The
rest, as they say, is history.
Sadat, who had rejected
the advice of the Soviet Union on October 12 to seek a ceasefire,
and who continued to reject that advice until, too late, he accepted it
on October 19, now found himself begging for Soviet help. The U.S.
Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, had turned a blind eye to Israeli
violation of the ceasefire on October 23, no doubt pleased that
the Arab world should at last have a demonstration of what American
power could achieve in the
Middle East. During the early hours of
October 24, six Soviet airborne divisions were put on alert and Soviet
Premier Brezhnev sent President Nixon what amounted to an ultimatum.
Under pressure from the United States, Israel accepted another ceasefire
from October 24. They could afford to: they had their bargaining
counter. They refused to comply with United Nations Resolution 339
calling upon them to return to their October 22 lines. Of course.
Thursday, October
25
Israel
did not observe this ceasefire either. They were determined to capture
the town of Suez, which they reckoned would compel the immediate surrender
of the Third Army, before United Nations' observers arrived.
They had two days. Shortly before the ceasefire took effect on September
24, the enemy had launched a determined assault against the! town with
three armored brigades and a battalion of paratroopers. But this was repelled
with considerable loss.
Today
the enemy turned to air power and artillery. Third Army now suffered the
latest fruits of the American airlift. Enemy fighter-bombers launched MAVERICK
TV-guided, air-to-surface missiles against the tanks dugin in its encircled
bridgehead. Our losses climbed. Meanwhile enemy artillery systematically
set about reducing the town of Suez.
1100 hours: A meeting
of the Armed Forces Supreme Council, the first since the outbreak of war.
Isma`iyl
in
the chair. (The Third Army Commander,
General Wasil,
was almost an absentee. His advanced HQ
had been surrounded by the
enemy in the course of the October 23 battle. But just as it was
on the point of capture, Wasil and his men managed to slip
through their enemy lines to his rear HQ.) The main topic was, of
course, how to open the road to Third Army. But though everyone
spoke with passion, nobody could come up with a realistic plan. We adjourned
for "further studies" to be made by the commander of the unit which
would inevitably have to carry out the mission. Brigadier Qabiyl of
the 4th Armored division.
Friday, October
26
Qabiyl
came
to Center Ten to present the results of his study. A small group
gathered in the conference room: Ismail, myself, Qabiyl, Gamasiy,
Mahiy,
Nasar.
"My
men and I are ready to die to open the road to the Third Army," Qabiyl
said.
"But
I have to say I do not think we will succeed. And if our division is destroyed
the road to Cairo will be wide open."
Isma`iyl
intervened: "So let us change the mission from opening the road to carrying
food and supplies to the army," he said.
That
seemed to me even more hazardous than the original mission and I at once
opposed it. To stay alive the Third Army needed rather over 150
tons of supplies a day. The vast column of soft-skinned vehicles needed
to carry such quantitiies would simply be an added burden on the tank crews
of 4th Division as they fought their way down the road.
But
Isma`iyl
insisted upon assigning the mission to Qabiyl
in writing. Now, it
is a rule in the Egyptian Armed Forces that any order momentous enough
to be in writing has to be signed by the Commander in Chief and the
Chief of Staff. I told Isma`iyl: "You can sign that
order if you wish. I am not going to sign it."
"Then
what do you want?"
Isma`iyl said angrily. "I cannot
understand you. Do you really want the men in the Third Army to surrender?"
"I
hope I never find myself in this position," I said. "And we here
are quite ready to die for the sake of the army if that would bring its
salvation. But what is the point of destroying the only reserves we have
to no purpose? That I am against. It would open the road for the enemy
to march practically unopposed to Cairo."
Isma`iyl
was shocked: "You shouldn't say such things in front of the 4th Division
Commander," he said.
"Qabiyl
himself has just said the same thing," I replied. "And the Third
Army Commander himself made that precise point at our Armed Forces Supreme
Council meeting. And it is in writing here." I waved Qabiyl's
study.
"If
you do not sign,"Isma`iyl said, "I will report the fact of
your refusal to the President."
"Please
do," I replied.
"I will not sign that order."
To
save face, Isma`iyl tinkered with the wording, making insignificant
changes to the mission, and issued it under his own signature. We all knew
it was a bluff. Isma`iyl would never take that sort of responsibility.
The mission was quietly cancelled later.
2300 hours:
The forward elements of the United Nations Emergency Force began
to arrive in Cairo.
Saturday, October
27
0400 hours:
Isma`iyl
was called to see the President.
0600 hours:
Fifty
men
of the United Nations Emergency Force contingent began the drive
from Cairo to
Suez.
0600 hours:
Isma`iylreturned
from his meeting to tell us:
-Sadat
had received a message from President Nixon assuring him there would
be "an honorable solution" to the problem of the Third Army.
-All
military activities must cease by 1300 hours today.
At that time an administrative
[unarmed] column with supplies for Third Army could move down the
Suez road.
-At 1500 hours,
negotiations between an Israeli and an Egyptian delegation would start
at the 101 Kilometer
mark on the Cairo-Suez road. General
Gamasiy was given charge of the Egyptian delegation.
So the cards wire
on the table. It was now accepted that the fate of Third Army was
in the hands of the Israelis and American diplomacy.
The Israelis refused
to let the United Nations Emergency Force contingent enter Suez.
Our column of 109 trucks and 20 ambulances was also stopped:
the Emergency Force Commander, General Ensio Siilasvuo,
informed us he had no instructions to let it pass. And at 1830 hours
Gamasiy returned to Center Ten: no Israeli had turned up to meet him.
The lines hummed between
Cairo and Washington. Each call would elicit promises, details
of new arrangements. When we tried to act on them, the Israelis outside
Suez
would
deny what Washington
claimed they had agreed.
Gamasiy's Kilometer
101 meeting was rescheduled for midnight, for instance. For a second
time no Israeli turned up. Other postponements followed. Not until 1200
hours on October 29 did Gamasiy finally meet the enemy.
Meanwhile, the Israelis continued to hold up our convoy to Third Army
with
one problem after another: "These supplies are too much . . . . We will
only let in medical supplies . . . . We have received no word from our
authorities that food and water can pass . . . . No Egyptian driver or
escort can cross Kilometer 101 . . . . They must leave their trucks here
for Emergency Force drivers to take on . . . ."
Egypt had no choice but
to accept every humiliating condition. By such tactics the Israelis kept
Third
Army on the brink of collapse, the better to use it as a hostage against
the conditions they now wanted to impose. When they did finally deign to
talk to Gamasiy at Kilometer 101, for instance, the Israelis
refused to allow supplies to Third Army to be discussed until we
had satisfied their own immediate demand. They wanted the release of one
of their spies, named Avidan, who was serving a long prison sentence
in Egypt. The President
approved his release. Next day, October
30, Gamasiy handed the man over. (At a later stage in the talks
the Israelis demanded the release of more spies, principally one named
Baroukh
Mezrahy, an Egyptian, Jew who had emigrated to Israel
and later
returned under another name.)
Avidan's release
was only the first of a series of demands. Israel next required
the exchange of prisoners. The rule of war is that prisoners are exchanged
only after a truce or other settlement has been agreed, and Gamasiy
was there only to negotiate a disengagement. So he tried to bargain: the
prisoners would be released when Israel had withdrawn to its lines of October
22. On November 14 Golda Meir told the Knesset:"Not
a single kilogram of supplies will pass to the Third Army unless we receive
our men captured by the Egyptians." We gave in. The exchange began
the next day.
By now the weather
was cold. We asked to send blankets and pullovers to our men of the Third
Army. The Israelis refused.
Private spite was
not enough. The Israelis also sought public humiliation. They announced
that their vessel Beersheba would challenge our declared blockade
of the Red Sea and pass through the straits of Bab-al-Mandab
on December 2 / 3. The truth was that the blockade had not been
enforced since November 1, when a tanker carrying 123,000
tons to Israel had been permitted to pass unhindered by our naval
patrols for fear the enemy would refuse supplies to the Third Army.
But Israel wanted more than a secret surrender.
When Cairo
complained to Washington about Israel's intransigence, pressure
merely increased. On December 4 our Foreign Minister, Isma`iyl
Fahmiy, got a letter from Kissinger which said:
-Negotiations between
Egypt
and Israel at Kilometer 101 should resume "on a business-like
basis."
-The Yariv proposals
of November 22 could be the basis of the proposed Geneva
peace conference.
-If the Arabs did
not lift their oil embargo before
Geneva, the United States
might find itself unable to exert any influence on the conference.
Kissinger did
not define what he meant by
"businesslike basis". But if it meant
"give and take" we were without doubt the ones destined to go on
giving. And not just us, it now seemed. The oil embargo was beginning to
bite. Now Kissinger
was forcing Egypt to persuade its Arab
allies to abandon it. The whole Arab world was now to pay the price
for the encirclement of the Third Army.
By then the search
for scapegoats was under way. Looking back, I realize Sadat
must have seen his need for an alibi by October 23, as soon as Israeli
encirclement of Third Army had given the most public possible lie
to those fairy tales of
seven tanks in the bushes of Deversoir.
But the first hints appeared only a month later.
November 21:
A meeting of the Armed Forces Supreme Council. Sadat
in the chair. It was clear that most of us round the table were furious
and humiliated by the Israelis' incessant demands at Kilometer 101 and
by the plight of Third Army which forced us to accede to them. The
President
mused on the enemy penetration:
"Just one night,"
he
said. "Think of it. One night in which our troops did not do their best
and the enemy was able to cross with armor to the west bank. One single
night. That night of October 18 / 19. Had we acted correctly and vigorously
that night we could have closed the breach and none of this could have
happened."
I saw at once where
he was driving. October 18 / 19 was the night I had spent at Second
Army HQ. I was having none of it.
"Mr. President,"
I said, "the men of Second Army did all they could with what they had
during that night of October 18."
"After the war,"
the President said,
"we will convene an inquiry to determine
the responsibility each individual bears for the penetration."
"Excellent,"
I said. "It is indeed important to learn who was responsible."
After the meeting,
Isma`iyl
and
I accompanied the
President to his car. As we walked back the
Minister said: "Why did you speak like that to the President? Why
take his remarks personally? Were you the Commander of the Second Army?"
It had crossed my
mind as Sadat spoke to wonder precisely what Isma`iyl
had
told him about the events of that night. I was not inclined to be emollient.
"I am not and was not the Commander of the Second Army,"
I said.
"But my presence there as Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces gave me the
right to approve or reject any decision taken by the army commander."
Back in the room where
everyone was packing their papers, I went over to the Second Army Commander,
General
Khaliyl.
"I scent some backstairs move to find a scapegoat," I said quietly.
"Be careful to see that the documents in Second Army HQ relating to
the conduct of the war are not stolen or falsified."
As the Armed Forces
Supreme Council dispersed, however, I took to brooding over another
cryptic statement from the President:"The armed forces must concentrate
all its efforts on its original task," he said. "They must not meddle
in politics. The disengagement talks are a political matter. Whether they
reach agreement or not is nothing to you. You must mind your own business
and attend to that." Which, in the code we had all become expert at
deciphering, was Sadat's way of responding to some
rumor, gossip or intelligence about someone at the meeting. But who was
this person or group he suspected of mixing in politics, whose challenge
he evidently took seriously?
The "political
matter" of the disengagement agreement was finally signed between Egypt
and Israel on
January 18, 1974. Israeli withdrawal to 30
kilometers (19 miles) east of the canal; limitation on the size
and positioning of Egyptian forces in Sinai; between them a buffer
zone controlled by the United Nations Emergency Force-all that is
a matter of public record. What was not recorded were the scenes which
greeted the Egyptian troops who drove once more into the area the Israelis
had occupied on the west bank for three months.
They
had plundered everything that could be taken, destroyed everything that
could not. They had dismantled the Suez oil refinery and fertilizer factory
and shipped them back to Israel. They had dismantled the cranes and harbor
machinery at Adabia. They had dismantled every water and petroleum pipeline.
They had even taken the sheep and cows of the civilian inhabitants and
looted their homes. Some equipment at the harbor and elsewhere too heavy
to be moved was blown up. And the canal carrying fresh water to the inhabitants
of Suez was blocked along a five-mile stretch. The enemy bulldozers must
have toiled for weeks to push such thousands of tons of earth and sand
into the canal. Reports of the devastation reached my desk a few days later.
It was all wholly contrary to international law.
I wondered what the
Israeli Government meant to achieve by it, for the pillaging and destruction
was too widespread, too systematic to be anything but an organized program.
Did they think a scorched earth policy would terrify us? Make us recall
the Mongol destruction of Baghdad and fear the Israelis as a people
capable of similar barbarism? Or did they, in some perverse way, like living
in a climate of hatred? But these are private musings, of no official concern.
Three weeks after
Sadat's cryptic warnings to the
Armed
Forces Supreme Council, I had been dismissed.
(To be continued)
Next issue: Episode 43 : |
