The result of the election contained no surprises; it was, in general, practically what had been forecast by the best observers. The Majority Socialists, who had hoped for an absolute majority but had not expected it, polled about 43 per cent of the total popular vote and secured 163 delegates to the National Convention. This was an increase of nearly 8 per cent since the last general election of 1912. The Independent Socialists demonstrated considerable strength in Greater Berlin, but only one in every twenty-five of the whole country's voters supported them and only twenty-two of their followers were elected. Kurt Eisner, Minister-President of Bavaria, failed of election although his name was on the ticket in more than twenty election districts. The total membership of the National Convention was to have been 433 delegates, but the French authorities in charge of the troops occupying Alsace-Lorraine refused to permit elections to be held there, which reduced the assembly's membership to 421. A majority was thus 211, and the two Socialist parties, with a combined total of 185, could accomplish nothing without 26 additional votes from some _bourgeois_ party. As it later developed, moreover, the government party could count on the support of the Independents only in matters where Socialist solidarity was sentimentally involved; on matters affecting economic policies there was much more kinship between the Majority Socialists and the Democrats than between them and the followers of Haase. The Democrats, with 75 delegates, were the second strongest non-Socialist party, the former Clericals having 88. By virtue of their position midway between Right and Left they held the real balance of power. The National People's Party, the former Conservatives and Free Conservatives, made a surprisingly good showing in the elections, securing 42 delegates. This number, however, included the delegates of the Middle and the National-Liberal parties of Bavaria and the Citizens' Party and Peasants' and Vineyardists' League of Wuerttemberg. The remnant of the old National-Liberal Party was able to elect only 21 delegates.