[4][7] In the aftermath of the 31 March incident, on 27 April 1909 four CUP members went to inform Sultan Abdul Hamid II (r. 1876–1909) of his dethronement, with Toptani being the main messenger saying "the nation has deposed you".

[6] The sultan referred to him as a "wicked man", given that the extended Toptani family had benefited from royal patronage in gaining privileges and key positions in the Ottoman government.

[10] On 30 January 1913, Hasan Riza Pasha, commander of Shkodër, was ambushed and killed by unknown men disguised as women,[11] thought to be Osman Bali and Mehmet Kavaja,[12] two Albanian officers of Toptani.

[15] With Italian and Serbian financial backing, he established armed forces, Toptani invaded Dibër on 20 September, and by 3 October 1914 he had taken Durrës without a fight.

Toptani was buried in the Serbian Military section of the Thiais cemetery in Paris,[18][3] after staying for a long time unburied in the mortuary.

[20] Furthermore, for his contribution in the Macedonian front as an ally of the Entente, he was awarded with the title Officier of the Legion of Honour and with the Croix de Guerre.

[21] Edith Durham described Toptani as "a strange relic of the middle ages ... one with the handsome swashbucklers who sold themselves and their services to the rival monarchs, princelings and dukes in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and cheerfully transferred themselves to the enemy if he offered better pay – men in whom the sense of nationality was not developed at all, and whose sense of honor was, to put it mildly, deficient."