Saad El Shazly

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During the Yom Kippur War.

Saad El Shazly (سعد الشاذلي Born in the city of Basyoun - Al Gharbiya Governorate - مدينة بسيون - محافظة الغربية) was the Egyptian chief of staff during the Yom Kippur War. Following his public criticism of the Camp David Accords, he was dismissed from his post as Ambassador to Portugal and sent into exile in Algeria.

[edit] Military career

General Shazly’s military credentials are impeccable. He founded the paratroopers in Egypt in 1954 and was commander of the first paratrooper battalion in the Egyptian army. In 1960 he headed the first United Arab Forces in the Congo as part of the United Nations forces. He was Defense Attaché in London 1961-1963; Commander of Special Forces 1967-1969; Commander of the Red Sea Districted 1970-1971; and on May 16, 1971 he was appointed Chief of Staff of the Egyptian Armed Forces, a post he held until December 12,1973.

Shazly first gained his reputation in 1941. British forces together with Egyptian forces were facing the Germans in the western desert. When the British/ Egyptian High Command issued the order to retreat, a young lieutenant Shazly stayed behind to destroy equipment in the face of an advancing German army.

He distinguished himself again in 1967 when he headed the Shazly Group; a task force made up of special forces to guard the middle part of Sinai. With communication cut between his forces and the Egyptian high command, and in the midst of the worst defeat in modern Egyptian history, he managed to avoid enemy fire and return to Egypt with his troops and equipment almost intact.

[edit] Removal from military

As the Ambassador to England.

In 1973, at the pinnacle of his military career, General Shazly was removed from military service by President Anwar Sadat and appointed Ambassador to England and later Ambassador to Portugal.

In 1978 General Shazly sharply criticized the Camp David agreement and publicly opposed it. As a result, he was dismissed from his post and forced into exile. There he wrote this book, his account of the war, for which he was tried by a military tribunal in absentia and without legal representation. He was sentenced to three years in prison. The charges were, writing this book without first getting permission from the Egyptian Ministry of Defense, a charge he admitted to in the press. A second charge of allegedly revealing military secrets in his book, he vehemently denies.