["Middle East Policy, Volume 33, Issue 1, Page 116-134, Spring 2026. ", "\nAbstract\nThis article explores the historical and institutional origins of military coups in Türkiye, tracing their roots well before the republican era, to the late Ottoman Empire. Between 1839 and 1914, the empire undertook military reform, political experimentation, and bureaucratic modernization, which shaped the later republic's civil‐military dynamics. Using a historical‐institutional and comparative framework, the study employs qualitative and narrative‐analysis methods based on Ottoman and republican archival materials, scholarly works related to civil‐military relations in general and in Türkiye, and contemporary studies. The analysis argues that the ideological and institutional patterns of military intervention established during the early period continue to shape the logic, methods, and legitimacy of relations between civilians and the armed services in contemporary Türkiye. It shows that the military's self‐ascribed role as the guardian of the state—and the normalization of coups as instruments of national salvation—originated not solely through the foundation and practices of the Turkish Republic but from developments in political culture and institutional practices created long before.\n"]