Book Review: Military and Scientific Affairs, Suez
| Date | 01 June 1965 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206502000214 |
| Author | H. Paul Simon |
| Published date | 01 June 1965 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
254
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
Organization
as set
forth
in
the
Charter-a
vital
instrument
for
peace
requiring
that
its
Secretary-General
assume
executive
leadership.
Van
Langenhove's
concept of
the
Charter,
and
consequently
the
role
of
the
Secretary-General,
is
fundamentalist.
Hammarskjold's
was
organic and
dynamic. The
approaches
are
essentially
different.
University
of
Alberta
J.
KING
GORDON
Military
and
Scientific
Affairs
SuEz:
The
Seven
Day
War.
By
A.
J.
Barker.
1964.
(London:
Faber
and
Faber.
Toronto:
Queenswood
House.
223pp.
$6.75)
Lieut.-Colonel
Barker
has
greatly
increased
our
understanding
of
the
1956
Suez
ddbOicle
by his
fascinating
and
revealing
account
of
the
military
operation "Musketeer"
against
Egypt,
which he
judges-some-
what
mildly-to
have "failed
militarily".
The
strategic
objectives
were
clear: safeguard
the
Suez
Canal;
ensure
the
flow
of
oil
to
Europe;
curb
Nasser's
scope,
and
the
growing
Soviet influence
in
the
Middle
East.
The
measure
of
strategic
failure
was
that
the
very
opposite
of
the
objectives
became
fact. What
went
wrong?
To
begin
with,
past
experience
was
ignored
in
the planning,
which
itself
vacillated
between
an
attack
through
Alexandria
on
Cairo,
or
through
Port
Said.
Of
the
three
musketeers,
only
Israel
and
France
were
lean
and
stripped
for
battle;
French
planners
provided
for
all
conceivable
forms
of
action,
in
supplying
a
contingent
of
"nurses".
The
British
force
emerges
from
Mr.
Barker's
tale
as
incredibly
ill-equipped,
inadequately
trained,
and
suffering
all the
disadvantages
of
confused
planning
and
of
mediocre,
unimaginative
strategic
and
political
leadership.
The
means
and
the
plans
were
wholly
inadequate
to
the
grand
objectives
of
a
Conservative
Government,
led
by
a
man
whose supposed
diplomatic
finesse
and imagination
failed
to
inject
themselves into
the
overall planning:
no
provision
appears
to
have
been
made
for
the
contingency
of
U.N.
intervention.
The overall time-table,
and
the
phasing
of
particular
military
actions
showed
that
almost
nothing
had
been
learned from
Blitzkrieg,
World
War
II,
or
Korea. The
essence
of
"Musketeer"
in
its
final
concept,
was
to
land
an
armoured force
at
Port
Said,
and
to
have
it
push
"quickly
down
the
Canal to secure
the vital
areas".
When
the
bugle
blew,
a
considerable
part
of
the
armoured group
was still
"afloat
in
South-
ampton".
In
the
invasion
battle,
Egyptian
troops fought
hard
and
well.
In
Port
Said
no one
was
prepared
to
cope
with
the
problem
of
thousands
of
guerrillas,
opulently
armed
with
modern
Czech
weapons,
distributed
free
on
the
advice of
Soviet Consul
Tchikov.
The
delay
forced
by
Egyptian valour
and
sniping
obviously
contributed
to
the
invaders'
limited
advance
of less
than
one-quarter the
distance
to
Suez.
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