Military Misfortunes

Home > Other > Military Misfortunes > Page 36
Military Misfortunes Page 36

by Eliot A Cohen


  47. Bar-Tov, Dado, vol. 2, p. 53.

  48. Ibid., p. 70.

  49. Compared to 20 percent in the Six-Day War. The difference is that after the first day of the Yom Kippur War the Israelis were forced to adjust their tactics to new, and more confining, operational conditions.

  50. Safran, Israel, pp. 480–83; Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, p. 498.

  51. Dupuy, Elusive Victory, p. 609.

  52. See, for example Avraham Adan’s candid account in On the Banks of Suez (San Francisco: Presidio, 1980), pp. 95–190; see also Zeev Eytan, “Ha-8 b’oktober—hama’aracha kula charka” [“October 8: The Whole Array Creaked”] Ma’arachot 268 (April 1979): 5–11. Adan’s ugda had 170 tanks at the beginning of the counterattack on the 8th; it ended it with fewer than one hundred and no noticeable gains. Sharon, who failed to support Adan’s attack, lost fifty tanks the next day, similarly without countervailing gains.

  53. Only a quarter of Israeli tank casualties appear to have resulted from missile or RPG attacks; these occurred chiefly in the first few days of the war on the Egyptian front, however. Moreover, the missile threat—to tanks on the ground, as to fighter-bombers in the air—constrained Israeli freedom of maneuver, even when it did not inflict heavy losses.

  54. Some sharp criticism can be found in Adan, “Eichut v’kamut”; Matityahu Peled, “Eich lo hitconena yisroel lamilchama” [“How Israel Failed to Prepare for War”] Ma’arachot 289–290 (October 1983): 25–28; Ya’akov Chasdai, “Milchemet yom hakippurim: hafta’a? nitsachon?” [“The Yom Kippur War: Surprise? Victory?”] Ma’arachot 275 (August 1980): 7–13 and, by the same author, Ha’emet b’tsel hamilchama [“Truth in the Shadow of War”] (Tel Aviv: Zmora, Bitan, Modan, 1978); Herzog, War of Atonement, pp. 79, 253, and pp. 270–80; Zeev Schiff, October Earthquake: Yom Kippur 1973, Louis Williams, trans. (Tel Aviv: University Publishing Projects, 1974), pp. 303ff. and passim.

  55. The full public version of the Agranat Report is to be found in Duach va’adat Agranat. Frequently cited versions that appeared in The Jerusalem Journal of International Relations 4:1 and 4:2 (1979), pp. 69–90 and 96–128 have omitted some important excerpts that were published in Hebrew, chiefly critical assessments of several senior officers.

  56. Duach va’adat Agranat, p. 74 (third report).

  57. Ibid., pp. 34–35.

  58. “All the Inefficiencies of Any Intelligence Service,” Armed Forces Journal International 111:2 (October 1973): 47. Emphasis in the original. This issue of AFJI—which dealt almost exclusively with Israeli security—appeared on virtually the same day the war broke out, reflecting interviews done only weeks earlier. It is a fascinating source for the mentality of the IDF before the war broke out.

  59. Alouph Hareven, “Disturbed Hierarchies: Israeli Intelligence in 1954 and 1973,” Jerusalem Quarterly 9 (Fall 1978): 12. See also pp. 15–16.

  60. Du’ach va’adat Agranat, p. 36.

  61. In point of fact, Soviet arms supplies to Egypt increased rapidly following Sadat’s (temporary) rapprochement with the Russians at the very end of 1972. Sadat, in fact, later remarked that by the spring of 1973 the Egyptians were “drowning” in Soviet weapons.

  62. Bar Tov, Dado, Vol. I, p. 287.

  63. Interview, retired IDF officer—September 1988, Tel Aviv.

  64. See Richard K. Betts, Surprise Attack (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1982), pp. 287–88. A former National Security Council staff member interviewed for this chapter recalled considerable scorn directed against the American intelligence community on the morning of October 7, 1973.

  65. Michael I. Handel, Perception, Deception, and Surprise: The Case of the Yom Kippur War, Jerusalem Papers on Peace Problems, # 19 (Jerusalem: Hebrew University, Leonard Davis Institute for International Relations, 1976), pp. 3 3–38. Admittedly, the small but efficient Israeli Navy needed no large-scale call-up to go on to a war footing.

  66. Du’ach va’adat Agranat, pp. 37–38. It should be noted, in addition, that the head of the Mossad, Zvi Zamir, took a much graver view of the situation from late September on, although he did not press his arguments on senior decision-makers.

  67. Interviews, retired IDF officers, Tel Aviv, September, 1988.

  68. Interview, retired IDF officer, Tel Aviv, September, 1988.

  69. Heikal, Road to Ramadan, p. 17.

  70. This was stressed in a number of my interviews with retired IDF officers, Tel Aviv, September, 1988.

  71. See, for example, Janice Gross Stein, “‘Intelligence’ and ‘Stupidity’ Reconsidered: Estimation and Decision in Israel, 1973,” Journal of Strategic Studies: 3:1 (January 1980): 147–77, and by the same author, “The 1973 Intelligence Failure: A Reconsideration,” Jerusalem Quarterly 24 (Summer 1982): 41–54.

  72. What follows is based in large measure on several interviews with retired IDF officers, Tel Aviv, September 1988. See as well Stein, “The 1973 Intelligence Failure,” p. 43.

  73. Interview, retired IDF officer, Tel Aviv, September, 1988.

  74. See Handel, Perception, Deception and Surprise; and by the same author, Military Deception in Peace and War, Jerusalem Papers on Peace Problems #38 (Jerusalem: Hebrew University, Leonard Davis Institute for International Relations, 1985), as well as Intelligence and National Security 2:3 (July 1987), particularly Handel’s article, “Introduction: Strategic and Operational Deception in Historical Perspective,” pp. 1–91. In addition, see Zeevi, tochnit hahona’a and the accounts of Shazlie and Heikal.

  75. “A Secret Israeli Ally: Arab Rust,” Armed Forces Journal International 111:2 (October 1973):45. This article draws on a number of Arab and international press stories—the sole disagreements expressed with the “Arab Rust” theory came from Israeli intelligence officers interviewed for the story.

  76. See Lanir, Habajia’a habasisit, pp. 32–34, 51–54, and passim. Order of battle information with respect to Syria was accurate, but AMAN misjudged the direction of a key Syrian thrust, which went southeast to northwest parallel to an old oil pipeline, rather than directly east-west, as expected.

  77. See Heikal, Road to Ramadan, p. 213.

  78. See the description in Wallach, Lissak, and Itzchaki, Atlas karta, p. 43.

  79. See the discussion in Bar Tov, Dado, vol. 1, pp. 240–251.

  80. Yoel Ben Porat, “Milchemet yom hakippurim: ta’ut b’mai v’hafta’a b’oktober,” [“The Yom Kippur War: Mistake in May and Surprise in October”] Ma’arachot 299 (July/August 1985): 2–9. Ben Porat, a brigadier general in AMAN, was head of an important collection agency there. The article is based on a classified internal study published within AMAN in February 1985, and conducted by Dr. Ariel Levite, an intelligence officer and well-known scholar in intelligence studies. See also Yoel Ben Porat, “Ha’ara b’shulei hama’amar ‘milchemet yom hakippurim: ta’ut b’mai v’hafta’a b’oktober,’” [“A Note in Connection with the Article: The Yom Kippur War: Mistake in May and Surprise in October’”] Ma’ arachot 302–303 (March/April 1986):55. It should be noted that some AMAN officers fail to find Ben Porat’s argument convincing. See also Aharon Levran, “Hesber acher l’hafta’a b’milchemet yom hakippurim” [“Another Explanation of the Surprise of the Yom Kippur War”], Ha’aretz October 12, 1986, p. 10. Levran was also a brigadier general in the IDF.

  81. Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, p. 297. See also pp. 205–28, 294–96.

  82. A remarkable, but by no means implausible assessment of an event that infuriated the Arabs and puzzled those who have studied the war. The airlift was extremely conspicuous, involving large Soviet transports, and much conversation over airplane radios in Russian—a clear tip-off, and an important factor in shaking AMAN’s confidence in its assessment of “low probability” of war.

  83. See Heikal, Road to Ramadan, p. 20. Consideration of episodes such as the possibility of postponing D-day in June 1944 because of poor weather gives a good sense of the kinds of costs involved. Several IDF officials assured me that Sadat would probably have begun the war on Oct
ober 6 even if Israel had mobilized a day or two earlier—and Heikal’s assertion that the Egyptians expected 26,000 casualities in the canal crossing, supports this view.

  84. William James, “The Will to Believe,” in The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897; reprint New York: Dover, 1956), p. 25.

  85. See Haber, Hayom tifrotz milchama, p. 15.

  86. See Chaim Bar Lev, “Hamilchama v’mataroteha al reka milchamot tsahal” [“The War and its Objectives Against the Background of the IDF’s Wars”] Ma’arachot 266 (October-November 1978): 2–8.

  87. “Israel’s Combat Arms,” Armed Forces Journal International 111:2 (October 1973): 64.

  88. Zeev Schiff, A History of the Israeli Army: 1874 to the Present (New York: Macmillan, 1985), p. 159.

  89. Most IDF prewar planning assumed pre-emption, although senior IDF officers understood that this might not always occur. Interview, Major General Israel Tal, Tel Aviv, September 12, 1988.

  90. Another is in the continuing drive for a decisive victory along the lines of June 1967. See Yoav Ben Horin and Barry Posen, Israel’s Strategic Doctrine R-2845-NA (Santa Monica: RAND, 1981) for a good discussion of Israel’s doctrine. An interesting and quite self-critical view is Israel Tal, “Israel’s Doctrine of National Security: Background and Dynamics,” Jerusalem Quarterly No. 4 (Summer 1977), pp. 44–57, updated in “Al bitachon leumi” [“On National Security”] Ma’arachot 286 (February 1983), pp. 3–7.

  91. Interview, Major General Israel Tal, Tel Aviv, September 12, 1988.

  92. Dayan, Avnei derekh, vol. 2, p. 575.

  93. See Bar Lev, “Hamilchama,” p. 7, which discusses Egyptian objectives in terms of reoccupying the Sinai.

  94. “Israel’s Combat Arms,” p. 70. See too Dov Tamari, “Milchemet yom hakippurim: musagim, ha’arachot, miskenot,” [“The Yom Kippur War: Ideas, Assessments, Conclusions”] Ma’arachot 276–277 (October-November 1980), pp. 12–13.

  95. For a very interesting comparative analysis that takes a different position, see Ephraim Kam, Surprise Attack: A Victim’s Perspective (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988).

  96. Aharon Levran, “Hafta’a v’hatra’a: iyunim b’sh’ailot y’sod” [“Surprise and Warning: Reflections on Fundamental Questions”] Ma’arachot 276–277 (October/November 1980), p. 18.

  97. Levran, “Hesber acher.”

  98. See F. H. Hinsley et al., British Intelligence in the Second World War: Its Influence on Strategy and Operations, vol. 3, Part 2 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 429–30.

  99. Yoel Ben Porat, “Milchemet yom hakippurim—knas deterministi shel hahistoriah?” [“The Yom Kippur War—An Inevitable Penalty of History?”] Ma’arachot 305 (September 1986), p. 22.

  100. The Hebrew kalut rosh connotes a grievous fecklessness.

  101. Interview with retired senior IDF officer, Tel Aviv, September 1988.

  102. For a sustained discussion of the many dimensions of military effectiveness, and the need to think through all of them, see Allan R. Millett and Williamson Murray, eds., Military Effectiveness, 3 vols. (Boston. Allen & Unwin, 1988).

  Chapter 6

  FAILURE TO ADAPT

  The British at Gallipoli, August 1915

  1. Command Paper Cd. 8490, Dardanelles Commission: First Report, 1917, pp. 39–40.

  2. Hamilton mss., “The Gallipoli Campaign,” vol. 2, p. 1. H 15/20. Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, King’s College, London.

  3. John Masefield, Gallipoli (London: Heinemann, 1916), p. 109.

  4. David French, “The Dardanelles, Mecca and Kut: Prestige as a factor in British Eastern Strategy 1914–1916,” War and Society 5/1 (May 1987): 45–61.

  5. General Sir Ian Hamilton, Gallipoli Diary (London: Edward Arnold, 1920), vol. 1, p. 304 (June 15, 1915).

  6. A. J. Marder, The Anatomy of British Sea Power: A History of British Naval Policy in the Pre-Dreadnought Era (Hamden, Conn.: Archon, 1964), p. 495.

  7. A. J. Marder, From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow II: The War Years: To the Eve of Jutland 1914–1916 (London: Oxford University Press, 1965), pp. 233–34, 245–47.

  8. PRO, Minutes of War Council, January 8, 1915, Cab. 42/1/12.

  9. E. K. G. Sixsmith, British Generalship in the Twentieth Century (London: Arms and Armour Press, 1970), p. 148.

  10. Thomas Pakenham, The Boer War (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1979), pp. 555–60.

  11. Lloyd George Papers. Bax-Ironside to Grey, March 18, 1915. House of Lords Record Office, C/16/4/2.

  12. Liman von Sanders, Five Years in Turkey (Annapolis, Md.: U.S. Naval Institute, 1928), pp. 56–61.

  13. Cmd. 371, The Final Report of the Dardanelles Commission, 1919, pp. 17–18.

  14. Robert Rhodes James, Gallipoli (London: Batsford, 1965), p. 53.

  15. PRO, Dardanelles Commission: Minutes of Evidence, Qs. 4357–68. Cab. 19/33.

  16. PRO, Replies to questions put by Australian Official Historian on fighting in Gallipoli (Answers by Turkish General Staff), Qs. 1–4, 5–6. Cab. 45/236.

  17. Ibid., Qs. 15–17, 19.

  18. C. F. Aspinall Oglander, Military Operations: Gallipoli (London: Heineman, 1929), vol. 1, pp. 201–15; Hamilton, Gallipoli Diary, vol. 1, p. 147.

  19. Rhodes James, Gallipoli, p. 130.

  20. Winston S. Churchill The World Crisis (New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1923), vol. 2, p. 454.

  21. PRO, “The 11th Division at Suvla Bay,” Lt. Col. N. Malcolm (1919?), p. 1, Cab. 45/258.

  22. Alan Moorehead, Gallipoli (London: New English Library, 1963), p. 250.

  23. C. E. W. Bean, Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–18 (Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1921), vol. 2, p. 445.

  24. Rhodes James, Gallipoli, p. 238.

  25. Hamilton, Gallipoli Diary, vol. 1, p. 118 (April 18, 1915).

  26. Eric Larrabee, Commander in Chief: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, His Lieutenants & Their War (New York: Harper & Row, 1987), pp. 262–66, 269; Jeter A. Isely and Philip A. Crowl, The U.S. Marines and Amphibious War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1951), pp. 109–18.

  27. Compton Mackenzie, Gallipoli Memories (London: Panther, 1965), p. 275.

  28. C.F. Aspinall Oglander, Military Operations: Gallipoli (London: Heinemann, 1932), vol. 2, p. 148.

  29. Cmd. 371, The Final Report, pp. 144–45.

  30. Aspinall Oglander, Military Operations, vol. 2, p. 149.

  31. Cmd. 371, The Final Report, p. 34.

  32. Hamilton, Gallipoli Diary, vol. 1, p. 331 (June 24, 1915).

  33. Cmd. 371, The Final Report, p. 27 (dispatch of December 11, 1915).

  34. PRO, Minutes of Evidence, Q. 9621, Cab. 19/3 3.

  35. Aspinall Oglander, Military Operations, vol. 2, pp. 151–55.

  36. PRO, “Suvla Bay (The Second Landing). Extract from the diary of Lt. J. M. Heath R.N.,” August 6, 1915. Cab. 45/253.

  37. PRO, Answers by the Turkish General Staff, Qs. 73–76, Cab. 45/236.

  38. Rhodes James, Gallipoli, p. 281.

  39. Aspinall Oglander, Military Operations, vol. 2, pp. 263–64.

  40. Cmd. 371, The Final Report, p. 38.

  41. Stopford to Mahon, August 8, 1915 (7:10 A.M.); Stopford to GHQ, August 8, 1915 (10:50 A.M.); Aspinall Oglander, Military Operations, vol. 2, pp. 270–71.

  42. Cmd. 371, The Final Report, p. 41.

  43. Churchill, The World Crisis, vol. 2, p. 468.

  44. Eric Wheler Bush, Gallipoli (London: Allen & Unwin, 1975), p. 249.

  45. In his evidence to the Dardanelles Commission, Stopford flatly denied Hamilton’s story. Minutes of Evidence, Qs. 9747–48. Cab. 19/33.

  46. Hamilton, Gallipoli Diary, vol. 2, p. 66 (August 8, 1915).

  47. Bean, Official History of Australia, vol. 2, p. 700.

  48. PRO, Heath Diary, August 8, 1915, Cab. 45/253.

  49. PRO, Minutes of Evidence, Qs. 8 331, 9 734, 9 740, 9 744, Cab. 19/33.

  50. Ibid., Qs. 7823, 10 382, 11 112, 12 562, 12 564.

&
nbsp; 51. Ibid., Q. 14 536.

  52. Cmd. 371, The Final Report, pp. 65, 67.

  53. Ibid., p. 64.

  54. Bean, Official History of Australia, vol. 1, pp. 465–66, 573.

  55. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 446.

  56. David French, “The Military Background to the ‘Shell Crisis’ of 1915,” Journal of Strategic Studies 2:2 (September 1979): 192–205.

  57. Cmd. 371, The Final Report, p. 50.

  58. PRO, Minutes of Evidence, Q. 10 632. Cab. 19/33. Cf. Mackenzie, Gallipoli Memories, p. 127.

  59. Bean, Official History of Australia, vol. 2, p. 468.

  60. Aspinall Oglander, Military Operations, vol. 2, p. 149.

  61. Bush, Gallipoli, p. 239.

  62. PRO, Minutes of Evidence, Q. 13 941, Cab. 19/33.

  63. Cecil Malthus, Anzac: A Retrospect (Christchurch, New Zealand: Whitcombe and Tomb, 1965), p. 91.

  64. Hamilton mss., Russell to Hamilton, September 24, 1916, H 17/3/1/1. Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, King’s College, University of London.

  65. PRO, Minutes of Evidence, Q. 7277, Cab. 19/33.

  66. Kevin Fewster ed., Gallipoli Correspondent: The Frontline Diary of C. E. W. Bean (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1983), p. 67 (April 27, 1915).

  67. Bean, Official History of Australia, vol. 1, p. 452.

  68. PRO, “The 11th Division at Suvla Bay,” p. 26, Cab. 45/258. Major-General Hammersley told the Dardanelles Commission, “I do not think anybody quite realised what the country was like before we landed there.” Minutes of Evidence, Q. 10 274. Cab. 19/3 3.

  69. PRO, Minutes of Evidence, Qs. 7641–43. Cab. 19/3 3.

  70. Ibid., Q. 8022.

  71. Aspinall Oglander, Military Operations, vol. 2, p. 141.

  72. Hamilton, Gallipoli Diary, vol. 1, pp. 25, 178, 329 (March 17, April 29, and June 24, 1915).

  73. Cmd. 371, The Final Report, pp. 50–51; Minutes of Evidence, Q. 11 757, Cab. 19/33.

  74. S. W. Roskill, Hankey: Man of Secrets (London:Collins, 1970), vol. 1, p. 198.

  75. Hamilton mss. Stopford to Hamilton, August 11, 1915, H. 17/7/32/7, KCL.

 

‹ Prev