the people in Kosovo and Metohija and Macedonia (known at the time as "Old Serbia" or "southern Serbia"). Serbia sought to liberate the Kosovo Vilayet (sanjaks of Niš, Prizren, Skopje and Novi Pazar). The Serbian Army was joined by southern Serbs who made up special volunteer detachments, a large number being from Macedonia, who wanted to liberate their home regions and unify them with Serbia. These volunteers were infiltrated into the Kumanovo and Kriva Palanka districts. When peace was signed between the Serbs and Ottomans, these groups conducted independent guerrilla fighting under the Serbian flag, which they carried and flew far south of the demarcation line. The Serbian advance in Old Serbia (1877–78) was followed with uprisings for the Serbian cause in the region, including a notable one that broke out in the counties of Kumanovo, Kriva Palanka, and Kratovo. Prelude Following the Serbian liberation of Niš, Kumanovo villagers awaited the Serbian Army as it approached Vranje and Kosovo. Serbian artillery fire was heard throughout the winter of 18778. Ottoman Albanian troops from Debar and Tetovo fled the front and crossed the Pčinja, looting and raping along the way. On 18 January 1878, seventeen armed Albanians descended from the mountains into the village of Oslare. They first arrived at the house of Arsa Stojković, which they looted and emptied before the owner's eyes, enraging him and causing him to punch one of the Albanians. He was shot in the stomach, but still alive, he took a stake to his shooter's head, dying with him. The local villagers then quickly entered an armed conflict with the Albanians, killing them. On 19 January 1878, forty Albanian deserters retreating from the Ottoman army broke into the house of elder Taško, a serf living near Bujanovac, tied up the males, raped his two daughters and two daughters-in-law, and then proceeded to loot the house and leave the village. Taško armed himself and persuaded the village to retaliate, tracing the attackers' prints through the snow. The first group of attackers, six of them, were found drunk at Lukarce, where they were beaten to death. They eventually killed all forty. This small group of retaliatory villagers quickly grew into an uprising, with the rebels riding armed on horseback through the villages of Kumanovo and Kriva Palanka. The movement was strengthened when Mladen Piljinski and his followers killed a group of Ottoman Albanian haramibaşı, Bajram Straž and