahiye were "pure Serbs", and that "our land, Old Serbia, is real and pure, which is evident from the only and pure Serb monuments, which there are plenty of in our lands", and enumerated several such churches and monasteries in those nahiye. There were 170 signatures with another 44 official Ottoman municipal seals. As the Berlin Congress, which began on 13 June, approached, the Porte decided to destroy the uprising, which became an increasing risk to the Ottoman Empire. On orders from Istanbul, brigadier-general Hafuz Pasha departed from Pristina, and led five Ottoman camps with new cannon guns against the rebels. He had led a brigade that suppressed the April Uprising of 1876. On 20 May, the rebels, aware of their powerlessness, awaited Hafuz Pasha on the outskirts of rebel territory on St. Parascheva hill. The cannon fire, as "deadly meteorites", broke up the rebel resistance. The rebels once again defended themselves on the warm and bare Čelopek. Under the clear sky, a white and dense cloud "covered their defeat". In the twilight of firebombing and cannon fire, the peasants fled for their children and wives in the villages. People recklessly went for the mountains for sheltering, while others, distraught, threw themselves down the steep river sides of the Pčinja, which was said to have become red of blood. Young women and girls drowned. The Ottoman retaliation was large, and "unprecedented atrocities and evilness fell on the rebel land". Captured rebels were killed in cruel manners. Women, girls,