Cemal Gürsel (1895-1966) was a Turkish general who headed the military regime that seized power by coup d'état on 27 May 1960, but who then oversaw the restoration of elected civilian government in October 1961, serving as president until 1966. Born in 1895, he served as a junior officer in the Ottoman army in the Gallipoli and Palestine campaigns of the First World War, and then in the Turkish nationalist army fighting the Greek invaders in the war of 1920-2. Subsequently, he rose through the ranks of