He was born to a Turkish family in Selanik, Ottoman Empire (modern Thessaloniki, Greece) in 1881.

He studied in the Ottoman Military College, enrolled in the army and became a member of the Committee of Union and Progress.

He took part in World War I where he fought in the rank of a Lieutenant Colonel under the command of Kress von Kressenstein in the Battle of Romani where the Ottoman forces were defeated.

[9] He did not speak English but because he moved at night and responded to questions with saluting and riding on a walk he avoided being captured.

Austrian consul of Samsun claimed that a certain "Rafet Bey" supposedly stated “We must finish off the Greeks as we did with the Armenians… today I sent squads to the interior to kill every Greek on sight…” There is no evidence that this really happened and there is no evidence that "Rafet Bey" is connected to Refet Bele.