A Confusion of Terms

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 7246, 28 August 1933, Page 5

A Confusion of Terms

To the Editor. ftir, —In his letter of yesterday 's date “Old Glory" waxes sarcastic over my alleged misreading of his statements, i confess that he does puzzle me a bit. I’or example, in his letter of July 22, in quoting from the American correspondent, E. H. Simonds' account of the tit. ilihiel engagement, he stated: “Pershing engaged 22 divisions, with 700,000 replacements." My interpretation of that was that Pershing attacked 22 Getman divisions, etc. But now “Old Glory" in his latest says that the statement above meant that Pershing had 22 American divisions with which he attacked the Germans. If he had used the little word “with" it would bo the Americans who attacked with 22 divisions, but its absence carries the opposite meaning that the 22 divisions were the Germans. I think your military readers will bear mo out. . , „ , The foregoing is a sample of how this writer mixes up things and then snceringly states that I misinterpreted him. Abo, in the same letter he returns to the one action that there is a hope of exploiting—the one and only engagement in which the American army tried to “take a man's part" (with a whole Brench army corps shouldering them into it) and from which they emerged with anything but glory. “Old Glory" says he does not Tefer to the “St. Mihiel engagement, but to the Meuse-Argonnc." It is simply_ a confusion of terms. The St. Mihiel salient and the Argonne are one and tho same. The latter is an extonsive region, say, comparable to the Manawatu, and St. Mihiel is a small section of it some 22 miles wide. Here the only action was fought.—l am etc., THOS. WATSON. Peilding, Aug. 25.