How About ..what-about?! East Prussia & Generals Samsonov & Rennenkampf

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..

Notes, Satiric ..It’s Jungle Out There You Young People You..

They [executive implied direct deductive behavioural bodily-indicated micro and the inductive thoughtful derivative inferential macro] lead on to each other in turn. It is like moving in a circle—you never come to an end. Who can exhaust the possibilities of their combination?

*reflective, conceptual ideational

Star Signs, the Game of Thrones, Dungeons & Dragons, an Appetite for Chicken Crimpies & Wikipedia Navigation Patterns May Reveal ‘Curiosity-types’ or dyslexic, discordant, dysphoric, divergent, aberrant or socially, politically & psycho-culturally isolating broadly aphasic neurocognitive-operations which we your exclusively allopathic surgical, therapising alternative-care-arrangemrnts-when-sadly-or cheerfully-there-doesn’t-seem-much-choice & dispensing diagnosticians wait in the wings of your stage-crafted advertising industry driven radically misconceived nonetheless vaguely if not intensively pleasureable lives to help manage collecting reasonable fees from you OK?

And did i mention fire flood food shortage new viruses and levels of ultra-violet radiation hitting the surface of the earth unknown to insect, fungus, bacterial culture, fish, crustacean, phytoplankton, beast, bird, humble herdsman, beadle, magistrate or housewife in 10,000 years, rioting and quite possibly acts of insurrection against your democratically elected governments local, state & federal in the obviously mistaken beliefs that people on good wages can’t do all three of feed household members satisfactorily, pay the rent or attend school outings or any public event that charges admission AND that the hard-working 🗣️🗣️🗣️s in the people’s multifarious chambers, halls and prayer rooms of garbment don’t give a monkey’s about them adversely influenced by activists, pro-Palestinians who oppose genocde & ethnic cleansing conducted hygienically in the national interest of our allies for goodness’ sake and aocial media.

I mean we ask you ladies and gentlemen, arbiters of common sense and good home cooking though you do sneakily admire talking crap to a tortoise about dinner along with huge blue forbidding superannuation savings yak thingies, little children’ cots violently hopping across the room, Ikea hoseholds doing awesome deft shit throwing junk into boxes thus cleverly relieving the landfill waste problem which is politically awesome but we mustn’t talk about it lest we upset Kerry Stokes or Kerry Packer oh he died but never mind and the old-fave violent National Australia Bank house with huge ostrich legs – how’s the old IQ, slipped afew points has it? – every boy-child in your home now on Ritalin huh? – the son of that unfortunate loudmouth who began his career studying rattlesnakes at a USAF base in Arizona so have taken to getting in devitalised downgrade stuff in boxes because contrary to our aforementioned high expectations of you it does in fact appear you have significantly more money than sense.

– Be very careful I’ll have a word to that public expenditure & waste sleuth Angus Taylor and if i can pluck up the courage to put my best foot forward, nose to the grindstone & shoulder to the Sisyphean wheel National Party stalwart Geraldine Clumpstock..

‘The searching patterns of nearly half a million people browsing Wikipedia suggests that users demonstrate three unique styles of curiosity. The ‘hunter’ logically pursues specific answers, the ‘busybody’ searches for diverse nuggets of new information and the ‘dancer’ links unrelated concepts through exploration. The study used two months of anonymized browsing data from more than 482,000 users of the @Wikipedia mobile app from 50 countries and territories. The team suggests that understanding people’s different styles of curiosity could improve teamwork. “We can be more aware of the fact that we ask questions differently and we investigate knowledge spaces differently, and embrace that diversity,” says human curiosity and learning researcher and co-author Dani Bassett. Nature | 5 min read

Reference: Science Advances paper
  1. The doughty Sun Tzu said: The control of a large force is the same
    principle as the control of a few men: it is merely a
    question of dividing up their numbers.
  2. Fighting with a large army under your command is
    nowise different from fighting with a small one: it is
    merely a question of instituting signs and signals.
  3. To ensure that your whole host may withstand the
    brunt of the enemy’s attack and remain unshaken—this
    is effected by maneuvers direct and indirect.
  4. That the impact of your army may be like a grindstone dashed against an egg—this is effected by the science of weak points and strong.
  5. In all fighting, the direct method may be used for
    joining battle, but indirect methods will be needed in
    order to secure victory.
  6. Indirect tactics, efficiently applied, are inexhaustible
    as Heaven and Earth, unending as the flow of rivers
    and streams; like the sun and moon, they end but to
    begin anew; like the four seasons, they pass away to
    return once more.
  7. There are not more than five musical notes, yet the
    combinations of these five give rise to more melodies
    than can ever be heard.
  8. There are not more than five primary colors (blue,
    yellow, red, white, and black), yet in combination they
    produce more hues than can ever been seen.
  9. There are not more than five cardinal tastes (sour,
    acrid, salt, sweet, bitter), yet combinations of them
    yield more flavors than can ever be tasted.
  10. In battle, there are not more than two methods of
    attack—the direct and the indirect; yet these two in
    combination give rise to an endless series of maneuvers.
  11. The direct and the indirect lead on to each other in
    turn. It is like moving in a circle—you never come to
    an end. Who can exhaust the possibilities of their combination?
  12. The onset of troops is like the rush of a torrent
    which will even roll stones along in its course.
  13. The quality of decision is like the well-timed swoop
    of a falcon which enables it to strike and destroy its victim.
  14. Therefore the good fighter will be terrible in his
    onset, and prompt in his decision.
  15. Energy may be likened to the bending of a crossbow; decision, to the releasing of a trigger.
  16. Amid the turmoil and tumult of battle, there may be
    seeming disorder and yet no real disorder at all; amid
    confusion and chaos, your array may be without head
    or tail, yet it will be proof against defeat.
  17. Simulated disorder postulates perfect discipline,
    simulated fear postulates courage; simulated weakness
    postulates strength.
  18. Hiding order beneath the cloak of disorder is simply a question of subdivision; concealing courage
    under a show of timidity presupposes a fund of latent
    energy; masking strength with weakness is to be effected by tactical dispositions.
  19. Thus one who is skillful at keeping the enemy on
    the move maintains deceitful appearances, according to
    which the enemy will act. He sacrifices something,
    that the enemy may snatch at it.
  20. By holding out baits, he keeps him on the march;
    then with a body of picked men he lies in wait for him.
  21. The clever combatant looks to the effect of combined energy, and does not require too much from individuals. Hence his ability to pick out the right men and
    utilize combined energy.
  22. When he utilizes combined energy, his fighting
    men become as it were like unto rolling logs or stones.
    For it is the nature of a log or stone to remain motionless on level ground, and to move when on a slope; if
    four-cornered, to come to a standstill, but if roundshaped, to go rolling down.
  23. Thus the energy developed by good fighting men is
    as the momentum of a round stone rolled down a
    mountain thousands of feet in height. So much on the subject of energy.