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Mahmud Shevket Pasha : (1856–1913) was an Ottoman general & statesman. He was born in Baghdad, where he finished his primary education before going on to the Military Academy in Constantinople. He joined the army in 1882 as a lieutenant. He spent some time in France investigating military technology & was stationed in Crete for a while. He then returned to the Military Academy as a faculty member. He worked under Colmar Freiherr von der Goltz (Goltz Pasha) for a while & travelled to Germany. He was then appointed as governor of the Kosovo Vilayet, where he commanded the 3rd Army, which was later known as Hareket Ordusu (Army of Action) after its involvement in suppressing the counterrevolutionary absolutist reactionaries in the 31 March Incident. A voice recording of Mahmud Shevket Pasha speaking to rally his troops against the counterrevolutionaries in 1909 was released in by journalist Murat Bardakçı in 2012. Shevket played an important role in ending the 31 March Incident & with it, the reign of Abdul Hamid II. He served as a Grand Vizier to Mehmed V from 23 January. He was assassinated in Constantinople on 11 June 1913 in a revenge attack by a relative of the murdered Nazım Pasha. Among other things, he is credited with the creation of the Ottoman Air Force in 1911 & bringing the first automobile to Constantinople. Mahmud Shevket Pasha gave much importance to a military aviation program & as a result the Ottoman Air Force became one of the pioneering aviation institutions in the world. Though raised as a Turk, various sources claim that he may have also had Iraqi Arab, Georgian, Chechen, or Circassian ancestry.