After falling out with the CUP, he was arrested in February 1914 and sentenced to death by an Ottoman military court, but British pressure led to his release and pardon by the Sultan, and was subsequently exiled to Egypt.

His half sister Aziza (1872-1936), from their common mother Chafika Siouk Mukbel, was the wife of Aly Pasha Youssef Ramzy Zulficar a governor of Cairo.

During his stay in the Balkans, al-Misri joined the ranks of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), at first a secret organization, more commonly known as the Young Turks.

During the Italian invasion and occupation (1911-1912) of Tripolitana and Cyrenaica (modern Libya) he took a leading part in organising resistance in Benghazi with Suleiman al-Askary as his deputy.

Lawrence recorded that on board ship, en route for Jiddah, Ronald Storrs "turned twice around the decks, sniffed, ‘No one worth talking to’, and sat down in one of the two comfortable armchairs, to begin a discussion of Debussy with Aziz el Masri (in the other).

This was an attempt by Sharif Husayn, with British support suggested among others by Aziz al-Misri,[citation needed] to create an independent Arab state, free from Ottoman control.

[10] Having understood that France and Great Britain were in fact negotiating spheres of influence in the region, Aziz al-Misri encouraged the Sharif to be more independent.

[13] In 1939, Premier Ali Mahir named him chief of staff, but he was dismissed from that post in 1940 at Britain's insistence after incriminating documents were found in his house proving he had had contacts with the Italians in Libya.

After he was retired from the Egyptian army, he tried to reach the Axis forces in Iraq whose PM Rashid Ali Kilani had joined Germany, but was caught and put on trial in 1941.

Anwar Sadat related in his autobiography that he had a part in this attempt, and that officers from the Egyptian Air Force tried to arrange a plane for Aziz to carry him to Beirut, then under Vichy France, from where he could then travel to Iraq.

[14] Aziz al-Misry was released in 1942 among others as he revealed having informed Colonel Cudbert Thornhill (British Special Operations Executive officer) of his flight to reach Iraq.

[16] After al-Misri had helped the Free Officers prepare for the revolution of 1952, they named him ambassador to Moscow in 1953 and considered making him president in place of Muhammad Naguib, but he retired in 1954.