The Sword And The Olive (19 page)
Read The Sword And The Olive Online
Authors: Martin van Creveld
On September 17, 1948, while the second truce was still in effect, a party of LECHI men murdered the UN mediator, Count Folke Bernadotte, and one of his assistants. The previous day he had submitted his proposals to resolve the conflict, which included redrawing the borders to establish a much smaller Jewish state than that provided in the UN resolution of November 29, 1947 (the entire Negev Desert was to be taken away) and granting the right of return to Arab refugees. His murder was roundly condemned by the government, which nevertheless used the opportunity to put the Jewish house in order. During the next few days two hundred LECHI men were arrested, and the dissolution of the IDF’s former ETSEL battalions was ordered. Having lost their troops, former ETSEL leaders were deprived of any participation in power and consigned to the opposition (from which they would emerge, to everybody’s amazement, following the 1977 elections).
In the short run, much more significant was the decision to dismember PALMACH. As the
Yishuv
’s main strike force, PALMACH had borne the brunt of the fighting between December 1947 and May 1948; subsequently, when it was swamped by newly raised IDF formations, it continued to act as the latter’s cutting edge. Elite formations have a way of looking down on the rest of the forces and disobeying orders; PALMACH was no exception (to the point that Allon felt obliged to apologize for his men’s arrogance).
32
Early in the war PALMACH brigades, engaged in desperate fighting all over the country, expressed their lack of confidence in Yadin and the general staff, repeatedly refusing to carry out orders unless they had been transmitted to them by way of PALMACH’s own central headquarters.
33
Subsequently entire groups of PALMACH men deserted their assigned units to rejoin their comrades.
34
On another occasion PALMACHniks stopped an IDF convoy, beat its occupants, and “confiscated” a jeep and seventy-six rifles—resulting in a complaint that found its way to Ben Gurion himself.
35
Yishuv
’s main strike force, PALMACH had borne the brunt of the fighting between December 1947 and May 1948; subsequently, when it was swamped by newly raised IDF formations, it continued to act as the latter’s cutting edge. Elite formations have a way of looking down on the rest of the forces and disobeying orders; PALMACH was no exception (to the point that Allon felt obliged to apologize for his men’s arrogance).
32
Early in the war PALMACH brigades, engaged in desperate fighting all over the country, expressed their lack of confidence in Yadin and the general staff, repeatedly refusing to carry out orders unless they had been transmitted to them by way of PALMACH’s own central headquarters.
33
Subsequently entire groups of PALMACH men deserted their assigned units to rejoin their comrades.
34
On another occasion PALMACHniks stopped an IDF convoy, beat its occupants, and “confiscated” a jeep and seventy-six rifles—resulting in a complaint that found its way to Ben Gurion himself.
35
According to Ben Gurion’s U.S. adviser, Col. David Marcus, PALMACH in the meantime had developed into “the best-motivated infantry in the world.”
36
Though the incidents were indicative of the organization’s superb cohesion and fighting spirit, they also presented a challenge that no defense minister or well-run armed force could tolerate; perhaps, as often claimed, they were seized upon merely to rid a force affiliated with the prime minister’s left-wing political rivals. In any case the order to disband PALMACH went out on October 7—first its headquarters and then—after the war ended—its fighting formations. With that, the integration of the IDF as the Jewish state’s sole armed force for use against external enemies was accomplished. It was a move that the PALMACHniks never forgot or forgave, and many of them left the IDF en masse as soon as the war ended.
36
Though the incidents were indicative of the organization’s superb cohesion and fighting spirit, they also presented a challenge that no defense minister or well-run armed force could tolerate; perhaps, as often claimed, they were seized upon merely to rid a force affiliated with the prime minister’s left-wing political rivals. In any case the order to disband PALMACH went out on October 7—first its headquarters and then—after the war ended—its fighting formations. With that, the integration of the IDF as the Jewish state’s sole armed force for use against external enemies was accomplished. It was a move that the PALMACHniks never forgot or forgave, and many of them left the IDF en masse as soon as the war ended.
Thus the stage was set for the final act in the great drama that, starting on November 29, 1947, had already claimed so much blood. During the second truce Ben Gurion received conflicting advice as to which enemy, forces under King Abdullah or the Egyptians, should be the target of the forthcoming Israeli offensive. In the end, however, it was decided to leave the Arab Legion where it was rather than attempt the conquest of the most densely settled Arab areas of Erets Yisrael—a decision that may have been motivated in part by fear of British intervention.
37
Allon, now in command of a comparatively enormous force of four brigades, was given the green light. On October 15, 1948, the IDF broke the truce and started its attempt to roll up the Egyptian front from east to west. On that day everything seemed to go wrong, including, besides the IDF’s usual inability to coordinate infantry, artillery, and armor,
38
the failure of the air force to carry out its operations on time. Allon, however, refused to give up. Instead he used his initial attack as a feint, rapidly redeploying his forces and throwing them against Chuleikat in the center. The fact that the other fronts remained quiet allowed yet another brigade to be brought up, and the combined force attacked during the night of October 18-19.
37
Allon, now in command of a comparatively enormous force of four brigades, was given the green light. On October 15, 1948, the IDF broke the truce and started its attempt to roll up the Egyptian front from east to west. On that day everything seemed to go wrong, including, besides the IDF’s usual inability to coordinate infantry, artillery, and armor,
38
the failure of the air force to carry out its operations on time. Allon, however, refused to give up. Instead he used his initial attack as a feint, rapidly redeploying his forces and throwing them against Chuleikat in the center. The fact that the other fronts remained quiet allowed yet another brigade to be brought up, and the combined force attacked during the night of October 18-19.
Allon could not be suspected of having studied armored operations in any depth,
39
but Sadeh, commanding the Eighth Brigade, certainly had.
40
This may explain why operations proceeded almost set-piece according to the teachings of Basil Liddell Hart, the famous British military critic; another model might have been Rommel at Gazala (May-June 1942), where he stuck his head between two British forces and “threatened” to surround both.
41
Whatever its strategic origins, once the breakthrough had been achieved an “expanding torrent” was formed. One Israeli force turned west, threatening to cut off the Egyptians along the coast and forcing them into a fifteen-mile retreat on Gaza; had it not been for their engineering service, which improvised a new road, the Egyptians would have been surrounded and annihilated. The other arm drove south to Beer Sheva. So surprised were the Egyptians that, when Allon’s units approached the town on October 20, they had not even been put on alert. Beer Sheva’s fall meant that the communications of the Egyptian eastern prong, running from Hebron to the Suez Canal, were cut.
39
but Sadeh, commanding the Eighth Brigade, certainly had.
40
This may explain why operations proceeded almost set-piece according to the teachings of Basil Liddell Hart, the famous British military critic; another model might have been Rommel at Gazala (May-June 1942), where he stuck his head between two British forces and “threatened” to surround both.
41
Whatever its strategic origins, once the breakthrough had been achieved an “expanding torrent” was formed. One Israeli force turned west, threatening to cut off the Egyptians along the coast and forcing them into a fifteen-mile retreat on Gaza; had it not been for their engineering service, which improvised a new road, the Egyptians would have been surrounded and annihilated. The other arm drove south to Beer Sheva. So surprised were the Egyptians that, when Allon’s units approached the town on October 20, they had not even been put on alert. Beer Sheva’s fall meant that the communications of the Egyptian eastern prong, running from Hebron to the Suez Canal, were cut.
Isolated in the hills of southern Judaea and receiving barely a trickle of supplies, the eastern forces were no longer able to play an active role in the war. Not so the western forces, still occupying the Gaza Strip—that term did not yet exist—as well as some areas farther east and southeast. With Allon still in command, the IDF now husbanded its forces for one last effort centering around the capture of “The Monster” at Iraq Suedan. The first step was to create an unprecedented concentration of firepower. It included, besides the now standard 75mm field guns, improvised flamethrowers and an experimental 160mm mortar—the last a TAAS weapon that proved more dangerous to its operators than to the enemy. Personally reconnoitering the terrain, Sadeh discovered an approach route that would hide the attackers from the eyes of the garrison for as long as possible. This was followed by a week’s training, during which tanks (the two that were available), half-tracks, jeeps, artillery, infantry, and combat engineers all rehearsed their appointed roles to prevent further failures in coordination.
The attack started at 2:00 P.M. on November 9, the time being selected so that the setting sun would interfere with the defenders’ sight as the afternoon wore on. The preceding weeks’ preparations and training paid off; there were no further errors, and all operations functioned like clockwork. Though the Egyptians put up a stout resistance, two hours’ bombardment—heavier than anything seen during the war—not only wrecked the fort but also provided cover for IDF infantry and combat engineers, who were able to breach the fences and plant dynamite charges under the walls.
42
Still, the defenders refused to surrender and had to be ferreted out by means of tear gas. As Iraq Suedan surrendered, the road to the Negev was definitely opened. During the next few weeks the IDF occupied its eastern part, including Sodom at the southern end of the Dead Sea, which had been isolated almost since the beginning of the war.
42
Still, the defenders refused to surrender and had to be ferreted out by means of tear gas. As Iraq Suedan surrendered, the road to the Negev was definitely opened. During the next few weeks the IDF occupied its eastern part, including Sodom at the southern end of the Dead Sea, which had been isolated almost since the beginning of the war.
A two-month truce imposed by the UN Security Council followed, during which Israelis and Egyptians tried unsuccessfully to negotiate a settlement. When no agreement could be reached, however, Allon developed a typically sophisticated plan to defeat the remaining Egyptian expeditionary forces by means of a well-coordinated strike against the rear. The operation started on the night of December 22 when an infantry brigade was sent to attack the Gaza Strip from east to west; to make sure that Egyptian attention would indeed be directed to that sector, air and naval forces bombed and shelled Gaza. Meanwhile the bulk of Allon’s forces, moving mainly by night and in great secrecy, were concentrated in the Beer Sheva area to the southeast. From there they took an old, barely passable Roman road to Chalutsa south on the Palestinian-Egyptian border.
Arriving at Chalutsa on December 27 after a grueling march, Allon’s leading force—a battalion from the Negev brigade riding jeeps—crossed the border into the Sinai. There it easily overran the local Egyptian positions at Abu Ageila and captured a military airfield. Next, in classic “expanding torrent” fashion, the offensive split. One brigade drove north-northwest toward Rafah, at the southern extremity of the Gaza Strip. There, however, it met with stout resistance; the Egyptians not only held their own but counterattacked with tanks and machine gun carriers, thus showing they still had plenty of fight.
Whether or not it had been planned in this way, the reverse caused the center of gravity to shift to Allon’s other brigade. Advancing northwest from Abu Ageila, by December 29 it had reached Al Arish on the Mediterranean, thus cutting the road from Rafah back to Port Said. It was a classic “indirect approach” operation carried out against little opposition and with barely any loss. However, when the British government presented an ultimatum and threatened to intervene, Ben Gurion decided to retract this particular horn.
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The order to retreat was given, and by December 31 the “armored” brigade that had carried out the move was on its way back to Chalutsa.
43
The order to retreat was given, and by December 31 the “armored” brigade that had carried out the move was on its way back to Chalutsa.
During the next week, last-ditch attempts to capture the Gaza Strip by means of renewed attacks from the south and east failed as the Egyptians, though surrounded from all directions, held on by the skin of their teeth. An armistice with Egypt was concluded on January 7, 1949, but not before five British Spitfires, sent out as a warning to the IDF to desist from its attempts to reduce the Egyptians, had been shot down by the Israel Air Force (IAF). All that remained was to send a brigade due south from Beer Sheva to occupy Elat on the shores of the Red Sea, a move justified by the fact a formal armistice with Jordan had not yet been signed. Encountering weak opposition, the brigade reached its objective on March 10. Lacking a proper Israeli flag, the men painted a sheet with ink and hung it from a mast planted in a barrel. This patriotic act is a fitting metaphor for a war that, from beginning to end, was conducted with much improvisation against a background of inadequate means.
CHAPTER 7
THE ACHIEVEMENT AND THE PRICE
W
HEN THE WAR of Independence ended in 1949, less than a year had passed since Hagana had fully emerged from the underground—even as late as May 1948 its available striking forces only numbered around 16,000 men.
1
Its successor, the IDF, was no more than seven months old and had to organize itself amid the most intense hostilities. Yet it had already proved itself more than a match not only for the Palestinian Arabs, who after the middle of May 1948 were little more than hapless victims of much stronger forces, but also for the combined regular armies of the neighboring countries.
HEN THE WAR of Independence ended in 1949, less than a year had passed since Hagana had fully emerged from the underground—even as late as May 1948 its available striking forces only numbered around 16,000 men.
1
Its successor, the IDF, was no more than seven months old and had to organize itself amid the most intense hostilities. Yet it had already proved itself more than a match not only for the Palestinian Arabs, who after the middle of May 1948 were little more than hapless victims of much stronger forces, but also for the combined regular armies of the neighboring countries.
Their starting positions located in the north, far from Israel’s demographic centers, the Lebanese and the Syrian forces never presented much of a threat. Both were beaten back, if not exactly with ease then at any rate before they could advance very far from the borders—meaning, in the Syrian case, perhaps a mile or two west of the River Jordan. The Egyptian expeditionary force, thanks mainly to the absence of opposition in the comparatively large, virtually empty area of the Negev Desert, had penetrated much deeper. However, cooperation between its eastern and western arms was always deficient if not nonexistent; when the western arm came under attack from October on, the eastern arm, sitting in the hills, did not stir. In the end the latter force was also defeated and had its lines of communications cut. But for Ben Gurion’s decision to heed the UN Security Council resolution and let it go, it would have been annihilated.
As the last armistice agreements were signed in July 1949 only the Iraqi expeditionary forces and the Arab Legion remained intact. Even more so than the Egyptians, who at least had to overrun a couple of settlements that stood in their way, both owed their presence in Erets Yisrael to the fact that they had entered unopposed—the former as part of the British imperial forces and the latter in an area where there were no Jewish settlements after its disgraceful failure at Gesher. The armistice found them in occupation of the West Bank, including not least the salient of Latrun. Isolated and far from home, the Iraqis withdrew by their own accord without further fight (though Iraq refused to sign an armistice and is thus technically still at war with Israel). As for Abdullah’s Arab Legion, it had fought better than any other Arab force. Yet on scarcely any occasion had the Arab Legion attempted to conquer territory allocated to the Jews by the partition plan, preferring to stay on the defensive. By the end of the war it remained where it did solely on sufferance and could have been kicked out at any time had Ben Gurion been willing to issue the order.
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