Between 1917 and 1918, during the revolution years in Russia, he was stationed in Saint Petersburg (then Petrograd) and later in Moscow as a member of the special commission dispatched for the exchange of Ottoman-Russian Prisoners of War.
When the First World War ended, he returned to Turkey (being raised to the rank of captain) and enrolled with the Ottoman Military College in Istanbul in 1919.
As the Turkish War of Independence started, he and his brother Mahmud interrupted their education at the Military College and rushed to Anatolia to join Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's forces.
After the victory, he completed the remaining part of his education at the War College and graduated as a staff officer with the rank of major.
In 1930 he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel and between 1932 and 1933 served in Geneva, Switzerland as the military adviser to the Turkish delegation attending to the first World Disarmament Conference organized by the League of Nations.