For years, social media users have shared an alleged quote by U.S. Gen. George Patton Jr., claiming the World War II military leader once said, "May God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't."
For example, in 2021, a user managing an Arkansas-based Air Force Base Facebook page shared the quote while memorializing the Pearl Harbor attacks of Dec. 7, 1941. Seven years earlier, future President Donald Trump posted (archived) the quote on Twitter, and UFC President and CEO Dana White repeated the quote during multiple interviews. Other users reposted the remark with Patton's name on Instagram, LinkedIn (archived) and Reddit (archived).
(@realDonaldTrump/Twitter)
The words "they will need it" obviously differ from the popularized and more personal-sounding "because I won't." Snopes has yet to locate any records confirming Patton ever spoke or wrote the latter version of the remark. Some records feature the claim that actor George C. Scott uttered that version in his portrayal of Patton in the 1970 film of the same name. We found no evidence of that, either.
For these reasons, we have rated this claim a mixture of true and undetermined information.
The documented quote originated from Patton's own private writings later republished in author and military historian Martin Blumenson's 1974 book, "The Patton Papers 1940-1945." Blumenson served with Patton in the military. In 1995, author and journalist Rick Atkinson featured the quote in an introduction for a new edition of Patton's posthumously released 1947 memoir, "War as I Knew It."
Both Blumenson and Atkinson quoted Patton as saying "May God have mercy on my enemies; they will need it." Patton died following a car accident in Germany in December 1945.
More on the original Patton quote
Blumenson's collection of Patton's private diary entries and letters offers context for understanding the quote. (The Library of Congress houses the original, physical Patton papers but as of this writing has not yet made the entry with the quote available online.)
Blumenson's book cites the quote under the title of the first section. Several pages later, in that section's first chapter, "Fort Benning: Brigade," Blumenson guides the reader through Patton's thoughts concerning Germany's invasion of Poland in 1939, then writes:
The armored divisions made the biggest headlines in Poland, but the infantry divisions broke the Polish defenses. Once a hole was opened, the armored divisions went through or took advantage of the battle confusion to get around the flank. In either case, the tanks were then employed "exactly as Murat used his cavalry corps in the days of Napoleon."
Blumenson then quotes Patton himself, who wrote (emphasis ours):
In a former geological era when I was a boy studying latin, I had occasion to translate one of Caesar's remarks which as nearly as I can remember read something like this.
"In the winter time, Caesar so trained his legions in all that became soldiers and so habituated them in the proper performance of their duties, that when in the spring he committed them to battle against the Gauls, it was not necessary to give them orders, for they knew what to do and how to do it."
This quotation expresses very exactly the goal we are seeking in this division. I know that we shall attain it and when we do, may God have mercy on our enemies; they will need it.
Blumenson then confirms when Patton wrote the remark, with Blumenson adding, "Attaining that goal was a long way off in September 1940."
Much later in Blumenson's book, he quotes Patton's wife, Beatrice, as making a similar remark to her husband about mercy for enemies:
Letter, Beatrice to GSP, Jr., July 30, 1943
I think you have hit on how to make the men mad, although unwittingly. Any enemy who will booby trap their own dead deserves no mercy, and after a few hands have been blown off trying to move them, will get none from the Americans…
For further reading about quotes from men who faced war, we previously investigated whether Napoleon said, "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake."