Giffard Le Quesne Martel the Head of the Military Mission to the Soviet Union. He assessed the effectiveness of the Soviet order of battle and tactics during a visit to the frontline in the Kursk-Oryol region between 11 and 19 May 1943. In his autobiography, Martel describes advising the Soviet High Command, Stavka, to allow the Germans to strike first at the Battle of Kursk. To what extent his advice affected the course of the battle is debatable since his first conference with Stavka did not occur until late May 1943 while the Soviet Western Front commander, Marshal Georgy Zhukov, had been advocating the
Battle of Kursk approximately in depth. Soviet mobile formations were moved out of the salient and a large reserve force was formed for strategic counter-offensives. The Battle of Kursk was the first time in the Second World War that a German strategic offensive was halted before it could break through enemy defences and penetrate to its strategic depths. The maximum depth of the German advance was in the north and in the south. Though the Red Army had succeeded in winter offensives previously, their counter-offensives following the German attack at Kursk were their first successful strategic summer offensives of the war. As the