lacking. While fighting alongside the British, French, and even the Piedmontese, the Ottomans could see how far they had fallen behind. Things began to change after the Crimean War. One of these changes arose as Europeans began to see commercial opportunity in the country and the money entering via trade dramatically increased. The government also received a great deal of extra money from a uniform tax system with little corruption. The Sultan managed to get a tighter grip on the provincial beys and increased the tribute they had to pay. However, Abdülaziz, the Sultan at the time, used much of this money on furnishing and creating great palaces to rival the great ones in England and France, which he had visited. The Empire was undergoing a revolution, and throughout Anatolia a new Ottoman nationalism was appearing. It seemed as though it might be possible for the Empire to turn its decline around. The monetary and governmental collapse combined with a new threat from Russia began the final stages of the Empire's collapse. Russia had been forced by the Crimean War to give up its ambitions of conquering the Ottoman capital of Constantinople and taking control of the Bosphorus. Instead it decided to focus on gaining power in the Balkans. The population of much of the Balkans were Slavs, as were the Russians. They also mainly followed the Eastern Orthodox Church, as did the Russians. When new movements in Russia, such as that of the Slavophiles, started to enter the area, it became agitated and prone to revolution. When the government in Constantinople tried to initiate measures to prevent an economic collapse throughout the empire, it touched off a revolt in Herzegovina in 1875. The revolt in Herzegovina quickly spread to Bosnia and then Bulgaria. Soon Serbian armies also entered the war against the Turks. These revolts were the first test of the new Ottoman armies. Even though they were not up to western European standards, the army fought effectively and brutally; during the war, the Ottomans carried out the Batak massacre in 1876. Januarius MacGahan, a journalist of the New York Herald and the London Daily News wrote of the terrible happenings after his visitation to Batak with Eugene Schuyler. According to most sources, around 5,000 people were massacred in Batak alone. The total number of victims in the April uprising according to most estimates around 15,000, which is supported