“The nature of the Arabs and their lack of confidentiality requires us to be cautious when circulating information affecting our strategic planning so that it is not leaked to the enemy by chatter, even if unintentional. Likewise, the same Arab nature can be used to spread information quickly.”
This is what the director of the Nasser Military Academy wrote to the Egyptian military command during the preparation phase for the Arab-Israeli War or the October War of 1973 — the fourth major confrontation in the region after the Palestine War of 1948, the Suez War of 1956, and the 1967 war.
The academy commander’s letter and thousands of other documents were released by the Egyptian Ministry of Defence last Saturday, four months after the 50th anniversary of the October War.
The Egyptian and Syrian armies did indeed manage to keep their military plans secret, taking the Israelis off-guard with their surprise attack on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in Judaism.
All documents released by Egypt are in Arabic, with no English or Hebrew translation, and are noticeably penned in hand-written, clear, and beautiful Arabic script.
The timing of the releases raised questions, with some linking it to the present war in Gaza. However, a special committee mandated by the Egyptian Ministry of Defense had been reviewing these documents for months.
Egyptian law prohibits the release of classified documents before 50 years have passed, which was fulfilled last October. During the October War, 3,000 Egyptians perished, along with 3,000-3,500 Syrians and another 3,000 Israeli soldiers.
What matters in these papers is what they contain about the inner workings of the upper echelons of power in Cairo, both during the war and in the months that preceded it.
Many prominent Egyptians have already come out with their story of what happened in 1973, including President Anwar al-Sadat and his army chief-of-staff Saad al-Din al-Shazly.
They both traded accusations on who was responsible for a strategic gap between the 2nd and 3rd Egyptian armies, which secured an advantage for the Israeli Army between 15-23 October.
In the Egyptian documents, one finds the hand-written memoirs of Field Marshal Abdul Ghani el-Gamasy, chief of war operations, which were eventually published in a book in 1989.
There are also plenty of military and administrative decrees, which matter only to specialised war historians, along with a log of all telephone and wireless calls before and during the war, with an entire file on media reactions in both Israel and Egypt.
There is also an important report on Egyptian losses during the previous June War of 1967, showing that 25,000 people were killed in Egypt, and 80% of Egypt’s military capabilities were destroyed, contrary to what was reported at the time by then-army commander Abdul Hakim Amer — a personal friend of President Gamal Abdul Nasser.
Read more: The 1967 Naksa relived through the memoirs of Abdel Nasser’s top generals
The documents reveal that Field Marshal Gamasy held a meeting with his top lieutenants during the first hours of the year 1973, asking them to suggest suitable dates for an assault on Israel.
Handling the response was then Air Force commander (and future president) Husni Mubarak, who proposed staging the attack on “lunar nights,” with the earliest date suggestions between 13-23 February and the latest between 5-15 December 1973.
