Talaat Pasha in the context of "Government of the late Ottoman Empire"

The 1913 Ottoman coup d'état (23 January 1913), also known as the Raid on the Sublime Porte (Turkish: Bâb-ı Âlî Baskını), was a coup d'état carried out in the Ottoman Empire by a number of Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) members led by Ismail Enver Bey and Mehmed Talât Bey, in which the group made a surprise raid on the central Ottoman government buildings, the Sublime Porte (Turkish: Bâb-ı Âlî).

After receiving the permission of Sultan Mehmed V to form a new government in late October 1912, Kâmil Pasha sat down to engage in diplomatic talks with Bulgaria after the unsuccessful First Balkan War. With the Bulgarian demand for the cession of the former Ottoman capital city of Adrianople (today, and in Turkish at the time, known as Edirne) looming and the outrage among the Turkish populace as well as the CUP leadership, the CUP carried out the coup on January 23, 1913. After the coup, opposition parties were subject to heavy repression. The new government led by Mahmud Şevket Pasha with Unionist support withdrew the Ottoman Empire from the ongoing London Peace Conference and resumed the war against the Balkan states to recover Edirne and the rest of Rumelia, but to no avail. After his assassination in June, the CUP would take full control of the empire, and opposition leaders would be arrested or exiled to Europe.

İsmâil Enver (Ottoman Turkish: اسماعیل انور پاشا; Turkish: İsmail Enver Paşa; 23 November 1881 – 4 August 1922), better known as Enver Pasha, was an Ottoman Turkish military officer, revolutionary, and convicted war criminal who was a part of the dictatorial triumvirate known as the "Three Pashas" (along with Talaat Pasha and Cemal Pasha) in the Ottoman Empire.

While stationed in Ottoman Macedonia, Enver joined the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), an organization affiliated with the Young Turks movement that was agitating against Sultan Abdul Hamid II's despotic rule. He was a key leader of the 1908 Young Turk Revolution, which reestablished the Constitution and parliamentary democracy in the Ottoman Empire. Along with Ahmed Niyazi, Enver was hailed as "hero of the revolution". However, a series of crises in the Empire, including the 31 March Incident, the Balkan Wars, and the power struggle with the Freedom and Accord Party, left Enver and the Unionists disillusioned with liberal Ottomanism. After the 1913 Ottoman coup d'état brought the CUP directly to power, Enver became War Minister, while Talaat assumed control over the civilian government.

The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was a separate peace treaty signed on 3 March 1918 between Soviet Russia and the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria), by which Russia withdrew from World War I. The treaty, which followed months of negotiations after the armistice on the Eastern Front in December 1917, was signed at Brest-Litovsk (now Brest, Belarus).

The Soviet delegation was initially headed by Adolph Joffe, and key figures from the Central Powers included Max Hoffmann and Richard von Kühlmann of Germany, Ottokar Czernin of Austria-Hungary, and Talaat Pasha of the Ottoman Empire. In January 1918, the Central Powers demanded secession of all occupied territories of the former Russian Empire. The Soviets sent a new peace delegation led by Leon Trotsky, which aimed to stall the negotiations while awaiting revolutions in Central Europe. A renewed Central Powers offensive launched on February 18 captured large territories in the Baltic region, Belarus, and Ukraine and forced the Soviet side to sue for peace.

The Three Pashas (Ottoman Turkish: اوچ پاشالر, Turkish: Üç Paşalar), also known as the Young Turk triumvirate or CUP triumvirate, were the dominant political and military figures who effectively ruled the Ottoman Empire after the 1913 Ottoman coup d'état and the subsequent assassination of Mahmud Shevket Pasha. It consisted of Mehmed Talaat Pasha, the Grand Vizier (prime minister) and Minister of the Interior; Ismail Enver Pasha, the Minister of War and Commander-in-Chief to the Sultan; and Ahmed Djemal Pasha, the Minister of the Navy and governor-general of Syria.

The Three Pashas were all members of the Central Committee of the Committee of Union and Progress, a political movement that had begun with reformist ideals but by the 1910s had become an autocratic and nationalist ruling faction. The trio were largely responsible for the Empire's entry into World War I in 1914 on the side of the Central Powers and also largely responsible for the genocide of some one million Armenians. The Turkish public has widely criticized the Three Pashas for drawing the Ottoman Empire into World War I and its subsequent defeat. All three met violent deaths after the war—Talaat and Cemal were assassinated by the Armenian Revolutionary Federation as part of Operation Nemesis, whilst Enver died leading the Basmachi Revolt near Dushanbe, present-day Tajikistan.

Ahmed Djemal Pasha (Ottoman Turkish: احمد جمال پاشا; Turkish: Ahmed Cemâl Paşa; 6 May 1872 – 21 July 1922) was an Ottoman general and statesman. Along with Talaat and Enver, he was one of the Three Pashas that ruled the Ottoman Empire during World War I.

As an officer of the II Corps, he was stationed in Salonica, where he developed political sympathies for the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), a secret reformist party. He was initially praised by Christian missionaries and provided support to the Armenian victims of the Adana massacres.

General elections were held in November and December 1908 for all 288 seats of the Chamber of Deputies of the Ottoman Empire, following the Young Turk Revolution which established the Second Constitutional Era. They were the first elections contested by organised political parties.