German commander Heinrich Freiherr von Luttwitz demanded Americans surrender: "Bastogne has been encircled by strong German armored units ...There is only one possibility to save the encircled U.S.A. troops from total annihilation ... surrender. On December 22, 1944, U.S. Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe answered: "To the German Commander. NUTS!-The American Commander ... Nuts."
On Christmas Eve, December 24, 1914, an estimated 100,000 British, French and German troops near Ypres in Belgium along the Western Front, ceased fighting.
Washington made the password for his operation "Victory or Death."This reflected Washington's General Orders, which he had issued months before on July 2, 1776: "The time is now near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own ... The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army."
Not only was Friedrich Shillers's "Ode to Joy" set to Beethoven's Ninth, but so was "Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee," a hymn written in 1907 by Princeton professor Henry Van Dyke: "Joyful, joyful, we adore Thee, God of glory, Lord of love; Hearts unfold like flowers before Thee, opening to the sun above."
Washington added: "... that unless some great and capital change suddenly takes place ... this Army must inevitably ... starve, dissolve, or disperse, in order to obtain subsistence in the best manner they can."
