The change in our position confused the enemy.
As to Sentences.
1. Avoid long involved sentences. Even if they are grammatically well constructed, they are liable to rhetorical error. The following sentence because of its length violates unity:
“The organization of the German army is today well known to American Army officers, and experience has shown that German problems and solutions of a complex character changed in translation to conform to American units are often more troublesome for the student to understand than the original would be, as, on account of the difference in the size of the units, it is often necessary in reading such a translation to go back to the German organization in order to explain a distribution of troops, which, though simple for a German division, would be an awkward one for a division organized after our own Field Service Regulations.”
The first thought given to the reader is that “the organization of the German army is today well known to American Army officers.” The last thought of the sentence is that the “explanation of a distribution of troops would be an awkward one for a division organized after our own Field Service Regulations.” The path from the first thought to the second is long and winding. In fact the two do not belong in the same sentence as the sense stands.
With a simple change we can make the whole easier to read:
The organization of the German army is today well known to American Army officers. Their experience has shown that German problems and solutions of a complex character changed in translation to conform to American units are often more troublesome for the student to understand than the original would be. On account of the difference in the size of the units, it is often necessary in reading such a translation to go back to the German organization in order to explain a distribution of troops, which, though simple for a German division, would be an awkward one for a division organized after our own Field Service Regulations.
The reader has been allowed to take in a thought at a time instead of three thoughts at once.
In spite of the injunction in our Field Service Regulations that “short sentences are easily understood,” such long and involved expressions as the above have abounded among military writers. In war, this continuous motion in a single sentence has marred undertakings; in peace, it has robbed efficiency. It has been an incubus upon general orders, and even communications in the field.
CAUTION.—By short sentences we do not mean choppy sentences—sentences unnecessarily short as,—