Jean-Yves Jouannais : L'Encyclopédie des guerres

Entry "Nettoyage", excerpt:

"The Germans and the dog were engaged in a military operation which had an amusingly self-explanatory name, a human enterprise which is seldom described in detail, whose name alone, when reported as new or history, gives many war enthusiasts a sort of post-coital satisfaction. It is, in the imagination of combat's fans, the divinely listless loveplay that follows the orgasm of victory. It is called ‘mopping up.’"

Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse 5, or the Children’s Crusade, translated from English by Lucienne Lotringer, published by Le Seuil, coll. Points, Paris, 1971, p. 53.