Back in October 1973 during what
became known as the Yom Kippur War, Egypt made the daring move of crossing the
Suez Canal and overrunning Israel's Bar-Lev line in an attempt to force Israel
to return the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt. Ariel Sharon, future Prime Minister of Israel, played a key roll in forcing back Egypt's military and winning the war for Israel.
In November 1956, Israel captured
the Sinai Peninsula after Egyptian President Gamal Nasser had blockaded the
Suez Canal and the Gulf of Aqaba to Israeli shipping and had nationalized the
Canal, an issue that greatly concerned the British and French who had economic interests in the area. Israel,
France and Britain agreed to an operation that would regain control of the
Canal, with 100,000 soldiers from the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) capturing the entire Sinai Peninsula
within 100 hours between November 1 and November 5, 1956, stopping at a point
10 miles of the east of the Canal. In addition, French and British
paratroopers landed near Port Said and advanced toward Suez City before calling
for a ceasefire under threat of retaliation by the Soviet Union. At the
time that the ceasefire was called, British and French forces did not control
the Suez Canal itself, one of the aims of their involvement. A total of
231 IDF forces were killed in the fighting. The 1956 actions were
temporarily successful at putting an end to terrorist attacks against Israel by
the fedayeen, a group of terrorists trained and equipped by Egyptian
Intelligence, however, they were reorganized under the banner of the
Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) a few years later and we know how that story unrolled.
Here is a map showing troop
movements during the 1956 military actions:
Let's move nearly two decades forward. During 1972 and much of 1973,
Egypt's President Anwar Sadat threatened war against Israel unless the nation
withdrew from all of the territories occupied in the 1956 and 1967 wars, a goal
of United Nations Resolution 242. He stated that he was willing to
sacrifice one million soldiers to achieve his goal. While it is widely
believed that Israeli forces were taken by surprise in October 1973, in fact,
Israel had a high level spy in Egypt, none other than the son-in-law of
ex-Egyptian President Gamal Nasser, who told Mossad that war was imminent 36
hours before it started. On October 6, 1973, the holiest day in the
Jewish calendar, Egypt and Syria launched a two-pronged attack against Israel
in both the Suez and Golan Heights areas. Israel was protecting its
interests along the Suez Canal with only 500 soldiers accompanied by only 3
tanks; this insignificant force faced 600,000 Egyptian soldiers accompanied by
2000 tanks and 550 aircraft that had crossed the Canal on pontoon bridges as
shown here:
Egypt easily crossed through the
Bar-Lev line, a series of fortifications built on the east bank of the Canal
that were designed to give Israel ample warning that they were under attack.
Here is a map showing the Egyptian Army
movements during the first week of the war:
The Soviet Union threw its muscle
into the mix as well, airlifting 8000 tons of military weapons into the arena
to back its proxy states in the area. After some reluctance and a lot of deliberation, the United
States provided Israel with a full-scale airlift of military equipment.
Controlling Division Commander Ariel Sharon, who had actually resigned from
the Israeli Army in June 1972, was recalled to active service to command a a
reserve armoured division of the Southern Command. His goal was to block
further advances by the Egyptian 2nd and 3rd Armies, retake lost territory and
cross the Suez to threaten Egypt's leadership. His troops discovered a
gap between the two Egyptian armies that had completed their crossing of the Canal,
however, rather than exploiting this weakness, he is ordered back to a
defensive position to protect the Israeli heartland. The Head of the
Southern Command, Shmuel Gonen feels that Sharon's actions show a lack of
discipline and asks that Sharon be removed and replaced as commander. On
October 14, Egyptian commando forces are dropped from helicopters to the rear
of Sharon's position and are spotted and killed. Egyptian artillery then
moves forward to attack Israeli positions, however, after a nine hour battle, 120
Egyptian tanks are destroyed with the IDF losing only six tanks. On
October 15, the IDF launches a massive shelling campaign on the Egyptian Armies
and Sharon's forces are able to reach the Canal through a gap between the two
armies. At this point, Sharon orders his paratroopers to cross the Canal
on rubber boats and seize a bridgehead position. On October 16, Sharon
himself arrives on the east bank of the Suez Canal with twenty tanks, two rafts
and two bulldozers. His troops crossed the Suez Canal at Deversoir, north
of the point where Egypt had crossed the canal by using a rolling bridge constructed by
the Israeli Defence Force Engineering Corps as shown on this photo:
The thrust into Egyptian
territory eventually surrounded Egypt's 3rd Army and controlled the main Suez
Highway. At this point, the IDF was within 100 kilometres of Cairo.
Here is a map showing the movement of the IDF as they forced Egypt back
across the Canal:
A United Nations-sponsored
cease-fire was put into place on October 22, 1973, however, Israel continued to
fight. On October 25 and 26 as Israeli troops surrounded the Egyptian
Third Army, the Soviet Union threatened to send in its own troops to protect
Egyptian forces. At this point, the tension in the region was so severe
that the United States went on nuclear alert.
On October 24, 1973, a cease-fire
agreement was signed by Israel and Egypt, establishing a United Nations
Emergency Force in the new demilitarized zone along the Canal. Israel
withdrew its forces to a distance of 20 kilometres from the Canal and most of
Egypt's forces were withdrawn to the west bank of the Canal.
On January 20, 1974, Sharon issued
at order of the day to his division, announcing the end of his military career.
In his order, he wrote that:
"Our
division is the one that initiated and took upon itself the most difficult,
most complex and cruel part of the war – the operation of the crossing the
Canal. This crossing operation is the turning point of the war. The crossing of
the Canal is the operation that brought the victory in the war. We must
remember that the victory in the Yom Kippur War is the greatest victory we ever
had. If – albeit omissions and mistakes, albeit failures and failings, albeit
loss of composure and self control – we have achieved our victory, we should
know that this is the greatest victory of the IDF ever. We fought. Hundreds of
our best soldiers have fallen in the battlefield and many more were wounded
during combat – but we have won… The war has ended… now I feel I have to fight
in a different front. It is essential to fight, with all might, in order to
prevent another war in the future. That is why I leave."
No comments:
Post a Comment