BELLOY-EN-SANTERRE, FRANCE — In the end, Alan Seeger’s bones could no longer be distinguished from those of his Foreign Legion comrades who had fallen alongside him in one of the most brutal battles of World War I.
United across nations, it was the glorious death that he craved.
Seeger — an American poet, romantic and soldier — died on that most American of days, July 4, a century ago Monday. Barely 28, he was already fighting for a global, common cause that bound dozens of countries together at a time when the United States was still a bystander, reluctant to get involved in a faraway war in Europe.
His premonition, “I have a Rendezvous with Death,” was to become his most beloved poem, and the volunteer was happy to give his life for France and its grand ideals of “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.” Half a century later, it was a favorite poem of U.S. President John F. Kennedy.
Seeger was last seen by his Egyptian friend, Rif Baer, charging the German enemy, a tiny part of the massive Battle of the Somme, where more than 1 million people were killed, wounded or went missing in 4½ months of fighting in 1916.
“His head erect, and pride in his eye, I saw him running forward, with bayonet fixed. Soon he disappeared,” Baer described the final scene — and the myth of Seeger emerged.
As a belated summer comes to northern France, peonies bloom over Ossuary No. 1 in nearby Lihons — where he is believed to lie, forgotten by most but still cherished by some. In the village where he fell, a gnarly apple tree planted in dedication to his sacrifice furtively tries to produce fruit from the few branches it still has. The mayor plans to graft the tree, to make sure Seeger’s memory survives. The Belloy village square is named in honor of Seeger, and the village’s World War I memorial even has him — in the Gallic “Alain Seeger” — chiseled in stone.
“For France, Alan Seeger is first and foremost the symbol of commitment — commitment right up to death,” said local historian Marcel Queyrat.
In his diary, Seeger wrote “I never took arms out of any hatred against Germany or the Germans, but purely out of love for France.”
To his mother he wrote “there should really be no neutrals in a conflict like this, where there is not a people whose interests are not involved.” This, combined with his French military flair for “elan” — the forward thrust in battle — makes Seeger a standout a century later when Europeans are questioning their unity.
From the start of World War I, Seeger wanted to get the United States involved in the allied cause. Once it did, in 1917, it set the scene for the “American century” of predominance in the world.
His centennial now offers a stark contrast. During this year’s U.S. presidential campaign, opponents of Republican candidate Donald Trump accuse him of turning back to isolation, his “America First” slogan stoking such fears.
Seeger could not understand those who stood to the side in World War I, hardly the anti-war message that his folk-singing nephew, Pete Seeger, would later spread during the Vietnam War years. “Playing a part in the life of nations, he is taking part in the largest movement his planet allows him,” Alan Seeger wrote in his diary.
Born into a wealthy family that built its fortune on Mexican sugar refining, and with a gift for languages, he went to study at Harvard. His life changed for good when he started hanging out with classmate John Reed, who went on to become the eyewitness writer of the 1917 Russian Communist revolution with “Ten Days that Shook the World.”
