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‘Like a wolf on the fold.’ In recounting the Syrian attack on
the Israeli-held Golan Heights at 1400 local time on Saturday,
October 6th, 1973, most commentators automatically
recalled Lord Byron’s famous line. There is also little doubt
that that is precisely what the more literally inclined Syrian
commanders had in mind when they placed the final touches
on the operations plans that would hurl more tanks and guns
at the Israelis than any of Hitler’s vaunted panzer generals
had ever dreamed of having.
However, the sheep found by the Syrian A rmy that grim
October day were more like bighorn rams in autumn rut than
the more docile kind found in pastoral verse. Outnumbered
by roughly nine to one, the two Israeli brigades on the Golan
were crack units. The 4th Brigade held the northern Golan
and scarcely budged, its defensive network a delicate balance
of rigidity and flexibility. Individual strongpoints held
stubbornly, channeling the Syrian penetrations into rocky
defiles, where they could be pinched off and smashed by
roving bands of Israeli armor which lay in wait behind the
Purple Line. By the time reinforcements began arriving on the
second day, the situation was still in hand – but barely. By the
end of the fourth day, the Syrian tank army that had fallen
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