[3][4] Fikri attended the Monastir Military High School where he was exposed to propaganda that questioned the absolutism of sultan Abdulhamid II and later studied at the Ottoman War Academy graduating in 1903.
[3] Fikri possessed strong authority among fellow Muslims in the area where he resided and could communicate with them as he spoke Albanian, Turkish and Greek as his mother tongue (ethnically he belonged to the so called Vallahades).
[9] Shortly after his transfer to Alasonya (modern Elassona) in 1908, Fikri learned that Adjuntant Major Ahmet Niyazi had deserted the Ottoman army and initiated the Young Turk Revolution.
[11] On July 22, Fikri distributed rifles from the town military depot to his band of 360 men and volunteers while leaving a reserve force of 410 well armed locals to control Grebene.
[15][4] During January 5–6, 1913 Fikri and 1000 men under his command fought to the north of lake Yanya in the Battle of Dristinik when they attacked a Greek force that included some marines.
[18] The withdrawal of the Ottoman Muretteb VII Corps made Fikri wage a six-month guerilla campaign against Greek army units and irregular gangs.
[21] The CUP government in Istanbul had tasked Fikri to bring Albania under Ottoman suzerainty as they viewed the country a threat to Greece and Serbia in any future war.
[24] Fikri, by then a lieutenant colonel (binbaşı) worked in Albania on propaganda activities to ensure the establishment of an Ottoman king instead of the German Prince Wilhelm of Wied to the Albanian throne.
[26] In same letter Fikri outlined his views that he wanted Izzet Pasha as king of Albania, and to pursue that aim in the southern parts of the country he requested for a transporter, stunner, cannon and ammunition delivery to Durrës.
[27] Kemal assured Fikri of his loyalty to Izzet Pasha as monarch of Albania and supported a plan from the CUP government in Istanbul to secretly infiltrate troops and weapons into the country to conduct a guerilla war against Serbian and Greek forces.
[21] The Serbs uncovered the plot and the Serbian consul in Vlorë, Gavrilović, reported the operation to the International Control Commission (ICC),[28][23] an organisation set up by the Great Powers to temporarily administer Albania until its own political institutions were developed.
The ICC disturbed by events allowed Dutch officers sent as a neutral force by the Great Powers to serve as the Albanian Gendarmerie to declare a state of emergency and stop the activities of Fikri.
[28][1][21] During Fikri's trial the plot emerged and an ICC military court under Colonel Willem de Veer condemned him to death[21] and he was later pardoned with life imprisonment,[28] while Kemal and his cabinet resigned.
[3] He also wrote that Muslim clerics and soldiers did not receive salaries and had poor living conditions that due to poverty limited their ability to pursue an education.
[33] According to Fikri, the Vallahades are descendants of the first conqueror of Macedonia, Salur, a member of the Oghuz Turks who were placed within the region by the Ottoman administration to subdue the Christian inhabitants and convert them to Islam.