'Prevaricate' as a synonym for 'vacillate'

Question

There's a lot of motivation here. It boils down to a two-part question: is the usage of 'prevarication' as a synonym for 'vacillation' common, acceptable, and/or preferable; and is there any reason that it might crop up particularly often in the history of Austria and Germany?

I am currently reading Max Hastings's Catastrophe 1914, which I am very much enjoying, except for this usage, which jars me. Some example quotes:

Russia's prevarications about the exact pattern of its mobilisation were almost certainly irrelevant to the European outcome.

But if German policy had vacillated earlier in July, now the march to war had attained its own momentum. In Berlin on the 29th, Falkenhayn sought to force the pace: he declared that the time for prevarication was over ….

Gallieni fumed at the prevarications of bureaucrats, who seemed incapable of adjusting from the tempo of peace to that of extreme national peril ….

Unfortunately, this book isn't previewed on Google Books, so you'll have to take my word that the surroundings make it clear that 'prevarication' here is not meant to refer to deception, but rather to what I think of as vacillation. Note particularly the second quote, where 'vacillation' is even used in the previous sentence, to describe the behaviour the time for which was over. For an example sentence with more context, and also to note that this usage is not peculiar to Hastings, see https://books.google.com/books?id=9Y0osRlmQcIC&pg=PP47#q=prevaricate:

Some officials and politicians thought that Hitler would continue to prevaricate ….

(Here you really probably will want to check the context to verify that it is not a reference to prevarication as deception, in which Hitler certainly engaged wantonly.)

To my shock, when I went to the OED to back up my distaste with this usage, I found it saying very much the contrary (http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/151057#eid112455102):

3b. To behave evasively or indecisively so as to delay action; to procrastinate. Now the usual sense.

However, a hallway survey of several colleagues produced the uniform reaction "no, that's not what it means at all!"; and I noticed that the second quote is clearly about Nazism, while the first refers to—I don't know what, but clearly some conflict involving Austria. So, I am back to the question at the beginning: is this usage really 'usual', and is there any reason that it seems to crop up so often in the history of Austria and Germany?

Answer 1

Regarding the first part of your question:

is the usage of 'prevarication' as a synonym for 'vacillation' common, acceptable, and/or preferable?

The two words are not synonymous, so to use them as synonyms is very uncommon, generally unacceptable and certainly not preferable.

Prevaricate -- ODO
Speak or act in an evasive way:
*'he seemed to prevaricate when journalists asked pointed questions'

[examples of "prevarication":]
'Even so, he has continued his policy of deception and prevarication.'
'Now we are fed big pills of outright lies, prevarication, and deception.'
'I met people who had endured 12 hours of mis-information and prevarication before they boarded a plane.'

Compare with:

Vacillation -- ODO
The inability to decide between different opinions or actions; indecision:
'the First Minister’s vacillation over the affair'

Regarding the second part of your question:

is there any reason that it might crop up particularly often in the history of Austria and Germany?

It's not certain that these words in the examples you've provided mean anything other than as defined, so this part of your question can't be answered. "Prevarication" can certainly be used as a means of delaying a decision or action, but that's a deliberate act, and not quite the same as the inability that "vacillation" indicates. The ODO entry for "procrastinate" cited above also notes that:

The verbs prevaricate and procrastinate have similar but not identical meanings. Prevaricate means ‘act or speak in an evasive way’, as in he prevaricated at the mention of money. Procrastinate, on the other hand, means ‘put off doing something’, as in the Western powers will procrastinate until it is too late. The meanings are closely related—if someone prevaricates they often also procrastinate—and this can give rise to confusion in use.