It was widely assumed that the era of military coups in Turkey was over and the army has recently had good relations with Mr Erdogan.
It may only have been a faction within the military, but it was able to strike in multiple places in Istanbul, Ankara and elsewhere, even detaining the Turkish chief-of-staff Gen Hulusi Akar for several hours until he was freed by anti-coup troops.
His headquarters in Ankara were still being reportedly held by pro-coup forces on Saturday morning.
At the height of the coup, tanks closed the bridges over the Bosphorus and members of parliament in Ankara were hiding in the cellars of their assembly building in Ankara as it came under fire.
Pro-coup helicopters were strafing the intelligence headquarters and one was shot down by an F-16. The government was eager to declare that the coup had been smashed, but there are still signs of official nervousness with Turkish airspace around Istanbul being closed, opened and then closed again.
The coup was never likely to succeed once it had lost the advantage of surprise, which it did fairly rapidly as news spread of what had happened.
The plotters failed to eliminate, detain or isolate President Erdogan who was on holiday in Marmaris from which he was able to use a reporter’s phone to communicate with a television studio and call for people to take to the streets in opposition to the coup.
He followed this up by flying to Ataturk Istanbul airport, where he was well placed to show that he was still in command.
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