[The Face of Dutch]

"La garde meurt, mais il ne se rend pas!"

(After Napoleon had fled Waterloo, the battle lost, an English negotiator approached the French army to suggest surrender:
Als Napoleon gevlucht is uit Waterloo, de slag verloren, komt een Engelse onderhandelaar die het Franse leger overgave voorstelt:)

Maar doew ging inne sjrei op wie oeht ing inzige kehl of went de eeht woeht opgeriehte en deh bis iggen Hiemel sjalde: "De gard-muur-meneserong-ba (la garde meurt, mais il ne se rend pas.)"
But then we shouted as if from a single throat, resounding in the sky like the earth was erupting: "The Guard may die, but does not surrender."

E.R. Eddison puts it like this:
"There went up," said the soldier, "such a shout, with such a stamping, and such a clashing together of weapons, the land shook with't, and the echoes rolled in the high corries of the Scarf like thunder, of them shouting, 'Krothering!' 'Juss!' 'Brandoch Daha!' 'Lead us to Krothering! Without more ado ..."
(The Worm Ouroboros)

Less reverential sources say that the shout was not something as cerebral as this, but just "Merde!" Did General McAuliffe at Bastogne really say "Nuts" when the Germans suggested he surrender? It has been said he used a more vivid expression.

[Later] Or did General McAuliffe really say: "Nuts!"?
Lt.Gen. Harold G. Moore (Ret.) says in 'We Were Soldiers Once ... And Young': Major General Harry W.O. Kinnard ... was Brigadier General Tony McAuliffe's operations officer, G3, at the Battle of Bastogne in the Bulge, and the man who suggested that General McAuliffe specifically responded to a German surrender demand with one historic word: "Nuts!" (And 1500 Web pages concur.)

Men zegt wel dat ze niet iets hoogdravends hebben geroepen als dit, maar gewoon "Merde!" Heeft generaal McAuliffe in Bastogne ook niet iets krachtigers gezegd dan het "Nuts" van de officiële geschiedschrijving?

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In Holland, it is generally thought that schout-by-nacht click to hear (rear admiral) Karel Doorman click to hear on attacking the Japanese in the Battle of the Java Sea (February 1942) sent out this as his last message: "Ik val aan. Volg mij." click to hear ('I'm going in. Follow me.') Reading my history book closely it may have been a flag signal. But Geert Mak writes in 'De Eeuw van Mijn Vader' that the message was in English and just said 'All ships follow me.' Maybe it's just two different renderings of a flag signal.

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