English to Russian Art/Literary History

Прошу помощи с переводом последнего предложения.
Перевожу книгу об интервенции на север России в 1918 - 1925 гг.
Автор пишет о том, как британцы игнорировали американское командование. Последнее предложение никак не могу осилить. Смысл более-менее понятен: британцы игнорировали амер. командование, не давали им проявиться и сами же говорили, что те ни на что не способны.
It might be supposed that the British, being appropriately and properly in supreme command, would have given their orders, as far as they applied solely to the operations of purely American units, to the responsible American officers, leaving these officers without petty interference to get the work accomplished. But it was not so. British colonels did not give their orders to American colonels to be passed down the line. In fact, they had very little use for American colonels. They went to the captains, the lieutenants, and even the sergeants and corporals and the men themselves. They ignored American officers most noticeably. They set their own petty officers upon the Americans in a manner that was most irritating to American national self-esteem and bitterly resented. And since all necessary things are reasonable to the military mind it was the greatest tact to explain that "the Americans know nothing about military matters, you know."