May all students of what actually happens in history at the ‘SHARP’ (THOUGH HIDDEN) decision-making end find the following useful

John

The Quartermaster-General of General Headquarters, Danilov, was third in rank in the Russian army, but foremost in initiative. He had spent the last few days diligently working out matters of prime importance: he had drawn up one plan for the speedy transformation of conquered East Prussia into a separate governor-generalship, and another for the immediate cessation of warlike operations there; the task of Rennenkampf’s army thus being completed, it would be moved forward across the Vistula for operations aimed at Berlin. As part of this plan he had asked North-Western Army Group to have one army transferred from Rennenkampf to Warsaw..

Since the Chief of Staff of North-Western Army Group, General Oranovsky, was in no position to protest at this directive (any objection made by a junior against an order from above always undermines hid status and prospects), he had already issued instructions for the corps in question to be pulled back to the railhead. (Rennenkampf.. ) Nor did Oranovsky dare, in reporting to his superiors, tolaymuch stress on the anxiety which was beginning to make itself felt among the staff of the North-West Army Group. He merely reported that X Corps had been force d to withdraw near Soldau in ‘a certain amount of disorder’, and that the two corps of von Francois and von Mackensen, ‘which have disappeared from the enemy forces facing Rennekampf’, had suddenly shown up in front of Second Army. But General headquarters was unperturbed by any of this, and in a long telephone conversation on the night of the 15th’/16th Danilov, in pursuit of his latest plan, induced Oranovsy to effect the immediate transfer of the Guards Corps from Warsaw to the Austrian front, remarking with complete unconcern that Samsonov would have to do without the Guards – he had nearly five corps anyway.

Zhilinsky and Oranovsky might have passed on some of the anxiety they felt that day by harrying Samsonov, but to their annoyance (and partly to their relief, because he would then be entirely to blame for anything that went wrong) Samsonov cut off communications. This absolved them of any responsibility for intervening directly to make Blagoveshchensky’s VI Corps and Artomonov’s former corps (I Corps) move inward to the aid of the centre corps of Second Army. To have done this would have been too much trouble to Army Group Headquarters; it would also have been beneath their dignity, [SINCE ACCORDING TO SERVICE PRACTICE THEY WERE NOT OBLIGED TO DO SO]..

Begin of Ch 41 August 15th pp 407-8 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn trnsltd by Michael Glenny Penguin Books 1974

Now I greatly hope the foregoing excerpt from August 1914 serves all students of the contemporary “Romanov” – Misha Glenny – Russian situation with respect to western Europe well !

John Blundell

Australia

There follow student-purposed annotations – cognate ideational excursions concerning the year 1974

(i) 1974 was the year the USA Federal Bureau of Investigation murdered KAREN SILKWOOD, a nuclear power industry technician on behalf of the Robert Oppenheimer and the post WWII Science-boosterism cult¹ (and @WestinghouseNEC in a Billion-dollar promotional campaign at this present fraught time in human history)

(ii) as though there were an Intelligent Electronic Ambience² bringing all purposive and intellectually ‘powerful’ men and woman around the world to common and cognate experiences (even on the other side of the world) it was only weeks before Silkwood’s killing on a freeway outside Cleveland Ohio USA³ that having been selected by the SA government (when working for the Commonwealth Dept. of the Interior NTA Welfare Division in Alice Springs) to take up a District Officer position in what had been said to have been “the most racist town in Australia” on the front page of a city morning newspaper in 1973 I did that. – Followed by five virtually revolutionary years of service in that town by Australian or indeed ANY ex British colonial frontier zone standards.

¹”Oppenheimer and the Gita”
The phrase “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds” from the Bhagavad Gita is a powerful statement by Lord Krishna, where he reveals his cosmic form to Arjuna. In this context, “Death” (Kala) represents not just physical death, but the ultimate power of time and change, encompassing creation, preservation, and destruction. It signifies Krishna’s role as the force that brings about the end of all things, ultimately leading to their recreation. This quote is famously associated with J. Robert Oppenheimer, who reflected on it after witnessing the first atomic bomb test at Los Alamos Nevada USA. ..this author’s supplied and far from gratuitous note appended at this point >> destroyer of THE world per the ecocidal and extreme unseasonal repetitive weather-systems failure onslaught of which nuclear radiation plays a signal part

²certainly an unproven social relations construct but equally certainly noted and briefly written up in my 1997 (post sting) Community Economist Publications Worldwide newsletter – JB

³”..killed in a car accident near Crescent, Oklahoma, north of Oklahoma City,” the spooks who want us all depersonalised as literal objects-of-trade for the profit of entrepreneurs and foreign investors particularly, if they can’t actually swing our dehumanisation for fertiliser NOW write..