"…was also possible to argue that the Macedonian Slavs [Indigenous ethnic Macedonians] were neither Serbian nor Bulgarian, but formed a unique nationality of their own." The three-quarters of the century following the proclamation of the Exarchate were dominated by the efforts of the Bulgarians, the Greeks and the Serbs to covet the allegiance of these Macedonian Slavs [Indigenous ethnic Macedonians] , countered by the struggle of Macedonian nationalists who aimed at transforming the Macedonian Orthodox identity to a Macedonian national identity. Though religious and secular propaganda was used, the most important and the most efficient efforts were violent and bloody. In the five-year ‘Macedonian Struggle’ (1903-1908) among Greek ‘andartes’, Bulgarian ‘comitadji’, and, to a lesser extent, Serbian ‘chetniks’ (Kofos, 1990:115): "Under the threat of imminent extermination by rival armed bands, entire village communities rapidly changed national allegiances which had been shaped, painstakingly, over decades. The long, laborious process of nation-building had given way to the show of arms, which proved to be a more efficient method for serving Greek, Bulgarian and Serbian state-building needs. The Balkan wars of 1912-13 led to the eviction of the Turks from Macedonia and confirmed the superiority of force over ideological conversion." The resort to the use of force was in a way called for by the attitude of the Great Powers at the time, following the Ilinden and Preobrazhenie uprisings of 1903. On St. Elias’ day (Ilinden in Macedonian), 20 July/2 August (old and new calendar respectively), IMRO forces rose in the ‘vilaet’ (district) of Bitola (in Macedonia) and proclaimed an independent administration in Krushevo; on the Lord’s Transfiguration day (Preobrazhenie) on 6/19 August, a second IMRO uprising took place in the Andrianople vilaet (in Thrace) leading to the creation of an independent administration in Strandja (Banac, 1992:316): "Contrary to the expectations of the revolutionary leaders, the European powers failed to intervene on behalf of Christian insurgents. Both uprisings were drowned in blood, the Turkish soldiers and Albanian irregulars having burned some 150 villages round Bitola." After the first effort to establish a Macedonian state failed, Austria and Russia, the European powers mainly concerned with the area, agreed on a scheme to manage the Macedonian crisis by introducing European supervisors in Macedonia (Crampton, 1993)…"