The Chancellor, Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, was actually an annexationist himself, but refused to support the annexationists in public. Under the constitution of 1871, the Reichstag had limited powers, but one of those powers was the right to pass budgets. In the 1912 elections, the Social Democrats won a majority of the seats in the Reichstag. In 1914, the Social Democrats split into two factions, with the Independent Social Democrats opposing the war and the Majority Social Democrats supporting the war under the grounds that Russia was supposedly about to attack Germany. However, the Majority Social Democrats were opposed to the annexationists, and to secure their co-operation in passing budgets, Bethmann Hollweg refused to support the annexationists in public. Bethmann Hollweg's "Septemberprogramm"—drafted in September 1914 at a time when the fall of Paris was believed to be imminent, as the German armies had almost reached the French capital, and to be issued when Paris fell—was remarkably similar to the Hugenberg–Class memo.