[3] The election became necessary after the Reichstag was dissolved on the 6th of May 1893, at the request of Chancellor Leo von Caprivi.

Caprivi had planned to increase the size of the army by around 500,000 men, and failed to get this through the Reichstag: the Social Democrats, a majority of the Centre and part of the Free-minded Party rejected the proposal.

Due to the continued lack of constituency boundary changes, the majority election system brought strong disparities between the popular vote and the size of the parliamentary parties.

For the first and only time, a Polish nationalist candidate, Antoni Wolszlegier, won an East Prussian constituency (Allenstein).

The new Reichstag approved the Government’s military appropriations bill by a narrow majority of 201 votes.