[Ads-l] antedating of "total war"

[Jonathan Lighter]

1936: OED

1935 Buffalo Evening News (Oct. 28) 2: LUDENDORFF OUTLINES PLAN FOR TOTAL
WAR  Berlin, Oct. 28. (AP).--The next war must be a "total war" with every
breath of doubt or discouragement against it ruthlessly stifled, General
Erich Ludendorff maintained today.

As OED notes, the currency of the phrase derives from Ludendorff's book,
"Der Totale Krieg," issued in German in 1935.

JL
-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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