“I’m just trying to scare you into accepting a much higher debt ceiling,” Yellen added.
“Boo!”
IT WAS MID-morning on Dec. 22, 1944 when U.S. troops manning the defences of the besieged Belgian town of Bastogne watched as four German soldiers – a major, a captain and two enlisted men – approached under a large white flag.
The U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division had established a perimeter there just two days earlier to halt Hitler’s surprise offensive through the Ardennes.
By that point, 400,000 German troops supported by more than a thousand armoured vehicles had smashed though the American lines and were driving on the port of Antwerp in hopes of splitting the Allied forces.
Bastogne was right in their path. Seven major roads led into and out of the city; capturing it was critical to the German advance.
When presented with the surrender demand, the 101st commander, Brigadier General Anthony C. McAuliffe, laughed at very notion of surrender. In his opinion his men were giving the Germans “one hell of a beating” and felt the enemy demand was out of line with the existing situation.
“Aw, nuts,” he blurted out.
And so, the German army ground to a halt around Bastogne – without fuel and without sufficient reserves to replace their losses – the battle the Germans were engaged in was already lost, just as General McAuliffe had predicted days before.