Arabs at War: Military Effectiveness, 1948-1991 by Kenneth M. Pollack

Author:Kenneth M. Pollack [Pollack, Kenneth M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Middle East, Military, Modern (16th-21st Centuries), 20th Century
Amazon: B003NHSEK0
Publisher: Bison Books
Published: 2002-10-02T04:00:00+00:00

The October War, 1973

When Egypt and Syria launched their combined surprise attack on Israel on 6 October 1973, Jordan found itself in an awkward position. On the one hand, Amman had no desire to unnecessarily provoke the Israelis. The Jordanians recognized Israel's military superiority and had no desire to repeat the experience of 1967. In addition, since 1970, Israel and Jordan had developed a kind of symbiotic relationship that neither side wished to disrupt. The Israelis had supported King Hussein during Black September by threatening to intervene if the Syrians did not back down, and this played an important role in Syria's decision not to press their invasion after 22 September. The peaceful relationship between the two countries benefited them both once the PLO had been driven out of Jordan, and Amman did not want a new Arab-Israeli conflict to destroy this harmony. On the other hand, the king felt pressure to join the Arab effort from his subjects and his Arab allies - some of whom provided him with considerable financial subsidies. Ultimately, the king agreed to commit forces to defend Syria but not to attack Israel. In addition, he went so far as to secretly ask Israel's permission to send forces to participate in the defense of Syria and to assure Tel Aviv that he had no intention of opening general hostilities with Israel.107

With a kind of absolution from Tel Aviv, Jordan dispatched the elite 4oth Armored Brigade, under the command of Col. Khalid Hajhaj alMajali, to Syria on 13 October. By then, the Syrian attack on the Golan Heights had failed, and the Syrian armies had been driven off the plateau completely (see chapter 6). Indeed, on October the Israelis had launched a counteroffensive toward Damascus, but on October the newly arrived Iraqi 3d Armored Division accidentally blundered into the exposed right flank of the Israeli strike, prompting IDF commanders to rein in their tanks and take up defensive positions. Consequently, when the Jordanians arrived in southern Syria on 13-14 October, the front had stabilized: there was no Syrian threat to the Golan, and the Israeli threat to Damascus had mostly abated.

Initially, the Jordanians were placed under the command of the Iraqi armored division, which in turn was under the control of the Syrian General Staff. Over the next several days, the Syrians employed this combined force in several badly planned, badly supported, and badly executed attacks against the southern flank of the Israeli salient. It is unclear whether the Syrians actually hoped the Iraqis and Jordanians would be able to drive the Israelis back or if they simply wanted to keep pressure on the Israelis while they regrouped their disorganized and demoralized units. Although the attacks were all lopsided defeats for the Arabs, the Israelis did not renew their drive on Damascus, and the Syrians were able to reform and reequip some of their battered formations with new weapons rushed in by the Soviets.

The first joint attack came on 16 October. The plan was for the

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.