David Hanna: ‘Rendezvous with Death: The Americans Who Joined the Foreign Legion in 1914 to Fight for France and for Civilization’

David Hanna discussed his new book, Rendezvous with Death: The Americans Who Joined the Foreign Legion in 1914 to Fight for France and for Civilization, with Breitbart News Daily SiriusXM host Stephen K. Bannon.

A description of the book reads:

Before America joined World War I, a small group of Americans volunteered for the French Foreign Legion to help defeat the Central Powers. Historian David Hanna profiles seven of these volunteers: a poet, an artist, a boxer, a stunt pilot, a college student, a veteran of the Spanish American War, and an advertising executive. All seven men were united in courage; and some, like poet Alan Seeger, paid the ultimate sacrifice. Before he was killed in battle, Seeger penned the immortal words that inspired this book’s title:

I’ve a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town,
When Spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.

Asked what motivated the young men to get into the fight early, well before America did, Hanna said:

Some of them were already living in Paris. They were aspiring writers and painters. They felt almost an obligation when they saw some of their former friends and comrades going off. They got their call-up papers, and they headed to the front. So, it was partly that. But it was also more idealistic. They felt that France was a sister republic. Democracy was under threat – a society that values individual rights and culture.

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