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 Suez Crisis of 1956, also saw it do combat with the armies of the United Kingdom and France.

Its last major engagement was Operation Desert Storm, the liberation of Kuwait from Iraqi occupation in 1991, in which the Egyptian army constituted the second-largest contingent of the allied forces.

[3] The arid plains and deserts surrounding Egypt were inhabited by nomadic tribes who occasionally tried to raid or settle in the fertile Nile River valley.

The Egyptians built fortresses and outposts along the borders east and west of the Nile Delta, in the Eastern Desert, and in Nubia to the south.

Following his seizure of power in Egypt, and declaration of himself as khedive of the country, Muhammad Ali Pasha set about establishing a bona fide Egyptian military.

To further this aim, he brought in European weapons and expertise, and built an army that defeated the Ottoman Sultan, wresting control from the Porte of the Levant, and Hejaz.

[4] The Egyptian Army was involved in the following wars during Muhammad Ali's reign: and during the reign of khedives Abbas I, Sa'id Pasha, Isma'il Pasha and Tewfik Pasha: as well as several expeditions in Sudan during the 1850s, 60s and 70s, and rebellions (mainly in Upper Egyptian Provinces in the 1860s and 1870s, most notably The Axes' Rebellion that occurred from 1864 to 1865 and was started by tens of thousands of Upper Egyptian separatist fellahin led by Sheikh Ahmad Al Tayyib which started with a minimal victory for them in the beginning, successfully seizing all of Upper Egypt under their control.

The harsh punishment, coupled with the fact that roll was called three times daily, dispelled any thought of desertion on the part of the soldier.

Heavy house arrest is limited to one month and has a guard watching over the prisoner and the last option is imprisonment in the camp jail for up to fifteen days.

Although a few field artillery units participated voluntarily in the defence of the Suez Canal in early 1915, the Egyptian Army was primarily employed to maintain order in the troubled Sudan.

[14][dubious – discuss] Before the Second World War, "military service was compulsory for men between the ages of nineteen and twenty-seven, but because of the limited size of the army—about 23,000 in 1939—few were actually conscripted.

"[15] In 1940 the Egyptian Army included three infantry brigades, a small mobile force built around a light car regiment, and eight artillery groupings of various sizes.

Italy sought to control the Suez Canal but halted their advance at Sidi Barrani, waiting for engineers to build a road, and further supplies.

Led by Muhammad Naguib and Gamal Abdel Nasser, the Free Officers overthrew King Farouk in the Egyptian coup d'état of 1952.

[22] The Egyptian commander, Field Marshal Abdel Hakim Amer, was a purely political appointee who owed his position to his close friendship with Nasser.

[28] By early 1963, he would begin a four-year campaign to extricate Egyptian forces from Yemen, using an unsuccessful face-saving mechanism, only to find himself committing more troops.

What fragmentary information is available suggests to authors such as Pollack that Amer was trying to improve the competence of the force, replacing political appointees with veterans of the Yemen war.

The forward Egyptian forces were shattered in three places by the attacking Israelis, including at the Battle of Abu-Ageila (1967), and a retreat to the mountain passes fifty miles east of the canal was ordered.

The Syrians coordinated their attack on the Golan Heights to coincide with the Egyptian offensive and initially made threatening gains into Israeli-held territory.

As Egyptian president Anwar Sadat began to worry about Syria's fortunes, he believed that capturing two strategic mountain passes located deeper in the Sinai would make his position stronger during the negotiations.

Senior army officers were aware of this situation and began taking steps to encourage initiative at the lower levels of command.

It was unable to move up the first attack time after a request from overall commander U.S. General Norman Schwarzkopf; halted after 'desultory' Iraqi artillery fire; continued to move so slowly that on the morning of the third day of the war, still had not taken their first day's objectives; and could not reorient themselves in order to take up an invitation to join a ceremonial joint Arab entry into Kuwait City until Schwarzkopf was able to get Hosni Mubarak to give a direct order to the Egyptian commander to do so.

Military observers served in Western Sahara (MINURSO), Angola (UNAVEM II), the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) in the former Yugoslavia, Somalia, Mozambique, Georgia, Macedonia, Eastern Slavonia, UNMOP (Prevlaka), and Sierra Leone.

[52] On 3 July 2013, the Egyptian Armed Forces launched a coup d'état against the elected government of Mohamed Morsi following mass protests demanding his resignation.

[55][56] Human Rights Watch wrote: The gravest incident of mass protester killings occurred on August 14, when security forces crushed the major pro-Morsy sit-in in Rab’a al-Adawiya Square in the Nasr City district of eastern Cairo.

Human Rights Watch researchers documented the dispersal of the Rab’a sit-in and found that security forces opened fire on protesters using live ammunition, with hundreds killed by bullets to their heads, necks, and chests.

Dozens of witnesses also said they saw snipers fire from helicopters over Rab’a Square.The total casualty count made 14 August the deadliest day in Egypt since the Egyptian revolution of 2011 which had toppled former President Hosni Mubarak.

[58][59] On March 25, 2020, it was reported that two army generals, Shafea Dawoud and Khaled Shaltout, had died from the COVID-19 pandemic in Egypt, and at least 550 officers and soldiers had been infected with the virus.

Cairo's Kobry Bridge complex of Multiple military hospitals (opened 2011; new additions planned through 2019)[needs update], is part of an ongoing effort by the Egyptian Army to offer cutting-edge treatment and patient care.

[66] This was the Middle East's first modern school of medicine and was a product of Egypt's newly established Military Department of Health during the administration of Muhammad Ali Pasha.