THE SOVIET–ISRAELI WAR, 1967–1973static SAM array west of the canal. Israel defeated this thrust in what has been called
the greatest tank battle since Kursk in the Second World War.
Heikal is one of several Eg yptian sources who blamed this move on a direct and
explicit demand from Moscow, including personal appeals from Brezhnev and
Grechko (though Heikal admits he too favored the idea). Although the Soviet leaders
asserted, and Ambassador Vinogradov constantly urged Sadat, that such an advance
would maximize Eg ypt’s gains and improve its position, the Soviets’ main motive and
argument was to divert Israeli attention and forces from the northern front, where
the Syrians were already being beaten back.^1 The Eg yptian attack’s repulse with heavy
losses opened the way for the Israelis’ counter-crossing of the canal, and Eg yptian
resentment at being thus sacrificed was a leading harbinger of the ultimate break with
Moscow—thus Heikal.
The official Eg yptian military history completed soon after the war does give the
reason for the move “to reduce pressure” on Syria as well as to “strengthen [Eg ypt’s]
hold on the bridgeheads.” It makes—as usual—no mention of any Soviet input, while
blaming the Eg yptian failure on a US spy plane that on 13 October “revealed our plans
to develop the attack.”^2 Chief of Staff Shazly (as he claimed, along with both the army
corps’ commanders) opposed the “blunder from which all other blunders followed,”
and was cashiered for it even though he carried out Sadat’s order. His memoir, which is
often critical of the Soviet role on other points, does not mention them at all in this
context. Ironically, it is Shazly who took credit for devising the fictitious “Operation
41” plan, which called for precisely such an advance to the passes, for presentation to
the Soviets to justify larger demands for weapons, while the Eg yptians (as he claimed)
intended only to carry out the more modest “High Minarets.”
But at least those Soviets who had taken part in the planning expected the
Eg yptians to deliver on the plan they had been equipped for. Malashenko—who had
personally advised Shazly, and credited his own 1968 blueprint for originating the
offensive plan—was in October 1973 back in the USSR and reassigned. He was
evidently referring to “Operation 41” when he complained that “after crossing the
Suez Canal, the following operations did not carry out the recommendations that
called for rapid expansion of effort by introducing armored and reserve divisions to
develop the attack, which caused a crisis in the course of the operation.”^3
Shazly’s main motive was to blame Sadat, but he is also the only source for a signifi-
cant instance of continuity in Soviet participation from 1967 through and after the
1973 war: “A month after the war General Lashnekov [Lashchenko] ... came to Eg ypt
to be briefed on the military situation.” Shazly attended, in one of his last acts as chief
of staff. His resentment of Lashchenko’s attitude reflects years of previous experience:
“the Russians remained resolutely Russian, which is to say ... as harsh and obstinate
as ever.” This, however, referred to the Soviet general’s response to the Eg yptians’
specific battlefield lessons for improving Soviet hardware, mainly the anti-tank weap-
ons (which Shazly praised overall):