Harrison, Richard W. The Battle of Kursk

The Red Army's Defensive Operations and Counter-Offensive July-August 1943

The book offers a typically Soviet perspective on one of the most decisive events of the Second World War. While the German defeats in Moscow and Stalingrad showed that Hitler could not win the war in the East, the outcome of Kursk proved beyond doubt that he would lose it. This study was compiled by the Military History Directorate of the Red Army General Staff, which was tasked with collecting and analysing war experiences, and was published as an internal document in 1946-47. The study lay unused for more than half a century before being published in Russia in 2006, albeit heavily supplemented with commentary and other information not included in the original. The present work omits these additions and instead provides its own commentary where necessary. The book is divided into two parts, dealing respectively with the defensive and offensive phases of the battle. The first part begins with a strategic overview of the situation on the Eastern Front in the spring and summer of 1943 and the Soviet decision to focus on defence. This is followed by a detailed examination of the efforts of the Central Front to counter the expected German attack from the Orel salient, as well as the attempts of the Voronezh Front to do the same against the German concentrations in the Belgorod-Kharkov area. The rest of this section is devoted to an extremely detailed, day-by-day tactical-operational account of the fighting, particularly along the southern side of the salient, where the Germans came closest to success. The second part is likely to be something of a revelation for Western readers, who are probably more familiar with the defensive phase of the battle. Here, the authors once again provide a very detailed account of the preparations and execution of a massive Red Army counteroffensive to clear the Orel salient, which soon degenerated into a gruelling battle that was ultimately successful but cost the Soviets dearly. The authors also describe in detail the Voronezh Front's preparations for recapturing the Belgorod Front arc and taking the industrial centre of Kharkov. This offensive, together with a simultaneous offensive in the Donets industrial region, pushed the German lines to their limits and paved the way for the further advance to the Dnieper and the final liberation of Ukraine.