During the 31 March Incident, Shevket Pasha and the Committee of Union and Progress overthrew Abdul Hamid II after an anti-Constitutionalist uprising in Constantinople.

[2] He played the role of a military dictator,[3] surpassing the power of the CUP and the Grand Viziers after the crisis, with many observers ascribing him the title "generalissimo".

He had four brothers, Numan, Murad, Khaled, and the much younger Hikmat, the latter two would become important statesmen of post Ottoman rule Iraq.

He joined an arms purchasing commission sent to Germany to supervise the manufacture of war matériel for the Ottoman army, during which he worked as an assistant to Colmar Freiherr von der Goltz.

[17] In 1905 Mahmud Shevket Pasha was appointed governor of the Kosovo Vilayet during the height of the Macedonian Conflict, where he gained respect from the army for his effectiveness.

When the CUP prevailed in the 1908 Young Turk Revolution, which forced Sultan Abdul Hamid to reinstate the Ottoman constitution and call for elections, Shevket was placed in command of the Selanik (Thessaloniki) based Third Army.

The Action Army entered Constantinople on 24 April, and after a series of negotiations, Abdulhamid II was deposed, Mehmed V Reshad ascended to the throne, the Constitution was reinstated for the third and last time, and the CUP was allowed to form a government.

After the incident, he became an important power holder in Ottoman politics: Shevket Pasha was made martial law Commander of Constantinople, inspector of the First, Second, and Third Armies, and Minister of War.

Hilmi's resignation saw Ibrahim Hakki elevated to the Grand Vezierate, and Shevket was also included in cabinet as War Minister.

His resignation as War Minister was an effective endorsement to the Savior Officers, who were able to maneuver around the Unionist parliament and shuttered it, driving them underground.

The CUP overthrew Kâmil Pasha's Savior Officer backed government in January 1913 in a coup known as the Raid on the Sublime Porte, because he entered negotiations with the Balkan League.

The car he was in, the uniform he was wearing, the clothes of his murdered aides, and the weapons used in the assassination are on display at the Istanbul Military Museum.

Enver took Shevket Pasha's old post of Minister of War by 1914, and Talat in addition to returning to the interior ministry after his assassination, himself became Grand Vizier in 1917.

[29] In a 2012 interview with Habertürk, Murat Bardakçı publicized what he claimed was the first ever audio recording made in the Ottoman Empire, which was Mahmud Shevket Pasha's rallying speech to the troops of the Action Army, urging them to march on Istanbul and overthrow the sultan.

Mehmet Çalışkan came to a similar conclusion, adding that the words of the speech itself can't be verified to be Shevket Pasha's, and points out that Ahmet Şükrü promoted the voice recording on a 15 August 1911 issue of the CUP mouthpiece Tanin.