To arms!
Ha, I’ve never really thought about the expression “to arms!” in English before, but I guess it literally does mean “to the weapons”, which was my first guess when I heard “zu den Waffen”. I love how hearing an expression in some other language can make you stop and reflect on something you’ve heard a million times in your own language but never really thought about before.
Wonderful example of English having a Anglo-Saxon (Germanic) word “weapon” (Waffe) and a Norman word “arms”.
“To arms” - military commands of course given by Normans - from Italian “all arma” (and going back to Latin).
However, he combination of words survived also in German: In “Alarm” (alert) and - less easily to recognize - in “Lärm” (noise).
And I couldn’t agree more: Learning a language and especially the discussions here helps to understand your own language and its pecularities.