Meanwhile, the perception of the "millet" concept was altered during the 19th century and rise of nationalism within the Ottoman Empire begun. After the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), Pomaks in the Vacha valley, apprehensive of retribution for their role in the bloody suppression of the April Uprising two years earlier, rebelled against Eastern Rumelia and established an autonomous state, called Republic of Tamrash. In 1886 the Ottoman government accepted the Bulgarian rule over Eastern Rumelia and that was the end of the free Pomak state. During the Balkan Wars, at 16 August 1913, an Islamic revolt begun in the Eastern Rhodopes and Western Thrace. At 1 September 1913, the "Provisional Government of Western Thrace" (Garbi Trakya Hukumet i Muvakkatesi) was established in Komotini. The Ottoman administration didn't support the rebels and finally under the neutrality of Greek and Ottoman governments, Bulgaria took over the lands on 30 October 1913. The rebels requested support by the Greek state and put Greek major in Alexandroupoli. Bulgaria, after a brief period of control over the area, passed the sovereignty of Western Thrace at the end of World War I. The Provisional Government was revived between 1919–1920 under French protectorate (France had annexed the region from Bulgaria in 1918) before Greece took over in June 1920.