Saad al-Din Muhammad al-Husayni al-Shazly, an Egyptian military commander with the rank of lieutenant general. He was commander of the Egyptian army and chief of staff of the Egyptian armed forces, and he was considered one of the great military leaders who fought the October 1973 war between the Arabs and Israel, and he was the mastermind of the Egyptian attack on the Israeli defense line, "Bar Lev".
He disagreed with the late President Muhammad Anwar Sadat, and publicly criticized the Camp David Accords that Sadat signed with Israel in 1978;
The dispute intensified to the extent that Shazly's name and pictures were removed from the official list of the October 6 War.
El-Shazly's reputation was also distorted and attacked, and his memoirs were banned in Egypt, as it was the reason for his two-year imprisonment after he spent 14 years as a political refugee in Algeria.
Birth and upbringing
Saad El-Din El-Shazly was born in the village of Shabratna, Basyoun Center, in the Gharbia Governorate, in the Nile Delta, on April 1, 1922, to a middle-class family.
His father, Hajj Al-Husseini Al-Shazly, was a notary and was one of the notables who owned agricultural lands, and his mother was Mrs. Tafeeda Al-Jawhari, who is the second wife of his father.
Saad El-Din El-Shazly has 9 brothers from his father and 4 full brothers, and El-Shazly was named after the Egyptian leader Saad Zaghloul, the leader of the 1919 revolution.
El-Shazly adored the military field from a young age, especially when he was listening to the heroic stories of his paternal grandfather, who was an officer in the Egyptian army and participated in several battles, most notably the Battle of al-Tal al-Kabir in 1882.
Scientific study and training
El-Shazly received his primary education in the primary school in Basyoun, which was about 6 kilometers away from his family's home. After completing his primary education, he moved with his family to live in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, at the age of no more than 11 years, where he completed his preparatory and secondary education in its schools.
He joined the Military College in February 1939 when he was only 17 years old, and he was the youngest student in his class. He graduated from it in July 1940 with the rank of lieutenant in the infantry.
In 1943, he was selected to serve in the Royal Guard.
In addition, he participated in World War II, before participating in the Palestine War in 1948.
He participated in the United States of America in 1953 in training for paratrooper officers for one year, and spent another year in another military training in the Soviet Union in 1958. He was also a military attache in London, and these experiences helped him learn the Russian and English languages.
Military and practical experience
El-Shazly joined the Free Officers Movement, which led a military coup in Egypt in July 1952, but he was not a direct participant in the coup because he was in one of the military training courses.
A year after the coup that ended the reign of King Farouk in Egypt, El-Shazly traveled to the United States of America on an advanced training mission, and was one of the first officers to receive training at the US Military Rangers School.
After that, he became the commander of the 75th Parachute Battalion during the tripartite aggression against Egypt in 1956, where he commanded the Parachute Force during the period from 1954 to 1959.
In 1960, the Republic of Egypt, under the leadership of President Gamal Abdel Nasser, sent a parachute battalion to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, led by Colonel El-Shazly, as part of the United Nations peacekeeping forces, at the request of the Prime Minister of the Congo, Patrice Imre Lumumba, and in coordination with the Secretary-General of the United Nations at the time, the Swedish Dag Hammarskjöld, and that In order to maintain security and stability in the country and prevent Belgium from re-occupying the Congo, which had just gained its independence on June 30, 1960.
In June 1967, during what was known as the Six-Day War, El-Shazly demonstrated high efficiency and great military tactical awareness, after the chaos experienced by the Egyptian forces against the background of their indiscriminate withdrawal from the Sinai desert in compliance with the orders of the Egyptian leadership, after the Israeli Air Force invaded the skies of the region.
But Al-Shazly developed another plan, and headed east of Sinai towards the Palestinian Negev desert through narrow paths, at a time when the rest of the Egyptian forces were heading west, where he was stationed between two mountains behind most of the enemy's defense lines to protect his forces from Israeli aircraft, and he stayed there on June 6 and 7. 1967 until he communicated with the Egyptian leadership, which ordered him to withdraw immediately west of the Suez Canal.
And he carried out one of the most difficult military maneuvers in the history of the Egyptian-Israeli conflict, as he ordered his forces to withdraw at night without any air or intelligence support.
With the dawn of the next day, the Israeli warplanes spotted the Egyptian forces led by El-Shazly and attacked them.
Lacking anti-aircraft weapons, Shazly's forces could only respond with machine guns and light weapons.
Thus, his forces suffered losses by 10% to 20%, but at the same time managed to avoid the Israeli ground forces until they reached the Suez Canal.
Al-Shazly became the last Arab military commander to pass from the east to the west of the canal.
After this achievement, El-Shazly continued to be highly respected within the Egyptian army, and he graduated in it until he became chief of staff.
In 1970, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser appointed him commander of the Red Sea Military District after the daily raids and kidnappings of civilians and the destruction of facilities on the Red Sea coasts that were carried out by Israeli forces, especially during the Zaafarana incident on September 9, 1969.
At the time, Gamal Abdel Nasser saw that Major General Al-Shazly was the right person who could stop the Israeli incursions into the region, and he actually succeeded in limiting the Israeli attacks.
On January 22, 1970, Major General Al-Shazly succeeded in repelling an attack by the Israeli forces that were aspiring to occupy the rocky island of Shadwan in the Red Sea near the entrance to the Gulf of Suez, after they bombed it from the air, and followed that by landing the soldiers by helicopter and landing craft.
Major General Al-Shazly ordered the attack on the island with the help of a number of residents of the governorate, and he transferred soldiers and equipment to it in the dark, and managed to liberate it from the Israeli occupation forces.
After the death of Gamal Abdel Nasser and the rise of Anwar Sadat to power, El-Shazly was appointed Chief of Staff of the Egyptian Armed Forces on May 16, 1971 in the framework of what was called the Correction Revolution - which Sadat initiated to get rid of the elements of Gamal Abdel Nasser's regime - due to his competence and long military experience, and also For his great knowledge of military science, which he gained thanks to his studies in the United States of America and the Soviet Union.
"High minarets" plan
Al-Shazly drew up the "high minarets" plan in August 1971 to attack the Israeli forces and storm the Suez Canal by destroying the Bar Lev defensive line, which was built by the Israeli forces after their occupation of the Sinai region after the 1967 war, with the aim of securing the West Bank of the Suez Canal and preventing any Egyptian forces from crossing into it.
El-Shazly devised this plan due to the great weakness of the Egyptian Air Force and its weak defensive capabilities, which limited the possibility of carrying out a major offensive operation.
But at the same time, it was possible to carry out a limited operation to cross the Suez Canal, destroy the defensive fort of the Israeli Bar Lev line, and occupy between 10 and 12 kilometers east of the canal, to take defensive positions against Israeli air attacks.
Shazly's "high minarets" plan was based on the weaknesses of the Israeli forces, which were evident in the latter's inability to bear human losses due to the limited number of its personnel, in addition to the prolongation of the war.
Because Israel has always relied on lightning wars that will end within a few weeks, fearing that its economic and social conditions will be affected.
This plan was aimed at depriving Israel of its most important combat advantages, which is attacking from the sides by placing Egyptian soldiers on the Mediterranean Sea in the north and the Gulf of Suez in the south, at a time when the Israeli forces could not attack from behind because of the presence of the Suez Canal, and there would be no solution left for them but Attack from the front, which causes them to suffer heavy losses.
October war 1973
After Israel occupied the Egyptian Sinai region in the wake of the 1967 war, the Israeli army built a defensive line called the "Bar Lev Line" to prevent Egyptian forces from crossing into the western bank of the Suez Canal. This line was reinforced by several forts on the eastern bank of the Suez Canal, which separates the Israeli army from the Egyptian army.
The Israeli forces also set up a 17-meter-high sand barrier on the shores of the canal to prevent the Egyptian army from attempting to cross the canal.
In order to break this line, on the sixth of October 1973, the Egyptian forces, led by Major General Al-Shazly, carried out an attack on the place, as 200 Egyptian planes flew at a low altitude over the canal, headed deep into the Sinai and struck the main Israeli forces, while units of the Egyptian Armed Forces launched Heavy artillery bombardment of Bar Lev forts and minefields.
Thus the first group of 4,000 soldiers crossed the Suez Canal, opening about 70 passages across the sand barrier using high-pressure water pumps.
It was followed by the infantry group, which in turn crossed the canal and captured most of the strong points and forts of the "Bar Lev" line.
The next day (October 7), 5 bridges were placed over the canal, and the armored divisions began crossing the canal into Sinai.
On the eighth of October, the Israeli counterattack failed to push the Egyptians to retreat, and Israel tried again on the ninth of October, but again suffered heavy losses, losing in two days more than 260 tanks, 30 aircraft, and thousands of dead.
After this victory, the balance began to tilt in favor of Israel when its army, led by General Ariel Sharon, carried out a strong military operation between the Egyptian Second Army, which was stationed on the eastern bank of the Suez Canal in Sinai, and the Third Army, which was on its western bank.
In parallel, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat ordered a new offensive to advance towards the Sinai passes, and General Shazly strongly opposed any advance eastward because it would leave the Egyptian forces exposed to the Israeli air force without adequate air cover;
But Sadat remained adamant in his opinion, and ordered the generals to implement the order in order to help the Syrian army, according to his opinion.
On October 14, the attack began, but it failed and the Egyptian army was defeated.
Al-Shazly wanted to respond to this operation by redeploying two brigades and a battalion from the Second Army to surround the Israelis.
But Sadat refused, fearing that it would look like a withdrawal and damage the morale of the Egyptian army.
But the results of this choice were disastrous for the Egyptian forces.
Jobs and responsibilities
After the end of the war with Israel, the relationship between Sadat and Shazly remained tense.
Desiring to remove him from the army, he appointed him ambassador to the United Kingdom, then ambassador to Portugal.
During this period, Sadat made his historic visit to Israel in November 1977.
El-Shazly submitted his resignation from his post and publicly criticized the Camp David Accords, which were signed by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in 1978 at Camp David Resort in the United States of America.
Saad El-Din El-Shazly chose to live as a political refugee in Algeria, and there he published a book in which he presented his account of the 1973 war, and because of him he was tried in absentia before a military court on charges of issuing a book without approval and revealing military secrets, a charge he denied, and considered that what he published was government information, not military.
He was sentenced in absentia to 3 years imprisonment with hard labor, and all his property in Egypt was confiscated.
After the assassination of Sadat in 1981, "enmity" towards El-Shazly moved to the new president, Mohamed Hosni Mubarak, who in turn was commander of the Air Force during the 1973 war under El-Shazly's presidency.
When El-Shazly returned to Egypt in 1992 after 14 years in exile, he was arrested at the airport, and Mubarak insisted on carrying out the prison sentence against him.
Publications and achievements
Saad El-Shazly published 4 books, namely:
October War
The Arab Military Option (1983)
The Eighth Crusade (in two parts)
Four years in the diplomatic service
He also authored a small booklet that he distributed to Egyptian soldiers and officers during the October 1973 war to raise their morale, entitled: "Our religious faith is our way to victory."
Death:
Lieutenant General Saad Muhammad Al-Husseini Al-Shazly died on Thursday, February 10, 2011, at the International Medical Center of the Armed Forces in Cairo, at the age of 89, after a long illness, in conjunction with the revolution of January 25, 2011 in Egypt, which ended the rule of Muhammad Hosni. congrats.