The Egyptian Army is the largest service branch within the Egyptian Armed Forces, and is the largest army in the Arab World, and Africa. It is estimated to number around 490,000, in addition to 485,000 reservists for a total of 975,000 strong. The modern army was established during the reign of Muhammad Ali Pasha (1805-1849), who is considered to be the "founder of modern Egypt". Its most significant engagements in the 20th Century were in Egypt's five wars with the State of Israel (in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1967-1970, and 1973), one of which, the Tripartite Aggression of 1956, also saw it do combat with the armies of Britain, and France. The Egyptian army was also engaged heavily in the protracted North Yemeni Civil War, and the brief Libyan-Egyptian War in July, 1977. Its last major engagements was Operation Desert Storm, the liberation of Kuwait from Iraqi occupation in 1991, in which Egyptian army constituted the second largest contingent of allied forces.
Following the resignation of former President Hosni Mubarak on 11th February 2011, during the Egyptian Revolution of 2011, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces has been governing Egypt.
Read more about Egyptian Army: Structure, Order of Battle, Weapons Inventory
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“What greater light can be hoped for in the moral sciences? The subject part of mankind in most places might, instead thereof, with Egyptian bondage expect Egyptian darkness, were not the candle of the Lord set up by himself in men’s minds, which it is impossible for the breath or power of man wholly to extinguish.”
—John Locke (1632–1704)
“Methinks it would be some advantage to philosophy if men were named merely in the gross, as they are known. It would be necessary only to know the genus and perhaps the race or variety, to know the individual. We are not prepared to believe that every private soldier in a Roman army had a name of his own,—because we have not supposed that he had a character of his own.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)