<P> Albania had been under Ottoman rule in about 1478 . When Serbia, Montenegro, and Greece laid claim to Albanian - populated lands during Balkan Wars, the Albanians declared independence . The European Great Powers endorsed an independent Albania in 1913, after the Second Balkan War leaving outside the Albanian border more than half of the Albanian population and their lands, that were partitioned between Montenegro, Serbia and Greece . They were assisted by Aubrey Herbert, a British MP who passionately advocated their cause in London . As a result, Herbert was offered the crown of Albania, but was dissuaded by the British prime minister, H.H. Asquith, from accepting . Instead the offer went to William of Wied, a German prince who accepted and became sovereign of the new Principality of Albania . Albania's neighbours still cast covetous eyes on this new and largely Islamic state . The young state, however, collapsed within weeks of the outbreak of World War I . </P> <P> At the turn of 1913, the Ottoman Modern Army failed at counterinsurgencies in the periphery of the empire, Libya was lost to Italy, and Balkan war erupted in the fall of 1912 . LU flexed its muscles with the forced dissolution of the parliament in 1912 . The signs of humiliation of the Balkan wars worked to the advantage of the CUP The cumulative defeats of 1912 enabled the CUP to seize control of the government . </P> <P> The Liberal Union Party presented the peace proposal to the Ottoman government as a collective démarche, which was almost immediately accepted by both the Ottoman cabinet and by an overwhelming majority of the parliament on 22 January 1913 . The 1913 Ottoman coup d'état (23 January), was carried out by a number of CUP members led by Ismail Enver Bey and Mehmed Talaat Bey, in which the group made a surprise raid on the central Ottoman government buildings, the Sublime Porte (Turkish: Bâb - ı Âlî). During the coup, the Minister of the Navy Nazım Pasha was assassinated and the Grand Vizier, Kâmil Pasha, was forced to resign . The CUP established tighter control over the faltering Ottoman state . Mahmud Sevket Pasha was assassinated just in 5 months after the coup in June 1913 . LU supporters had been involved in the assassination; their crush followed . Cemal Pasha was responsible for executing revenge . The execution of former officials had been an exception since the Tanzimat (1840s) period; the punishment was the exile . The public life could not be far more brutish 75 years after the Tanzimat . The Foreign Ministry was always occupied by someone from the inner circle of the CUP except for the interim appointment of Muhtar Bey . Said Halim Pasha who was already Foreign Minister, became Grand Vizier in June 1913 and remained in office until October 1915 . He was succeeded in the Ministry by Halil . </P> <P> In May 1913 German military mission assigned Otto Liman von Sanders to help train and reorganize the Ottoman army . Otto Liman von Sanders was assigned to reorganize the First Army, his model to be replicated to other units; as an advisor (he took the command of this army in November 1914) and began working on its operational area which was the straits . This became a scandal and intolerable for St. Petersburg . The Russian Empire developed a plan for invading and occupying the Black Sea port of Trabzon or the Eastern Anatolian town of Bayezid in retaliation . To solve this issue Germany de-ranked Otto Liman von Sanders to a point that he can barely control an army corps . If there was no solution through Naval occupation of Istanbul, the next Russian idea was to improve the Russian Caucasus Army . </P>

To prevent the possible collapse of the ottoman empire the british and the french​