[Ads-l] "War is Hell"

Fri Sep 26 18:34:19 UTC 2025

Fred's "The New Yale Book of Quotations" has a pertinent entry:

[Begin excerpt]
Napoleon I
French emperor and general, 1769–1821

War is hell.
Quoted in John Livingston, Portraits of Eminent Americans Now Living
(1854). Livingston cited an unspecified 1835 publication by Charles
Brooks that stated, "Bonaparte said,—'War is hell.'" This preceded by
many years the use of the expression by William Tecumseh Sherman, who
has long been accepted as the originator.
[End excerpt]

John Baker posted the 1854 citation to the ADS list back in 2009, and
he posted an interesting 1850 citation within a poem.
https://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2009-January/087049.html

Napoleon received credit for a germane variant statement in 1845.

Date: January 14, 1845
Periodical: Oberlin Evangelist
Periodical Location: Oberlin, Ohio
https://books.google.com/books?id=mzJFAAAAYAAJ&q=%22is+a+hell%22+#v=snippet&

[Begin excerpt]
"A battle is a hell." - Napoleon.
[End excerpt]

A preliminary search revealed no relevant early matches for:
Une bataille est un enfer

Garson

On Fri, Sep 26, 2025 at 1:18 PM Jonathan Lighter
<00001aad181a2549-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:
>
> 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:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > 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
> > -----------------------
> > > 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
> > >
> > > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> > >
> > > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> > >
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
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