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Just a scared soldier The battle for the Budapest outpost on the Suez Canal was a microcosm of the entire Yom Kippur War. The sector commanders, who should have known what was coming, were thrust unprepared into the war. Consequently, the battles were fought sloppily, with a lack of knowledge of the field, without the proper organization and integration of forces, and in a panic bordering on hysteria. What saved the day was the high motivation of the junior officers and ordinary warriors, who paid a very high and unnecessary price in blood in a series of battles whose real contribution to the outcome of the war was marginal. Thirty years later, today’s army, the senior officers who remain from those days, and the same politicians who were involved in the war then are still trying to keep the public in the dark. The truth, nonetheless, is gradually being revealed. As the commander of the Budapest outpost, I first encountered the arrogance of the brigade command in the briefing we, the officers and NCOs of the Jerusalem Brigade, were given before about half of us were sent to man the outposts on the Suez Canal just before Rosh Hashana. After the brigade intelligence officer and commander gave us a survey of Egypt’s regular forces in the canal area, compared to the meager Israeli forces, one of the sergeants asked a simple question: "What will happen if the Egyptians simply decide to roll forward? We wouldn’t even know. The first warning would be when they crush us." "When someone breaks wind in Cairo, we hear it in Tel Aviv,‘ was the disdainful answer. ’We’ll have plenty of time to replace you with regular units if and when we think something is about to happen." The disdain was not because we were "old" reserve soldiers, but because we were just ordinary infantry soldiers. "Even if they surprise us and cross over,‘ continued the officer, ’the air force and armored divisions will give them the heave-ho half an hour afterwards!" OF COURSE, when the moment of truth came, those commanders were not around. The information concerning the Egyptian preparations for war that we kept sending to the brigade command was rebuffed with the same disdain. In fact, if the war had not started on Saturday, I would have been relieved of my post as outpost commander on Sunday, October 7, because I was "sowing panic among the troops." Panic is what my superior officers called my efforts to prepare them and my men for the inevitable. I couldn’t believe how stupid the IDF plans to protect the Bar Lev line were. The preparations were irrelevant to the threat. To call the Suez Canal a fortified obstacle was a joke — 14 outposts along a waterline over 160 kilometers long; fewer than 400 infantry soldiers; inferior to the Egyptian army in both arms and equipment. The IDF plan was a recipe for disaster from the moment the war was launched. There was nothing secret about the way the Egyptians planned to fight the battles on the Suez Canal. Most of the material on this subject comes from the experience of the Russian army in World War II and the developments since. The Russian army doctrine regarding the crossing of fortified water obstacles was freely available to the IDF, along with the fact that the Egyptian and Syrian armies drew their doctrine, arms, and military technology from their Russian guides. To attack Budapest, the Egyptians did not have to cross the canal. All they needed was to position their tanks close enough to shoot. Thirty shells a minute came at us from heavy artillery, shells, mortars, and Katyusha rockets. The outpost filled with thick, black smoke. Two or three times, Mig and Sukhoi fighter jets made sorties. The devastation was extensive. But despite the shock and confusion, the outpost quickly reorganized to defend itself. Weapons were cleaned and the soldiers filled their pockets with hand grenades, since we next expected hand-to-hand fighting. A battery of 155-mm. cannons assisted the company outposts on the water line and shelled the Egyptian forces as they crossed over. The whine of outgoing shells mixed with the explosion of those landing on us, and the black smoke of our Howitzers mixed with the smoke and dust of the devastation sowed by the Egyptians. I couldn’t see through the dense smoke. Then, the Egyptians added to the confusion by launching smoke shells. Luckily, I knew from my studies of the military literature that this was meant to camouflage the coming attack. The Egyptian artillery was following the Russian doctrine to the letter.I jumped out of the ditch and ran to a sand mound where the smoke appeared a bit thinner. I saw an alarming sight. Tank after tank, one armored personnel carrier after another, the Egyptian attack force poured off the ramparts and joined the front-line forces, with infantry commando forces positioning themselves behind each vehicle. Very slowly and precisely, the forces arranged themselves in a phalanx and waited for orders to attack. I gave the soldiers orders to station themselves near the entrances to the bunker to get ready for battle. The shelling continued. The moment the phalanx began to move towards us, Zion, my signaler, heard over the radio that two unidentified tanks were located about 100 meters away on the back road. Unable to get them on the radio, I zigzagged among the falling shells to reach the tanks. The flaps were closed. Huffing and wheezing, I picked up the tank phone but no one answered. Every second counted. I climbed up to the turret, praying the tank wouldn’t start moving. I began banging on the top, competing with the shells exploding on all sides. Finally, the dome opened and a boy’s face peered out. "Are you the commander?‘ I yelled. He yelled back that he was. ’Start moving and tell the other tank to follow!" Hanging on to the tank turret, I navigated them through the smoke to the billowing outpost along the waterline until where the smoke was thin enough to see the Egyptian phalanx. One after another, flaming torches were lit, tank turrets flew up into the air and what had resembled an orderly parade ground turned into an inferno of burning men running about, screaming for help, getting run over by the tanks and personnel carriers trying to maneuver backwards, to get away. The smoking Budapest outpost sent the Egyptians an unambiguous message: Despite the surprise attack, the huge disparity in forces, and the difficult opening conditions — we are still here! I CALLED the battle for Budapest a microcosm of the entire war: Most of those killed and wounded were hit during the attempts to stop the Egyptian commando ambush on the access route to the outpost. But this happened when holding onto Budapest, as with the entire line of outposts, was no longer necessary — from the moment the war became a certainty. The line itself had no significance whatsoever regarding the political outcome of the war. As a generalization, it may be stated that following the terrible price in blood it paid, Israel avidly accepted the settlement, more or less, that Anwar Sadat had offered before the war. This means that the Yom Kippur War was a war that could have been prevented. It was Moshe Dayan who repeatedly proposed that Israel withdraw from the Suez Canal, which had enormous economic and national significance for Egypt, and allow it to be reopened. Egypt for its part offered a settlement that involved an Israeli retreat from the canal in the context of a non-belligerence treaty. In fact, Israel and Egypt shared identical interests on this matter. As a result, the quarrel over what Egypt defined as the goal of the war, and which Israel defined as a more convenient strategic situation, was an act of stupidity. The situation on the Syrian front was entirely different. Syria had refused any settlement that involved recognition of Israel, while on the Golan Heights only 18 kilometers separated Israel from a return to Syrian domination over Israel’s settlements in the eastern Galilee and its water sources. Syria alone would not have been able to launch a military escapade against Israel, although it dearly wanted to. Egypt was not interested in a military adventure and offered negotiations for a political settlement. There was, in fact, a fundamental conflict of interest between Syria and Egypt from the outset, which was clearly illustrated later in Sadat’s journey to Jerusalem and eventual peace settlement. Israel did not have the foresight to exploit this basic conflict of interest. If it had, the lives of at least 2,000 soldiers could have been saved. The writer led the postwar protest movement that led to Golda Meir’s resignation.
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