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Forty Years Ago - Part 15

Forty years ago, October 19, 1973, the end of the war was in sight. The Israeli armor had broken through and was rapidly driving south to cut off one Egyptian Army. The Syrians were still stymied in their attempts to regain their loss territory. Kissinger was slowly working his wedge between the Egyptians and Soviets in his play to end Soviet sway over much of the region.

Sharon's division had continued to work northward. Reshef and Erez's brigades were on the west side of the canal. However, unlike the IDF units moving south, they were encountering stiff resistance from an Egyptian armored brigade equipped with T-62 tanks. The Second Army commander received permission to destroy the bridges across the Sweetwater Canal.

Elazar made a visit to the front. He made stops to check in with Southern Front commander, Bar-Lev, as well as Sharon and Adan. Although Adan was still making progress to the south along the Canal, he was concerned by what he saw north of Chinese Farm. The Egyptians still held the Missouri position just north of the farm. From Missouri, the Egyptians still threatened the roads leading to the bridgehead. From his perspective, Africa (Egypt) was being taken care of, it was Asia (the Sinai along the banks of the Suez Canal) was the problem. Elazar was unmoved. In his mind, the biggest threat to the IDF's operations were the Egyptians dug in on Missouri. They were to be given the highest priority, everything else, including the operations to surround the Egyptian Third Army, would come second.

Sharon did not like the order, but accepted and started to shift his division back to focusing on Missouri. One of his brigades would remain on the west bank of the Canal, threatening Ismailia, while the rest of the division went back to take care of Missouri on the Sinai side. As night fell, the men of Giora Lev's battalion were able to say the Shabbat prayers. But later in the night, in the dark, one of Lev's tankers reported movement. Some stories have it that the man on watch was warned by a cat that they had found two days before in an Egyptian outpost they had overrun. Lev was told and pulled out his night-vision scope that had been captured from the Egyptians. Through the scope, he could make out shapes that had to be Egyptian commandos, preparing to attack.

Lev ordered his tanks to open fire with all their weapons before rolling forward as they had been taught in training. On his command, all the searchlights on his tanks were flicked on, illuminating the ground around them. About fifty yards away, the Egyptian commandos were caught out in the opening, preparing their own attack. The IDF tankers opened fire, shredding them. Lev would late say that they did not know exactly what happened, but that when he called for a halt, all was silent. The next morning, Lev reported that the area around his tanks was absolute carnage, most of the dead Egyptians they found were still clutching their weapons.

General Shazly had gone to visit the front. What he saw confirmed his worse fears. The weapon he had helped forged was threatened with destruction. After five days of continuous fighting, the Egyptian Army no longer had the ability to go on the offensive. Although they had been pushed back from Chinese Farm, they still held the high ground at Missouri. However, the inability of the forces on the west bank of the Suez to stop the Israelis meant that both armies were in danger of being surrounded and cut-off.

(Gen. Saad el Shazly, Chief of Staff Egyptian Army, 1973)

Returning to Cairo, he met with War Minister Ismail. The two got into an argument. Shazly was convinced that if most, if not all the units were withdrawn from the Sinai, the Israelis would crush them. At a minimum, he demanded that 4 brigades be brought back across. Ismail rejected the idea. Eventually Sadat was brought in to settle the argument. The heads of the Air Force and Navy were present as well. Unimaginably to Shazly, they all sided with Ismail that there should be no withdrawal from the Sinai to meet the threat on the west bank of the Canal. Sadat rejected Shazly's plan and relieved him of his position.

Ismail then met privately with Sadat. While he still believed the correct path was to hold the territory in the Sinai, he warned Sadat that while he believed the Egyptian Army could still prevail, but that it would be better if a cease fire was sought. As long as the Egyptian Army remained a force and was not surrendered, they could find a way to survive and continue their struggle. Sadat agreed.

In the Golan, the Northern Command decided that while a further offensive was not possible, the IDF needed to make sure that it had its forces in the most defensible positions possible. Furthermore, Elazar had decreed that Mt. Hermon, which had fallen on the first day of the war must be recovered.

(Maj.Gen. Yitzhak Hofi, GOC Northern Command during the war)

Maj.Gen. Hofi, commanding Northern Command, gave the job of retaking Mt. Hermon to the Golani Infantry Brigade. They had originally been charged with providing the small security detachment. Now they would be allowed to retake the heights. Already, the Golani had attempted to retake the position once before. That attempt had ended in disaster.

This times, instead of focusing only on the Israeli portion of Mt. Hermon, the Golani brigade commander decided to go after the Syrian position. The Golani would be reinforced by a parachute battalion. For the assault. The decision to go after both sections of the mountain necessitated a delay as nits were trained and moved into place.

Meanwhile, in the southern section of the Golan enclave, Peled's division moved through the darkness, on the night of October 18 - 19, to take the village of Um Butna. Instead of some defenders, the Col. Yaakov Hadar's brigade found that it had stumbled into the Syrian 9th Division. In a brutal fight with both sides suffering heavily, Hadar's brigade pushed the 9th Division back.

Hadar's brigade had inadvertently stumbled into one of the marshaling areas for a combined Syria-Iraqi-Jordanian attack. As the Syrians tried to extricate themselves from the Israeli attack, they demanded that their allies launch the planned attack early. The Iraqis responded first, hitting Peled's division on a broad front centering on the 205th Armored Brigade, commanded by Col. Josef Peled (no relation to the divisional commander, Maj.Gen. Yossi Peled). The Israelis stopped the Iraqi thrust and drove them back in a hasty counter-attack.

(IDF Centurion in action on the Golan)

The Jordanians took longer to respond. Almost an hour after the Iraqis had retreated from the battlefield, the Jordanian armored brigade stuck at Peled's division. Once again, the Jordanian tanks threw off the Israelis, who believed they were Israeli. At one point, part of the Jordanian force passed between two companies of Israeli tanks who thought they were watching a lost Israeli unit returning to the line. When each side realized what was happening, a close range shootout ensued, with the Jordanians retreating back to their start positions.

(Aftermath of a battle in the Golan)

Even though it was late when he left the meeting, Sadat summoned the Soviet ambassador, Vladimir Vinogradov, to the presidential palace. When he arrived, Sadat told the Soviet ambassador that would accept a cease-fire in place. This meant that he was dropping the pre-condition that Israel would return all territory won in the 1967 war. It meant that each side would hold what they controlled when the cease-fire went in effect.

After consulting with Vinogradov, Sadat sent a message to Assad. He told Assad that he was asking for a cease-fire. In the message, Sadat stated that while Egypt could continue to fight against the Israelis, he felt that with all the support the US was sending, he was now essentially fighting the United States as well. Assad was stunned. He quickly sent a message back, urging Sadat to continue the war. If Israel had peace with Egypt, Assad probably feared that there would be resumption of the offensive towards Damascus.

Vinogradov immediately contacted his superiors in Moscow. From there, instructions were sent to the Soviet ambassador in Washington, D.C., Anatoly Dobrynin. Dobrynin was to persuade the Americans to reign in the Israelis and help set up the cease-fire. It was also suggested that Kissinger come to Moscow for the negotiations. Kissinger accepted, agreeing to arrive on October 20.

Kissinger greeted this invitation with glee. From the reports he was getting, Israel was rapidly approaching the point where their victory would move being a strategic reminder that peace was better than war to an outright humiliation of the Arab nations. In order to achieve his coup, Kissinger needed the former and to prevent the latter.

So early in the morning on October 20, he climbed aboard a plane to ensure just that.