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Chapter 1: What were the intelligence failures that led to the Yom Kippur War?
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Hello and welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arnand.
And me, William Durupul. And today we've got something a little bit different.
October 1973, the Yom Kippur War, the day Arabs crossed the Suez Canal into the Sinai. The intelligence failure that made this possible, the extraordinary military engineering that made this happen, and the oil embargo that made the whole world feel the consequences. This is by absolutely any measure one of the great thrillers, if you like, of the 20th century.
I think we should start with one of Avi Schleim's great insights from his book, The Iron Wall. And he very much blames the intelligence failures in 1973, the fact that the Egyptians were able to surprise the Israelis as much as they did, to what he calls ha-conceptia in Hebrew. It's a set of assumptions that he says are deeply embedded in the Israeli military thinking of the period.
And it allows the Israelis completely to underestimate all the Arab armies, but particularly the Egyptians.
Can you talk us through the assumptions and just make those clear to us?
So if you remember back in the 1967 episode that we did with Eugene, the key Israeli coup was to destroy the Egyptian Air Force, the enormous Egyptian Air Force at that point, on the ground in the first 10 minutes of the war.
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Chapter 2: Who was Anwar Sadat and how did he change Egypt's strategy?
And an idea embedded itself in Israeli military thinking that Egypt will not go to war without first achieving air superiority of Israel. And as they'd lost most of their air force in 1967 and had yet to rebuild it, that basically Israel was completely safe.
The other idea is that Syria, which was a smaller power than Egypt, Egypt we don't really think of today as a kind of major military power in the Middle East, but it was in the 1960s.
And the idea that Israel had at this point was that Syria would not attack without Egypt and that a coordinated Egyptian-Syrian assault was therefore impossible if there hadn't been a proper Egyptian rebuilding of its air wing. It's a very reasonable assumption. Air power is the key in desert warfare, and Egypt genuinely had not restored its air force to anything like 1967 levels.
But according to Avi's assessment, this had led to such contempt for the Arab armies following this lightning victory in 1967 that we talked about. They simply thought there was really no possibility of Arab assault on Israel in the early 70s, and therefore there were no countermeasures in place.
Israel thought nobody will act without Egypt say so, and Nasser is not there to say so anymore. That's also not a ridiculous assumption. And the man who comes to replace him, Anwar Sadat, they underestimate him. So let me tell you a little bit about Anwar Sadat. He's born in 1918 in a small village in the Nile Delta. He's dark-skinned.
And this is important because it is still a society where, you know, the lighter-skinned people are the ones with the power, and being dark-skinned carried a social stigma. So he's regarded, really, in Cairo politics as a provincial outsider, sort of a yokel.
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Chapter 3: What innovative tactics did Egypt use to breach Israeli defenses?
He's called the donkey, in fact, initially, by the kind of the grandees in Cairo, yeah.
But when he inherits the presidency from Nasser in 1970, he's had years in prison. He's had years in opposition to think about what he would do if he was in charge of Egypt, what Egypt needs to maintain that position that it did have under Nasser of being the colossus. of the Middle East.
What he decides is the most daring strategic analysis of any Arab leader of his generation, that Egypt cannot afford to remain at war with Israel. It's a striking thing. People haven't dared to say it or even think it. The economy is wrecked. His army Humiliated twice in a decade. The Air Force destroyed. Sinai gone.
And now you've got the Soviets who are there thick on the ground, dragging their feet about sending their most sophisticated weapons to Egypt. So he realizes that if he's going to get any of this back, to restore the honor, you know, do something about this humiliation, he needs to get Sinai back and he can't get Sinai back without America.
So getting America requires sort of demonstrating to Washington that there is a status quo in the Middle East.
So no one really wants to sort of break the deadlock. Israel has got hold of the West Bank and Gaza. Jordan has lost the West Bank. Egypt has lost Gaza. The Soviets, who were very enthusiastic backers of Egypt, have now got a bit cold on him. And they're just not sending the new weapons.
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Chapter 4: How did the Yom Kippur War impact Israeli military strategy?
Particularly, they want anti-aircraft missiles, the SAM missile systems. And they're not getting them. And they can tell that the Soviets are sort of going a bit cold on them. So the whole thing is stuck. And he also has this long-term idea of basically dumping the Soviets and going over to under the American umbrella.
You can see that America is the growing economy of the moment, and he thinks it's a better bet. So he has to somehow re-engage everybody in the Middle East. And he has this idea that if he can make at least a decent stab at getting the Sinai back, he can put... the whole business of occupied territory back on the agenda.
So he comes up with this idea with great patience and precision, and it's a bit of a genius plan. He first of all mobilizes the Egyptian army in May 1973. And Israel mobilizes its reserves, thinking that war is coming. And then he stands them down. And August, the same thing happens again. So he sort of trains the Israelis not to take these Egyptian mobilizations seriously.
In other words, he's sort of calling Wolf
It hits them in the exchequer because every time they mobilize, it's not cheap. You know, tens of millions of dollars.
And the idea is that he's sort of training them to ignore him. And Mossad buys this. They come to the conclusion that they don't need to take what they regard as Egyptian theater seriously.
But it's a brilliant deception. If a deception is going to work, you do the same thing again and again. People expect the same result again and again. But then in the week before October the 6th, the Egyptian army stages what looks like to these areas, oh, they're off again. You know, another exercise, massive troop concentrations visible from Israeli observation posts on the eastern bank.
Israeli intelligence assessing, you know, well, this is the same as we saw, you know, last Tuesday.
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Chapter 5: What role did the United States play during the Yom Kippur War?
The exercise is scheduled to conclude on October the 7th. The Israelis note the dates, they file the reports, but they don't mobilize this time. Remember, you know, tens of millions every time you mobilize because the idea is, you know, this is just mere theater. If not mobilizing, how is Israel fortified? I mean, do they have defensive positions if they're not moving into attacking positions?
So at the end of 1967, the border resolves itself at the Suez Canal. And at the far side of the Suez Canal, the Israelis have built something called the Bar Lev Line, which has cost millions to put in place. It's regarded as absolutely state of the art.
It's on the eastern bank of the Suez Canal and consists of 33 heavily fortified strong points built into and atop of a sand rampart, which is a massive 20 to 25 meters high. That's roughly eight stories running 150 kilometers along the entire length of the canal back. So the Israelis think that they're completely secure.
They've got bunkers, observation posts, tank ramps, connecting roads, allowing reinforcements within hours. It's like a sort of modern version of Hadrian's Wall, if you like. And the idea is that this is impregnable. And Israeli military engineers have estimated it would take any Egyptian crossing force at least 24 to 48 hours to breach that rampart, to establish bridges.
And during that time, again, thanks to the conception, the idea is that the Israeli Air Force, which has shown itself to be so incredibly brilliant in 1967, will simply destroy any Arab air force or any Arab ground forces that get across the Caval. they'd be shredded. In Israeli eyes, you know, the Barlov Line isn't just a fortification, it's a guarantee of time.
And it gives the Israelis the times to mobilize the reserve and get these aircraft shot down.
Securing the knowledge that the Soviets have not given surface-to-air missiles.
They have given a few, but haven't given as many as the Egyptians want. Yeah.
So, okay. So, I mean, that does sound like it's a good plan on the Israeli side. What's going on in Sadat's mind?
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Chapter 6: How did the oil crisis reshape the global economy in 1973?
So, Sadat has had the advantage of a young Egyptian military engineering genius called Baki Zaki Yusuf. And Baki Zaki Youssef is sitting at his desk looking at plans for the Bartlev sand rampart. And he has an idea so simple it's almost absurd. It's made of packed sand, this line. You don't blow up sand, you wash it away. And he proposes to use high-pressure water cannons.
And they've already got these high-pressure equipment at the canal because it's used for drenching operations in the canal. So they have everything they need already to hand. And he has this genius idea that he will attach these pumps to floats. He'll float the pumps in the canal and he'll wash away the sandbank with powerful jets of water and do it instantly. So they test this.
And to everyone's thrill on the Egyptian side, when they try it out, it works perfectly. So they quietly import 300 more British-made petrol-driven pumps, 150 more German pumps are added to it with gas turbines. And each combination of two German pumps or three British pumps can, they estimate, blast through a 15-meter section of wall in under two hours.
And so this fortification that's built to withstand an artillery onslaught can be washed away with jets of water very quickly.
The timing is important because in the Israeli reckoning, 48 hours it buys them to get the Air Force up in the air to strafe and deal with whatever's coming behind. But actually in two hours, that's just completely game changing.
Exactly that. So they have one other very clever idea, which is to do this on the holiest day of the Jewish year.
The day where observant Israelis, they fast, they go to synagogue, roads are empty. This is a huge practical obstacle because you choose a date like that.
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Chapter 7: What were the immediate effects of the Arab oil embargo?
You're choosing a date when the army simply has not got its boots on.
Yeah, literally.
Yeah. So take us to five past two in the afternoon because that time is very notable.
So they pick on this time, 2.05 p.m. And at this point, 2,000 guns, rocket launchers and mortars open up simultaneously. And the noise is so massive, it's heard in Cairo. It's 200 miles away. 2,000 artillery pieces firing 10,500 shells in the first minute. 175 shells per second.
And the Israeli strong points on the eastern bank, each manned by a small platoon of reservists, are immediately overwhelmed. Simultaneously, 250 Egyptian military aircraft take off and strike the Israeli air bases, radar installations, command centers, and artillery positions in the Sinai. Exactly what the Israelis had done to them in 1967, the Egyptians succeed in doing
only into the Sinai, but still. And then, in an operation which somehow Mossad, the legendary Israeli intelligence service, has somehow not got their eyes on, they have rehearsed this operation hundreds of times. 8,000 Egyptian infantry in 1,000 rubber assault boats cross the Suez Canal in the first wave.
They paddle across under fire, land on the eastern bank, and immediately begin clearing paths through the minefields beyond the sand rampart. Behind them, within minutes, the water cannons tear into the packed sand.
Enormous pressure aimed at them. Within four and a half hours, just four and a half hours, the Egyptians managed to blast 80 separate breaches in the Balef Sand Rampart. 80 gaps, 80 spaces wide enough to carry vehicles and bridges and armor, 3 million cubic meters of packed sand.
And think of it as the beach analogy of, you know, sort of these enormous structures which just crumble with the blast of water.
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Chapter 8: How did the Yom Kippur War set the stage for future peace negotiations?
Through these gaps, ten heavy pontoon bridges and five light bridges, pre-packed, pre-rehearsed, snapped into place by Egyptian engineering units, under fire, and by midnight on October 6th, just ten hours after the attack began, ten bridges earned place across the canal. 50 ferries are operating. 80,000 Egyptian troops are on the eastern bank.
By the morning of October 7th, the crossing is more or less complete. 100,000 troops, 900 tanks, and 12,000 support vehicles have crossed the Suez Canal. All but one of the Bar Lev fortifications has been captured and destroyed.
And most importantly, these Soviet SAM missiles, which the Egyptians are so keen to get their hands on, the ones they have got, have brought down 27 Israeli planes in the opening hours of the war.
Join us after the break where we take you through the next few hours of what everybody thought was impossible.
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