Participant in the Central Asian conquests of the Russian Empire and the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878, liberator of Bulgaria, he entered history under the nickname "White General" (Turk. Ak-paşa, Ак-Паша). He received this nickname for appearing in battles in a white uniform and on a white horse. The Bulgarian people consider him a national hero.

Mikhail Skobelev was born in the Peter and Paul Fortress, where his grandfather, Ivan Nikitich Skobelev, was the commandant. He was the son of lieutenant (later lieutenant general) Dmitry Ivanovich Skobelev and his wife Olga Nikolaevna, daughter of retired lieutenant Poltavtsev. He was baptized on October 14, 1843, in the Peter and Paul Cathedral, where his godparents were his grandfather and his aunt, Countess E. N. Adlerberg.

In the autumn of 1866, he entered the Nikolayev Academy of the General Staff. Upon graduating from the academy in 1868, Skobelev ranked 13th out of 26 officers admitted to the General Staff. Although his achievements in military statistics and surveying were not outstanding, he compensated for this with excellent knowledge of military art, where he ranked second, and first in military history among his peers. He was also among the best in foreign and Russian languages, political history, and many other subjects.

Skobelev spoke eight languages, particularly well in French.

Artist V. V. Vereshchagin, who personally knew Skobelev, recalled that he "studied a lot, read, and wrote even more" for service necessity, highly valued the military talent of Napoleon I and his contemporary Moltke. Unlike his father, Skobelev was generous and, according to rumors, wanted to bequeath his fortune to create a charitable institution. He was superstitious and believed he would be safe on a white horse, as if a gypsy had predicted this for him, but also thought that fate could not be avoided. On the battlefield, he maintained calmness and composure, displaying boundless bravery, but in private life, he was nervous and capricious, shy before high-ranking individuals. The general wished to die "on the field of honor, on the field of a real battle." He was an advocate for the development of Russia and its movement forward, not backward.