Military Coup / Real Life

• During the times of the Roman Empire, if their Emperor was showing signs of Caligula-like behaviour (like the man himself, or Domitian, or Commodus), the Praetorian Guard tended to orchestrate a military coup against him and then kill him and his family off in order to prevent the chance of any of his descendants from potentially becoming another Caligula, and then installing someone into the position who is a bit more stable and controllable...or, as it turned out in practice, just bump off any guy they didn't like because he was harming their or the military's interest (e.g. Pertinax, Claudius Gothicus, Aurelian). Alternatively, popular generals could try and install themselves, sometimes staging a civil war depending on their ability to bribe the Praetorians.
  • 69 AD is known as the Year of the Four Emperors due having a total of seven coups, some simultaneous, four of which installed their emperor on the throne. The Praetorians were involved in three of the successful ones, killing Nero and joining forces with Galba in exchange for a future reward, killing Galba and installing Otho when the former refused to pay them off (in his defense, the promise had been made by Otho in his name and Rome's coffers were empty due Nero's antics. On the other hand he could have paid them from his own pocket, as Otho did), and after Otho's death they joined forces with Vespasianus, helping him win, in retaliation for Otho's defeater Vitellius firing them all.
  • 193 AD, the Year of the Five Emperors, managed to be even worse. Following the assassination of Commodus (a Caligula arguably even worse than the Trope Namer) on New Year's Eve 192 by the Praetorian Guard, the Guard and Senate installed a competent senator and general named Pertinax on the throne. Pertinax did his best to reign in Commodus's insane spending that had bankrupted the Empire, including the massive unsustainable donatives paid to the legions and the Guard to keep them loyal, and the legions and the Guard didn't take kindly to this. The Guard ended up assassinating Pertinax, and then, in one of the most infamous episodes of their history, auctioned off the Imperial throne, with the top bid going to a man named Didius Julianus. This managed to piss off everyone in the Empire who wasn't the Praetorian Guard, and the legions stationed in Syria, Britannia, and Pannonia each declared their respective generals (respectively Pescennius Niger, Clodius Albinus, and Septimius Severus) to be the new Emperor, setting off a four-way civil war that ended with Severus on top instituting a brutal military dictatorship that would last into the Crisis of the Third Century.
• Much like the Praetorian Guard in Rome, the Janissary Corps in the Ottoman Empire played the role of kingmaker (or sultan maker) throughout the empire's history. Originally started as an elite fighting force, during its early years it was far more powerful than contemporary military units. As time went by, the Janissaries focused less on fighting and more on establishing and maintaining their power, especially once the sons of Janissaries were allowed to essentially inherit the position without all the intensive training that used to be involved. The Janissary Corps came to expect a bonus and pay raise every time a new Sultan came to the throne, to the point where they would storm the palace and kill the new Sultan. They also rioted if the Sultan attempted to modernize the Ottoman army (while formidable in the 15th century, by the 18th century they were obsolete and outclassed in every way). Eventually they were goaded into a riot in which the entire Empire rose up and destroyed them in what is known as The Auspicious Incident.
• The Newburgh Conspiracy of 1783 was an attempted coup led by rogue officers in the Continental Army with the backing of members in the Continental Congress at the end of The American Revolution. Disgruntled at not being paid for some time, the conspirators urged George Washington to overthrow Congress and install himself as dictator. The coup fizzled out when Washington denounced it and a compromise on military pensions was offered.
  • In the previous year, there was an attempt by Colonel Lewis Nicola to install Washington as a possible king of the United States, but the latter felt it would rattle the country, which had just won its independence from Britain. Anti-monarchial beliefs also played a role.
  • The Shays' Rebellion of 1786 was another coup attempt by led by American Revolution veteran Daniel Shays, who attempted to march down to the Springfield Armory, seize its weaponry, and overthrow the federal government in protest of controversial tax and debt collection policies. While it was quashed by the Massachusetts state militia after the feds couldn't stop it, the rebellion exposed the Articles of Confederation's inherent weaknesses and became a catalyst for the Constitutional Convention of 1787.
• The Business Plot of 1933 was a coup attempt by wealthy bankers who wanted to overthrow Franklin D. Roosevelt and establish a fascist corporatocracy, fearing that he would turn America into a socialist country. Under the ploy of Roosevelt being in ill health, they wanted 500,000 veterans to storm the Capitol with retired Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler at the helm to rally support. But being dead-set on the oath he swore to protect the country, Butler instead blew the whistle and secured enough evidence to bring it before Congress. Had the coup worked out, Butler was to assume emergency powers as the "Secretary of General Affairs" with FDR being reduced to a figurehead role. While it was initially dismissed as hearsay, many historians now agree some sort of scheme was contemplated and discussed.
• General Napoléon Bonaparte rose to power through a coup on 18 Brumaire Year VIII^note One of the new months of the French Republican calendar; equivalent to 9 November 1799 on the Gregorian calendar. France was at that point ruled by the Directorate, a legislative body that was more stable than the bloodthirsty revolutionary ruling bodies that preceded it, but still prone to indecision and infighting. After secluding the deputies to an estate outside of Paris under the excuse of an impending Jacobin revolt, Napoleon unsuccessfully demanded Emergency Authority before convincing the soldiers of General Murat to disperse the violent assembly and have himself declared First Consul of the French Republic, paving the way for him to later name himself Emperor of the French.
• His nephew Louis Napoleon Bonaparte followed in footsteps similar to his uncle via auto-coup, taking over the Second French Republic with the military's help in December 1851. After this he first gave himself absolute power, then became actual Emperor of France and establishing the Second French Empire. Karl Marx who hated Louis Napoleon's breathing guts pointed out the differences and similarities between nephew and uncle and gave us the immortal line "first as tragedy then as farce" for how History Repeats in his "18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon".
• Much of the early part of the Showa Era in Imperial Japan was racked with military coups and coup attempts.
  • So many were attempted during the 1930s by the army against civilian leaders that were against their interests. While none of the coups ever succeeded they successfully assassinated most of their political opposition and the period is often referred to as government by assassination.
  • An attempted coup nearly scuttled Japan's surrender even after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with the intent to stop the intended announcement of surrender by the Emperor and get the country to fight to the bitter end.
  • Two more coups were attempted during the Cold War. There was the "Sanmu Incident", where at least 13 suspects, some of them JSDF officers, were arrested for trying to stockpile weapons for a coup attempt on December 12, 1961. One of the suspects was Taku Mikami, who was detained for being involved in the May 15 incident back in 1932. The suspects justified their plan to save Japan from being dominated by Communists after they plan to assassinate the Prime Minister and the rest of the cabinet. The other was on November 25, 1970, known as the "Mishima Incident", after Yukio Mishima, at that time Japan's most famous author, who was also a right-wing extremist who led a small group of like-minded people that attempted to incite a military revolt among the JSDF. When this failed - Mishima was booed and jeered down by the soldiers summoned to hear his speech urging them to rise up - Mishima committed seppuku. Both of these incidents made some parts of Japanese society very nervous.
• This happens with shocking regularity in Thailand. As in multiple times a decade, making jokes about the periodicity of revolutions the most applicable of any country in Southeast Asia. There have been over 20 coups since 1932. Here's a listing of some of the more notable ones.
• The Spanish coup of July 1936 by right-wing military leaders, aided by various other right-wing groups, was only partially successful - military units in the north and west of Spain succeeded in displacing control from the left-wing (of many varying types) government of the Second Spanish Republic, but those in the south and east of the country, as well as Madrid itself, could not. The result was a two and a half year civil war that became a prelude to World War II. Spain stared down two more attempted military coups in 1981 and 1982, while the country was transitioning to democracy. On February 23, 1981, troops occupied the Spanish parliament building while several generals called on the rest of the army to rise in revolt. However, the generals were confronted by a speech by the king ordering them to stand down and the entire episode ended the day after. The attempt in October, 1982, did not progress beyond conspiracy by some generals (including those involved in the 1981 attempt).
• During World War II, a conspiracy of high-ranking German officers attempted to eliminate Adolf Hitler and the other Nazi leaders in 1944, when the war had irrevocably turned against Germany. Their own more specific political aims are somewhat disputed, but in any case they sought to soften Germany's imminent defeat by installing a pro-Western government and negotiating a peace treaty with the Western Allies. This culminated in the 20 July Plot, in which a briefcase bomb was planted in the same room as the Fuehrer, but failed to kill him when it detonated. The plotters did succeed in briefly taking over much of Berlin through the Valkyrie contingency plan, though they were then deserted by their followers once it became clear that Hitler still lived. Most of the leaders of the plot were subsequently hunted down and executed.
• After losing his bid for reelection after being president of Cuba in 1940 and spending some time in the US, Fulgencio Batista seized power this way in 1952, taking over the Cuban government with military backing and becoming a brutal dictator. He would later be overthrown himself in 1959 during the Cuban Revolution led by Fidel Castro.
• The political scientist and strategic analyst Edward Luttwak published a book called Coup D'Etat: A Practical Handbook in 1968. His introduction states that coups had become such a common method of changing governments (especially in the Third World) that he wanted to let people know how to do it efficiently and with a minimum of bloodshed.
• Secular states in the Middle East have had a long history of military coups to protect against Islamist encroachments. Turkey has had multiple successful and attempted coup d'états since the founding of the Republic, and the Egyptian military has also stepped in several times to remove the monarchy (1952), and later, Mohammad Morsi's regime (2013). Saddam Hussein executed a self-coup in Iraq with military help in 1979, already being Prime Minister before he usurped the Presidency. Depressingly, the typical result is a Full-Circle Revolution.
• The Algerian Civil War was triggered when the army pulled one in the 1991 elections to prevent the victory of an Islamist party while at the same time forcing the serving President to step down and form a junta.
• A disturbingly recent and western example, France 1958. The French armed forces, dissatisfied with government policy in Algeria, occupied the island of Corsica and threatened to seize Paris and take power though force if Charles de Gaulle, WW2 President-in-Exile and war hero, wasn't brought back as prime minister. The parliament relented but fortunately De Gaulle had no plans to institute a military dictatorship. Further conflicts between the military and the civilian government continued through the following years, including attempted coups aimed at de Gaulle by far-right military elements, who were enraged by his recognition of Algeria's independence. (This would form the basis of the novel The Day of the Jackal, in which one of these failed coups cause the leaders to try the subtler means of assassination.)
• A popular method by the two main powers during the Cold War was to support these as a way to replace a government they disliked with one who proved more cooperative. On the US side, see Brazil in 1964, Chile in 1973; on the Soviet side, see Ethiopia in 1974, Afghanistan in 1979. Africa in particular has been plagued by coups, counter-coups, and revolutions since decolonization began in the later 1950's, with both major superpowers playing roles. It seems that imposing a modern democracy on a population unused to it while surrounded by powers willing to send military aid does not produce a stable political environment.
• Happened twice in South Korea, both in Seoul, before it was democraticized, firstly in May 16, 1961, when general major Park Chung-hee, a highly controversial and polarizing figure in Korea still to this date, ousted the government of the Second Republic of Korea and succeeded. He eventually became a dictator and reigned for 19 years before being assassinated by his intelligence chief in 1979, which lead to the second coup. On December 12, 1979, general Chun Doo-hwan seized the government in the midst of the political unrest after the president's assassination, effectively shutting all discussions about a democratic government for the time being.
• The Kingdom of Libya under its only King Idris was overthrown in 1969 by a cadre of the Free Officers Movement led by Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.
• Attempted in Italy with the 1970 Golpe Borghese (golpe being a Spanish word Italian media normally use for a coup), with the Corpo forestale dello Stato (basically, the park rangers: at the time they were considered part of the military) providing the manpower. The coup was aborted at the last moment when, to his horror, the ringleader found out that the government had manipulated the conspiracy to get an excuse to proclaim martial law (had they tried with the coup, the rest of the military was already mobilized to suppress them).
• Uganda has had two of these.
  • Idi Amin took over with one of these in 1971. While Milton Obote, the country's president, was attending a Commonwealth conference in Singapore, Amin and his forces seized control over the country. Most Ugandans were happy at first, since Obote was increasingly brutal and authoritarian, and his regime was marked by widespread corruption. Unfortunately, Amin did not honor his promise to hold free and fair elections, and turned out to be even worse than Obote. Amin would successfully fend off multiple attempts to remove him from power until he was ousted in 1979 by an alliance between various rebel groups and the Tanzanian military.
  • Obote returned to power in the controversial 1980 elections, which were widely accused of having been rigged in favor of Obote and his political party. During the Ugandan Bush War that followed, Obote was deposed again, this time in a plot led by Tito Okello. Okello's rule would only last a few months before the National Resistance Army took control of the country and he was replaced as president by Yoweri Museveni.
• In 1987, there was an attempted coup by a faction in the Armed Forces of the Philippines known as the Reform the Armed Forces Movement, made up of soldiers and officers that didn't like Marco's presidency during martial law. Later on, they tried for another one against Cory Aquino, who made news worldwide for being the first democratically elected president after some small plots to seize Manila International Airport, the GMA TV compound and some military bases failed. They blamed President Aquino for how the anti-communist insurgency was handled, followed by corruption and bureaucratic red tape. American forces stationed in the Philippines provided support in terms of intimidation by flying over their positions with F-4 Phantoms. There was also an attempted coup in 1986 due to Marcos supporters with some support from pro-Marcos forces in the AFP. It ended since it failed to gain support.
• On July 15, 2016, rogue elements of the Turkish military attempted to seize control of the country, but were ultimately defeated by loyalist forces in the same night. To which degree this was a genuine coup is still subject to debate, however.
• In 2017, factions of the Zimbabwe Defense Forces enacted a coup by detaining President Robert Mugabe and his cabinet, including First Lady Grace Mugabe under "Operation Restore Legacy" due to the Mugabes unnecessarily purging the ranks of the ZANU-PF of their allies, especially Emmerson Mnangagwa, when they accused them of being involved in a potential coup. This started to be the main event that pissed off every Zimbabwean since Mugabe became president, becoming very distant and then relying on the military to crush dissent. Even his friends and allies who fought with him in the independence war were also frustrated with him and thus threw their support behind the coup.
• Mali has been unfortunate enough to have five of these since achieving independence in 1960, three of them in the same decade:
  • On November 19, 1968, a cadre of young officers led by Lieutenant Moussa Traoré took President Modibo Keïta prisoner on the grounds of a poor economy, suspending parliament, and other unpopular policies.
  • On March 26, 1991, Traoré (who had been running a one-party state since the '68 coup) would himself be ousted when Colonel Amadou Touré (the commander of Traoré's presidential guard) removed him from office and arrested him for corruption and other authoritarian acts.
  • On March 21, 2012, a large group of soldiers dissatisfied by Touré's handling of the Tuareg rebellion staged a mutiny against his government, establishing a junta to run the country until international negotiators convinced them to stand down and Touré to resign in favor of new elections.
  • On August 18, 2020, elements of the Malian military rebelled against President Ibrahim Keïta's government on grounds of a poor economy and corruption, arresting Keïta, his Prime Minister, and other government officials. A month later, the mutineers agreed to an 18-month transition back to democracy.
  • On May 24, 2021, the joint civilian/military transitional government set up after the above was overthrown by the same junta as in 2020, in response to interim President Bah N'daw shuffling his cabinet to remove several of the military members. By the end of the day, N'daw and several other civilian leaders had been detained, with junta leader Colonel Assimi Goïta taking over as the new interim President.
• On February 1, 2021, the military of Myanmar arrested vast swathes of the civilian government and declared a state of martial law to last for a year, claiming that the pro-democracy faction in power at the time had only won its landslide victory due to fraud. They first seized power in Myanmar's post-WWII history in 1962 when the Union Revolutionary Council took down Prime Minister U Nu and President Win Maung.
• Sudan is another African country that has had numerous coups since achieving independence:
  • On November 17, 1958, Prime Minister (and retired army general) Abdallah Khalil, fearing that opposition parties would soon form a coalition to dominate Parliament and kick him out of power due to his poor handling of the unrest in South Sudan, enabled a coup led by his ally General Ibrahim Abboud to seize power, which he would hold onto until 1964.
  • On May 25, 1969, a military clique called the Free Officers Movement led a coup against the government of President Ismail al-Azhari, installing their leader Colonel Jaafar Nimeiry as the President.
  • In late July 1971, a group of soldiers backed by the Sudanese Communist Party attempted a coup against Nimeiry's regime, but failed to hold onto power for more than a few days before being crushed.
  • There was a more successful coup against Nimeiry on April 6, 1985, when his Defense Minister, Field Marshal Abdel Rahman Swar al-Dahab, took advantage of public unrest over food prices and the fact that Nimeiry was on a state visit to the US at the time to seize power. And to his credit, unlike the previous examples on this list, al-Dahab would allow a transition to democracy a year later.
  • On June 30, 1989, the democratic government that al-Dahab had stepped down in favor of was overthrown by Colonel Omar al-Bashir, who set himself up as the leader of the new junta. He'd then stay in power until being overthrown by another coup in response to widespread unrest against his regime in 2019.
  • In late October 2021, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan forcibly dissolved the Transitional Sovereignty Council that had led the government following al-Bashir's ousting and took total power. A month later, after mass protests and resistance, he agreed to negotiations that restored much of the pre-coup government, albeit with him now head of it.
• Niger is another African country that has had multiple coups ever since decolonization:
  • In 1974, tensions over long-term droughts, economic problems, and charges of government corruption culminated in Lieutenant-Colonel Seyni Kountché leading the majority of the military in overthrowing President Hamani Diori, who had been running a one-party dictatorship since independence was achieved in 1960. The resulting military government would stay in power until transitioning back to democracy in the late 80s and early 90s.
  • In 1996, military forces led by Colonel Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara (who, interestingly, had been a paratrooper in Kountché’s coup) reacted to the government's paralysis over the issue of the Tuareg rebellion by arresting President Mahamane Ousmane and other leading politicians, before dissolving the government. Maïnassara would then hold rigged elections to get himself elected president so he could stay in power while still claiming to be planning to restore civilian rule.
  • In 1999, Maïnassara would himself be victim of a coup, being assassinated by his own presidential guard, whose commander Major Daouda Malam Wanké then took power. And to his credit, he actually did legitimately start a transition to democracy that was fulfilled by the end of the year.
  • In 2010, as a result of President Mamadou Tandja attempting to rewrite the constitution to stay in office beyond his term limits and increase his personal political power, a group of officers led by Colonel Salou Djibo stormed the presidential palace and arrested Tandja before taking over the government. Like Wanké, they were legitimately driven by a desire to preserve democracy, managing to arrange free elections within a year.
  • In 2023, presidential guard commander General Abdourahamane Tchiani led his troops in arresting President Mohamed Bazoum on the grounds of poorly handing the country’s security in regards to jihadist insurgents, soon after dissolving the rest of the civilian government with the support of the rest of the military.
• Chile underwent one of these on September 11, 1973, when the military overthrew President Salvador Allende's democratic socialist Popular Unity government and established a junta to replace it. Augusto Pinochet was a member of this junta, and would eventually manipulate his way into sole leadership of it, becoming dictator until the eventual transition back to democracy in 1990.
• North Korea: Kim Il-Sung was almost overthrown twice (1956 and 1967) by disgruntled rivals who hated his cult of personality and increasing authoritarianism. In response, Kim introduced the policy of songbun, which organizes the population into castes based on how "loyal" a person is to the Korean Workers’ Party (or more specifically, to his family).
• After Spain transitioned from a fascist dictatorship to democracy following Francisco Franco's death in 1978, far-right elements within the Spanish Armed Forces tried to overthrow the government four times^note 1978, 1981, 1982, and 1985. In all coup attempts, they planned on storming the Cortes Generales building, assassinating the newly installed King Juan Carlos I, and taking the legislators hostage.