Salient forms
After Kharkov, the bulge exists.
Stalingrad and the March 1943 Kharkov riposte create the bulge. Citadel is a choice to hit the obvious.
Sicily on 10 July belongs in the same fortnight's newspaper.
Timeline
- Kharkov German counter
Manstein's spring riposte sets the salient's shape.
- Citadel ordered
Then delayed, repeatedly.
- Citadel opens
North and south attacks.
- Sicily landings
A western event in the same week.
- Prokhorovka
Southern clash; Soviet Kutuzov also opens in the north.
- Citadel called off
Hitler ends the offensive.
- Orel liberated
Kutuzov payoff.
- Kharkov again
Rumyantsev payoff in the usual dating of the wider battle.
- Dnieper
The next Soviet problem -- a river, not a bulge.
- Archive turn
Western and Russian operational historians cut the cartoon integers.
Eras
Delay
Panthers, mines, arguments.
Citadel
The German throw.
Soviet replies
Kutuzov and Rumyantsev.
Memory fight
Cartoons vs archives.
Milestones
Last German strategic offensive in the east
A dating fact.
Prepared defence works
Time plus depth.
Caption inflation
A historiography lesson.
Calling off Citadel is not the end; Orel and Kharkov are the end of the campaign sentence.
After August 1943, "German summer offensive" is a closed genre in the east.