The Spectator ● June 6, 2016
Page 9
Features A Rendezvous with Mr. Hanna By VINCENT JIANG and GEORGE PAPASTEFANOU He came out of the history teachers’ lounge to meet us one day in the noisy third floor atrium. He held himself almost regally with his posture firm and his gaze polite. We were meeting history teacher David Hanna to talk about the release of his new book, “Rendezvous with Death: The Americans Who Joined the Foreign Legion in 1914 to Fight for France and for Civilization,” about the experiences of a group of soldiers fighting in France. And, as he plunged into the depths of his story, the floor seemed to grow quiet.
Courtesy of David Hanna
In Search of a New Idea After publishing his first book, “Knights of the Sea” (2012), a book about the War of 1812, Hanna was sure that he was going to write another. But “Rendezvous with Death” wasn’t what he had in mind at first. Initially, his plan was to write about Joe Frazier, the legendary heavyweight boxer. However, some members of Frazier’s family did not cooperate as much as he had hoped, and he had to abandon it. As he summarized, chuckling a bit, “dealing with live people is hard.” But when his publisher got back to him and expressed interest in another book on military history, Hanna went for it. He explored various topics, but, once he got to the experiences of the Lafayette Escadrille air squadron, and, more importantly, the larger group of Americans fighting in France at the start of World War I, he was hooked and was interested enough to delve deeper into their stories. “I thought it was interesting because [the Americans] were ordinary guys [and not classically trained soldiers]. […] Most of them were poets, painters, sculptors,” he said. “They were the kind of people that most people can identify with.”
History teacher David Hanna traveled to Paris to do research for his newest book, “Rendezvous with Death: The Americans Who Joined the Foreign Legion in 1914 to Fight for France and for Civilization.”
Researching for “Rendezvous” What followed was about three and a half years of researching and writing. Hanna often looked through archives of old newspapers, such as The New York Sun, since many of the soldiers were from New York and had written for the papers. He also had the chance to go to France and do research there in April of 2015. Fellow Stuyvesant history teacher Dr. Lisa Greenwald looked for
members of an academic community in French studies that she was part of who were interested in helping him research. Claire Khelfaoui served as Hanna’s guide and translator in France. She took Hanna through the country to see the vibrant fields that were once the site of the various battles in his book, such as Verdun, and also helped pull out old newspapers from the archives to translate for Hanna. “I could have wound up with [a guide] who was not as thorough. She was very thorough. It made a big difference,” he said. But most of the details of the intense experiences the American soldiers had were from journals left behind by both the fighters and their families. One, for example, was from a brother of a soldier who wrote about the experiences. “It’s not the greatest narrative, but it’s really thorough. [...] That was really the core,” Hanna said. Despite the ample amount of information he was getting, and the endless amounts left unexplored, Hanna decided to come back to New York and start writing because of the “60 percent” rule he learned from an interview he had seen of David McCullough, a well-known nonfiction writer. Seeing our slightly confused faces, he explained to us that he knew if he kept researching, he never would have gotten around to writing. But with 60 percent of the research done, he had enough information to construct something meaningful. “[60 percent to me is] when I’m reading something, and I can close my eyes and tell you what I’m going to read over the next three pages, more or less,” he told us. The Process of Writing After researching, the next step was to start writing, and we quickly found that Hanna’s work ethic is one that most Stuyvesant students can only dream of. He spoke to us about how he balances writing and teaching. “We have breaks, so you use the breaks, but you have to be really organized. When you set a deadline for yourself, you have to meet it.” He added, “It also helps that my wife’s really sympathetic and cooperative.” The main hindrance to writing, Hanna said, is overthinking. He described a common writing pitfall: “A lot of times, people will think about it, [...] research it, [...] and they’ll never write anything.” Putting words down on paper, he explained, is of the utmost importance, because, at the very least, it provides something to revise. Unsurprisingly, writer’s block is not a problem for Hanna. “You don’t have writer’s block because [the material]’s there,” he said, drawing a distinction between himself and fiction writers, who have to make their content up. Still, he expressed admiration and respect for fiction writers, noting the challenge of writing dialogue. “I wouldn’t know how to do that.” Publishing “Rendezvous” Hanna also elucidated the process of publishing, from conception to mass-market distribution. Initial research, he said, took about one year. Subsequently, the research got condensed to a proposal which
contained an outline of the structure of the book and included a sample chapter. This is what got pitched to publishers, and if a publisher “bites,” as Hanna put it, the author receives an advance payment, which Hanna used to go to France to do original research. Publishing was where a potential problem presented itself. A conflict with his editor made Hanna’s experience a bit more difficult than he would have liked. “Their hand is a lot more there than people realize. […] I felt that she was doing things a copy editor should do. [...] We were not getting along,” he admitted. The problem, he said, resolved itself over time. Now, he and his editor have synergy, as he put it. “It wound up being a great relationship.” Hanna received a great deal of feedback, though he focused on the reviews from experts in his field, and to a lesser extent, critics. One review he especially enjoyed, and fondly told us about, was from New York Magazine. “Have you ever seen the Highbrow/Brilliant/ Lowbrow matrix? [...] I was in Highbrow/Brilliant, that quadrant. That was a big thing. That felt really good. Even though it’s kind of a cheesy kind of thing,” he said, smiling. The Finished Product In many ways, though, Hanna is a storyteller. His work serves as a chronicle of the diverse group of volunteers for the French Foreign Legion in the First World War. One protagonist of many that greatly resonated with him is the poet Alan Seeger, whose melancholy poem, “I Have a Rendezvous with Death,” fittingly lent its title to the story. Hanna sought to write something compelling and immersive (in contrast, he said, to the dry academic writing that is so often associated with history), while still being informative and true to historical fact. He cited as influences the Pulitzer Prize winning historians Barbara Tuchman and the previously mentioned McCullough, both elder gods in the pantheon of popular history authors. It was easy to find similarities between the two and Hanna: McCullough shares Hanna’s sedulous work ethic, and Tuchman’s most well-known book, “The Guns of August”, outlines the genesis of the war that the characters of “Rendezvous with Death” devote themselves to fighting in.
There will be a book launch at the Tribeca Barnes & Noble at 4:00 p.m. on Monday, June 13. All students and fac-
ulty are welcome, especially since the launch is located just a few blocks away from Stuyvesant and will take place just 25 minutes after 10th period on the last day of classes. Below is an excerpt from “Rendezvous with Death: The Americans Who Joined the Foreign Legion in 1914 to Fight for France and for Civilization.” By the end of the third week in August, most of the original contingent of Americans was in place. There were fewer than fifty of them, a drop in the bucket of France’s potential military strength, but collectively they possessed great symbolic significance. The foreign volunteers not just Americans but Greeks, Russians, Jews, Armenians, Alsatians, Danes, Colombians, Peruvians, Italians, and Spaniards (many nationalities raised volunteer contingents to join the Légionétrangère) — demonstrated to the wider world that France’s cause was just and universal. The American volunteers in particular carried an added significance in that their home country was an industrial giant and potentially potent military power as well. If their commitment could sway American public opinion, then perhaps the U.S. government could eventually be convinced to abandon its stated policy of strict neutrality. On August 21 the Americans officially signed their enlistment papers and were granted three days to get their affairs in order before embarking. For Alan Seeger this decision sparkled with a clarity rare in life: “I have talked with so many of the young volunteers here. Their case is little known, even by the French, yet altogether interesting and appealing. They are foreigners on whom the outbreak of war laid no formal compulsion. But they had stood on the butte [Montmartre] in springtime perhaps, as Julian and Louise stood, and looked out over the myriad twinkling lights of the great city. Paris— mystic, maternal, personified, to whom they owed the happiest moments of their lives— Paris was in peril. Were they not under a moral obligation, no less binding than [that by which] their comrades were bound legally, to put their breasts between her and destruction? Without renouncing their nationality, they had chosen to make their homes here beyond any other city in the world. Did not the benefits and blessings they had received point them a duty that heart and conscience could not deny?” And on a deeper level, the war was calling Seeger and his comrades to defend one side in an ancient feud, in modern form. According to this historical interpretation the Allied side that they were joining was “a pan-Latin front, a classical civilization united against the German barbarians.” As art historian Kenneth E. Silver has explained, in the larger historical context for those living in Paris in 1914, “The very people who
invaded France are the same ones who sacked Rome.”And they were now coming to sack Paris. The day after the Americans officially enlisted, the French Army met the enemy in the climax of what would come to be known as the “Battle of the Frontiers.” As the name suggests, the fighting was concentrated along the border between the French Republic and the German Empire. From the Ardennes Forest in the north to Mulhouse in the south, French soldiers attacked the Germans, trusting in their élan and their bayonets to sweep their longtime foe before them. In the age of modern warfare, however, rapid-firing machine guns and powerful and accurate artillery fire more than offset these perceived strengths. On this single day—August 22, 1914—the French Army lost approximately 27,000 soldiers killed. This figure does not reflect French soldiers who were wounded or taken prisoner, only those who lost their lives. To place this figure in some historical context: the single deadliest day in U.S. military history was September 17, 1862, when both the Union and Confederate forces combined lost a total of 3,654 killed in the Battle of Antietam. One can’t help but contemplate what France lost on that terrible day. Certainly more than a battle. As Paris reeled under the news of the disaster to the east, it looked anxiously to the north where the German general Alexander von Kluck had pushed through Belgium and now looked to descend on the city. Would the French cause be lost before the Americans volunteers could even fire a shot? This wasn’t as preposterous a question as it might seem. But the ominous news did little to dim the ardor of the Americans. When the day scheduled for their departure arrived, they were buoyant, proud, unafraid. A number of years later Jack Bowe explained how his future comrades-in arms began their journey to war: “Starting from the Palace Royale in the Latin Quarter, that corner of old Paris where, in by-gone days, Camille Desmoulins jumped on a chair and made the speech that started the French Revolution.”Except now it was they who were playing their part in history. Dressed in civilian clothes, the volunteers began their march in the morning sunshine to the Gare Saint-Lazare that Claude Monet had painted, about a half mile away in the 8th arrondissement. Crowds gathered along their route, pitching chocolates and flowers, while pretty girls proffered kisses. René Phelizot and Alan Seeger took turns holding aloft the oversized American flag at the front of the procession, and managed to monopolize the attentions of many of les demoiselles along the route.21 Who could blame them? To be a hero, warranted or not, if only for a few moments in Paris in the late summer, was as close to being a god as any living man was likely to come. And then, at the station, their golden moment already fading into obscurity, the volunteers boarded a train for Rouen—and their new life in the Légion, in the war, in a new age.