April 1912 elections and aftermath In the
1908 elections, the
Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) had only managed to win about 60 of the 288 seats in the
Chamber of Deputies (), the popularly elected lower house of the
General Assembly. Nevertheless, it was the largest party in the Chamber. The
Freedom and Accord Party (Liberal Union/Entente) was founded on 21 November 1911 by those in opposition to the CUP, and immediately attracted 70 Deputies to its ranks. Only 20 days after its formation, Freedom and Accord won the December 1911
by-elections conducted in Constantinople by one vote. The ruling CUP, seeing the potential of Freedom and Accord to win next year's general elections, took several precautions. Hoping to thwart the nascent party's efforts to grow its ranks and better organize itself, the CUP asked Sultan
Mehmed V to
dissolve the Chamber and announced its call for early general elections in January 1912. These early
April 1912 general elections were known infamously as the "Election of Clubs" () after the beating of opposition (Freedom and Accord) candidates for the Chamber of Deputies with weapons like
clubs and sticks as well being marred by
electoral fraud and violence in favor of the CUP. The fraud included early balloting, secret counting and reporting of votes, ballot stuffing, reapportioning electoral districts, and more, although the CUP still enjoyed genuine support outside of the cities. The Savior Officers, quickly becoming partisans of Freedom and Accord, soon created unrest in the capital Constantinople. After gaining the support of Prince
Sabahaddin, another opposition leader, the Savior Officers published public declarations in newspapers. Finally, after giving a
memorandum to the Military Council, the Savior Officers succeeded in getting Grand Vizier
Mehmed Said Pasha (who they blamed for allowing the early elections that led to the CUP domination of the Chamber)
cabinet was formed by
Ahmed Muhtar Pasha, an old military hero, which was known as the "Great Cabinet" () because it included three former Grand Viziers as ministers and sometimes as the "Father-Son Cabinet" () because it included Ahmed Muhtar Pasha's son,
Mahmud Muhtar Pasha, as Minister of the Navy. Although the Savior Officers had succeeded in making sure that the Great Cabinet was free of CUP members, the CUP's domination of the Chamber of Deputies had not changed. Soon, however, rumors began to circulate that the government would dissolve the Chamber of Deputies and call new elections. The rumors were confirmed when, a few days after Ahmed Muhtar Pasha took office, the Savior Officers sent another memorandum, this time to the President of the Chamber of Deputies (and CUP member),
Halil Bey, demanding that the Chamber be dissolved for new elections within 48 hours. The CUP members in the Chamber condemned and censured this threat. However, thanks to a law he had passed through the
Senate, Ahmed Muhtar Pasha was able, with the sultan's support, to
dissolve the Chamber with ease on 5 August, after which Sultan
Mehmed V immediately called for new elections by imperial decree. The
Bulgarian Army had soon advanced as far as
Çatalca, a western district of modern Istanbul. At this point, Kâmil Pasha's government signed an armistice with
Bulgaria in December 1912 and sat down to draw up a treaty for the end of the war at the
London Peace Conference. The Great Powers–the
British Empire,
France,
Italy, and
Russia–had begun to engage in the relationship of Bulgaria with the Ottoman Empire, citing the 1878
Treaty of Berlin. The Great Powers gave a note to the
Sublime Porte (the Ottoman government) that they wanted the Ottoman Empire to cede Adrianople (
Edirne) to Bulgaria and the
Aegean islands under its control, most of which by that time had been captured by the
Greek Navy, to the Great Powers themselves. Because of the losses experienced by the army so far in the war, the Kâmil Pasha government was inclined to accept the "
Midye-
Enez Line" as a border to the west and, while not outright giving Edirne to Bulgaria, favored transferring control of it to an international commission. After the capture of Salonica (
Thessaloniki), the birthplace of many progressive political leaders and movements of the era, by
Greece in November 1912, many CUP members were arrested by Greek forces and exiled to Anatolia. At the same time, Freedom and Accord found itself on the brink of dissolution after intra-party conflicts. Left with little political power and flexibility, the CUP began to plan a coup against Kâmil Pasha's government. In addition, an animosity had already been brewing between Kâmil Pasha and the CUP since the 1908
Young Turk Revolution that had started the
Second Constitutional Era. During the more than four years since, Kâmil Pasha had made a series of efforts to keep CUP members far from government and keep the army, which had many CUP members among its ranks, out of politics. By January 1913, the CUP was thoroughly frustrated with Kâmil Pasha. Although the coup was to be a surprise attack, the CUP had made definitive decisions to carry it out far in advance. Although he was killed during the coup, both the CUP and Freedom and Accord claimed that they had been planning to give Minister of the Navy
Nazım Pasha a position in their next cabinet. The CUP's
Talaat Bey went as far as to say some time after the coup that the CUP had previously offered Nazım Pasha the position of grand vizier and the leadership its cabinet. ==Events==