[Ads-l] "War is Hell"

[Jonathan Lighter]

1859 Boston Evening Transcript (Oct. 29) 6 [Newspapers.com]:  "War is
hell," said Napoleon I, and  so say the laws of God.

1865 "Yale" in_The  Golden Era_ (S.F.) (Apr. 16) 3 [GenealogyBank]: Peace
is Heaven; War is hell.

JL

On Thu, Jan 15, 2009 at 9:01 PM Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "War is Hell"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> I understand that this is of no particular value, but, according to a
> biography of Sherman from some time in the last century, of which I
> have no other memory, what he actually said was something like,
>
> "There are those fools who reckon war a glorious and heroic
> undertaking. But I have seen war, and it is hell."
>
> Or something more-or-less to that effect.
>
> -Wilson
> –––
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -----
> -Mark Twain
>
>
>
> On Thu, Jan 15, 2009 at 8:17 PM, Baker, John <JMB at stradley.com> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
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> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       "Baker, John" <JMB at STRADLEY.COM>
> > Subject:      Re: "War is Hell"
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> >        Google Books has this example, which pushes the attribution to
> > Napoleon back to 1835, or at any rate to 1854.  This is from an essay on
> > the life of the Rev. Charles Brooks, of Massachusetts (1795-    ), in
> > John Livingston, Portraits of Eminent Americans Now Living 483 (1854):
> >
> >        <<In 1835, he published his views of war and the means of
> > preventing it.  His statement was this--". . . . Bonaparte said,--'War
> > is hell.'  It surely is a suspension of the laws of God.">>
> >
> >        The text doesn't seem to give any further indication of where
> > and how Brooks published his views in 1835.  Incidentally, what Brooks
> > sought was a high Court of Nations to resolve disputes.
> >
> >
> >        Google Books also has an 1850 example, not referring to
> > Napoleon, in George McHenry, The Helleniad, An Epic Poem 66 (1850):
> >
> >        <<Preferring hell to heaven: for war is hell,
> >          And peace is heaven even in this world.>>
> >
> >
> > John Baker
> >
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
> > Of Jonathan Lighter
> > Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2009 11:41 AM
> > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> > Subject: Re: "War is Hell"
> >
> > FWIW, I have found no online evidence that Napoleon Bonaparte ever wrote
> > or said the words, "La guerre, c'est l'infer."
> >
> > Ah, well; as one might have expected.
> >
> > JL
> >
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