increasingly erratic and overly optimistic after the breakthrough in the Caucasus; the new sultan Mehmed VI, an anti-Unionist who was more assertive than his deceased half brother, and the Allied armies advancing from the West and the South. In October 1918, the British defeated both Ottoman armies they faced in the Palestinian front. Simultaneously on the Macedonian front, Bulgaria capitulated to the allies, leaving no sufficient forces to check an advance on the Ottoman capital. With defeat certain (and growing unrest from years of unfettered corruption) Talaat Pasha announced his intention to resign on 8 October 1918 and lead a caretaker government for a few more days. Ahmed İzzet Pasha became the new Grand Vizier and signed the Armistice of Mudros with the Allies, ending hostilities in the Middle East on 30 October. Exile: 1918–1921 Escape to Germany Talaat Pasha delivered a farewell speech in the last CUP congress on 1 November, where it was decided to dissolve the party. With Enver, Cemal, Nazım, Şakir, Azmi, and Osman Bedri, he fled the Ottoman capital on a German torpedo boat that night where they landed in Sevastopol, Crimea and scattered from there. Before escaping the Ottoman Empire, he wrote a letter to İzzet Pasha promising his return to the country. Public opinion was shocked by the departure of Talaat Pasha, even though he had been known to turn a blind eye on corrupt ministers appointed because of their associations with the CUP. Talaat, Nazım, and Şakir wound up in Berlin on 10 November, the day after Kaiser Wilhelm II fled the city due to the November Revolution. The new chancellor, Friedrich Ebert of the SPD, signed the documents secretly allowing Talaat asylum in Germany, where he and Nazım settled in a flat at Hardenbergerstraße 4 (Ernst-Reuter Square), Charlottenburg, under the pseudonym "Ali Sâî Bey". Next to his apartment he founded the "Oriental Club" (Şark Kulübesi), where anti-Entente Muslims and European activists met. Though he was a wanted man in the Ottoman Empire and Britain, Talaat managed to attend the Socialist International in the Netherlands. He was also able to travel to Italy, Switzerland, Sweden, and Denmark. In all of these visits, he lobbied against the new Allied world-order, specifically against their designs on the Ottoman Empire. Behind bars for his role in the Sparticist uprising, Karl Radek reconnected Talaat (their previous encounter being on opposite sides of the negotiating table at