Dreyfus affair

Degradation of Alfred Dreyfus, 5th January 1895. Picture by Henri Meyer on the cover of Petit Journal of 13th January 1895, captioned "The Traitor".

The Dreyfus affair (French: l'affaire Dreyfus, pronounced [a.fɛʁ dʁɛ.fys]) was a political scandal that divided France from its inception in 1894 until its resolution in 1906. It involved the conviction for treason in November 1894 of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a young French artillery officer of Alsatian Jewish descent. Sentenced to life imprisonment for allegedly having communicated French military secrets to the German Embassy in Paris, Dreyfus was sent to the penal colony at Devil's Island in French Guiana, where he spent almost five years.

Two years later, in 1896, evidence came to light identifying a French Army major named Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy as the real culprit. After high-ranking military officials suppressed the new evidence, a military court unanimously acquitted Esterhazy after the second day of his trial. The Army accused Dreyfus of additional charges based on false documents. Word of the military court's framing of Dreyfus and of an attendant cover-up began to spread, chiefly owing to J'accuse, a vehement open letter published in a Paris newspaper in January 1898 by the notable writer Émile Zola. Progressive activists put pressure on the government to reopen the case.

In 1899, Dreyfus was brought to France for another trial. The intense political and judicial scandal that ensued divided French society between those who supported Dreyfus (now called "Dreyfusards"), such as Anatole France, Henri Poincaré and Georges Clemenceau, and those who condemned him (the anti-Dreyfusards), such as Edouard Drumont, the director and publisher of the anti-semitic newspaper La Libre Parole. The new trial resulted in another conviction and a 10-year sentence, but Dreyfus was given a pardon and set free.

Eventually, all the accusations against Alfred Dreyfus were demonstrated to be baseless. In 1906, Dreyfus was exonerated and reinstated as a major in the French Army. He served during the whole of World War I, ending his service with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel.

The Affair from 1894 to 1906, divided France deeply and lastingly into two opposing camps: the conservative, pro-Army, mostly Catholic "anti-Dreyfusards" generally lost the initiative to the anticlerical, pro-republican Dreyfusards. It embittered French politics and allowed the radicals to come to power.

The conviction was a miscarriage of justice based upon espionage and anti-Semitism, particularly in a social context conducive to anti-Semitism and hatred of the German Empire following its annexation of Alsace and part of Lorraine in 1871. For the 21st century, according to one historian:

"The enduring significance of the Dreyfus Affair as a subject of historical inquiry lies in its manifest embodiment of multiple narratives and multiple strands of historical causality. It shows how longstanding beliefs and tensions can be transformed by particular circumstances and by particular individuals into a juggernaut that alters the political and cultural landscape for decades. In the interest of increasing our understanding of both past and present, the complexities of that transformation should be recognized and analyzed rather than packaged for moral or political usefulness."

This case is often seen as a modern and universal symbol of iniquity in the name of reasons of state, and remains one of the most striking examples of a miscarriage of justice difficult to repair where a major role was played by the press and public opinion.

Summary of the Dreyfus Affair

Board game of the Dreyfus Affair

At the end of 1894, the French army captain Alfred Dreyfus, a graduate of the Ecole Polytechnique and a Jew of Alsatian origin, was accused of handing secret documents to the Germans, was sentenced to prison for life for treason, and deported to Devil's Island. At that time, the opinion of the French political class was unanimously unfavourable towards Dreyfus.

Certain of the injustice of the sentence, the family of the Captain through his brother Mathieu tried to prove his innocence, engaging at this time with the journalist Bernard Lazare. Meanwhile, Colonel Georges Picquart, head of counter-espionage, found, in March 1896, that the real traitor was Major Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy. The General Staff however refused to reconsider its judgment and transferred Picquart to North Africa.

To draw attention to the fragility of the evidence against Dreyfus his family, in July 1897, contacted the President of the Senate Auguste Scheurer-Kestner, who reported three months later that he was convinced of the innocence of Dreyfus and he also persuaded Georges Clemenceau, former MP and then a simple reporter. In the same month, Mathieu Dreyfus complained to the Ministry of War against Walsin-Esterhazy. While the circle of Dreyfusards widened, two almost simultaneous events gave, in January 1898, a national dimension to the case: Esterházy was acquitted, to the cheers of conservatives and nationalists, and Émile Zola published his " J'Accuse ...!" his dreyfusard declaration leading to the rallying of many intellectuals. A process of division of France began, which continued until the end of the century. Anti-Semitic riots erupted in more than twenty French cities. There were several deaths in Algiers. The Republic is shaken, some even see it in peril prompting it to finish with the Dreyfus Affair to restore calm.

Despite the intrigues of the army to quell this case, the first judgment against Dreyfus was annulled by the Supreme Court after a thorough investigation, and a new Court Martial was held at Rennes in 1899. Against all the odds, Dreyfus was convicted again, ten years of hard labour with, however, extenuating circumstances. Exhausted by his deportation for four long years, Dreyfus accepted the presidential pardon granted by President Émile Loubet. It was only in 1906 that his innocence was officially recognized through a decision without recourse by the Supreme Court. Rehabilitated, Captain Dreyfus was reinstated in the army with the rank of Major and participated in the First World War. He died in 1935.

The implications of this case were numerous and affected all aspects of French public life: politics (the affair established the triumph of the Third Republic and became a founding myth in the renewal of nationalism, military, religious (it slowed the reform of French Catholicism and republican integration of Catholics), social, legal, press, diplomatic and cultural (it was during the affair that the term intellectual was created). The affair also had an impact on the international movement of Zionism through one of its founding fathers: Theodor Herzl and on the emotions within the Jewish communities of Central and Western Europe caused by the anti-Semitic demonstrations.

Possible confusion

There should not be confusion between the terms dreyfusards, dreyfusiens, and dreyfusists.

• The dreyfusards were the first defenders of Dreyfus - those who supported him from the outset.
• The term dreyfusist refers to those who think beyond the case and see in it a necessity to question society, politics and, by extension, the operation of the Republic (dreyfusards were sometimes dreyfusists as well).
• As for dreyfusiens, they appear only in December 1898, when the confrontation between anti-Dreyfusards and dreyfusards became really acute and when the affair threatened the stability of the Republic. The dreyfusiens, although having some sympathies for Alfred Dreyfus, want to finalise the affair by calming the game, in order to save the republican parliamentary regime then in place. They are the origin of some conciliation between the two sides through a mediation effort advocating appeasement. Their founding text was "A call for unity", published on 23 January 1899 in the newspaper Le Temps . They generally supported the policy of Waldeck-Rousseau and advocated secularization of society.

Contexts of the Dreyfus Affair

Political Context

In 1894, the Third Republic was twenty-four years old. The political system of France had had to face three crises (the Boulangisme in 1889, the Panama scandal in 1892 and the anarchist threat, reduced by the "villainous laws" of July 1894 ) that had not been resolved. The elections of 1893, focused on the "social question", resulted in a Republican victory (just under half the seats) against the conservative right and the strength of the radicals (about 150 seats) and Socialists (about 50 seats).

The opposition of the Radicals and Socialists resulted in a centrist government where political choices oriented towards economic protectionism, a certain indifference to the social question, a willingness to break international isolation, the Russian alliance, and development of the Empire. These politics of the centre caused ministerial instability, Republicans joining sometimes with the radicals or Orleanists sometimes joining the legitimists and five successive governments from 1893 to 1896. This instability was reflected by an unstable Presidency: the president Sadi Carnot was assassinated on 24 June 1894 , his moderate successor Jean Casimir-Perier resigned on 15 January 1895 and was replaced by Félix Faure.

Following the failure of the radical government of Léon Bourgeois in 1896, the president appointed Jules Meline, a supporter of protectionism under Jules Ferry. His government acknowledged the opposition of the left and some Republicans (including the Progressive Union) and made sure to always get the support of the right. Very stable, it sought to appease religious tensions (slowing the anticlerical struggle), social (passage of the law on the liability of work accidents) and economic (maintenance of protectionism) driving a fairly conservative policy. It was under this stable government that the Dreyfus Affair actually broke out.

Military Background

General Raoul Le Mouton de Boisdeffre architect of the military alliance with Russia

The Dreyfus Affair occurred within the context of the annexation of Alsace and Moselle by the Germans, a wrench that fed the most extreme nationalism. The traumatic defeat in 1870 seemed far away, but a vengeful spirit was always present. Many players in the Dreyfus affair were also Alsatian.

The military required considerable resources to prepare for the next conflict, and it is in this spirit that the Franco-Russian Alliance, which some saw as "against nature", of 27 August 1892 was signed as the basis of a military convention. The army had recovered from the defeat, but it still partly consisted of officers who were former senior aristocrats socially and who were politically monarchists. The cult of the flag and contempt for the parliamentary republic were two essential principles in the army of the time. The Republic celebrated its army regularly, the army ignored the Republic.

But over the previous ten years, the army experienced a significant shift in the twofold aim to democratize and modernize. The graduates of the École polytechnique competed effectively with officers from the royal career path of Saint-Cyr, causing strife, bitterness and jealousy among those junior officers who expected promotions of their choice. The period was also marked by an arms race that primarily affected the artillery, with improvements in heavy artillery (Guns of 120mm and 155mm, Models 1890 Baquet, new hydropneumatic brakes), but also and especially the development of the ultra secret 75mm gun.

Note here the operation of military counter-intelligence, alias "Statistics Section." . This organized activity and a tool for secret war, was a novelty in the late nineteenth century. The Statistics Section was created in 1871 but did not account for more than a handful of officers and civilians. Its leader in 1894 was Lieutenant-Colonel Jean Sandherr, graduate of Saint-Cyr, an Alsatian from Mulhouse, and a convinced anti-Semite. Its military mission was clear: Retrieve information about a potential enemy of France, and feed them with false information. The Statistics Section was supported by "Secret Affairs" of the Quai d'Orsay at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, led by a young diplomat, Maurice Paléologue. The arms race brought an acute atmosphere of spying in French counter-espionage from 1890. Also, one of the missions of the section was to spy on the German Embassy, rue de Lille, Paris, to thwart any attempt to transmit important information to this opponent. Especially since several cases of espionage had already hit the headlines of newspapers fond of printing sordid tales. Thus in 1890, the archivist Boutonnet was condemned for selling the plans of the shells that used melinite. The German military attaché in Paris in 1894 was Count Maximilian von Schwartzkoppen, who developed a policy of infiltration which appears to have been effective.

Since early 1894, the Statistics Section investigated a traffic in master plans for Nice and the Meuse, conducted by an officer that the Germans and Italians nicknamed Dubois. This is what led to the origins of the Dreyfus Affair.

Social Context

The social context was marked by the rise of Nationalism and of anti-Semitism.

The growth of anti-Semitism, virulent since the publication of Jewish France by Edouard Drumont in 1886 (150 000 copies in the first year), went hand in hand with a rise of Clericalism. Tensions were high in all strata of society, fueled by an influential press who were virtually free to write and disseminate any information, be it offensive or defamatory. Legal risks were limited if the target was a private person.

Anti-Semitism did not spare the military who practiced hidden discrimination to add to the mix, with the famous "cote d'amour" system of irrational grading, which Dreyfus found in his application to the Bourges School. Witness the tensions of the time, the popularity of the duel, the sword or pistol, sometimes causing the death of one of the two duelists. When a series of press articles in La Libre Parole accused some brilliant Jewish officers of "betraying their birth", they challenged the editors. So it was that Captain Crémieu-Foa, a Jewish Alsatian graduated from the Ecole Polytechnique fought unsuccessfully against Mr. Drumont, and against Mr. Lamase, author of the articles. Captain Mayer, another Jewish officer, was killed by the Marquis de Mores, a friend of Drumont, in another death duel which triggered considerable emotion, far beyond Jewish circles.

Hatred of Jews was now public and violent, driven by a firebrand (Drumont) who demonized the Jewish presence in France: which was about 80,000 people or more in 1895 (40,000 in Paris), who were highly integrated, plus more than 45,000 in Algeria. The launch of La Libre Parole, whose distribution was estimated at 200,000 copies in 1892, allowed Drumont to further expand his audience to a popular readership already tempted by the boulangiste adventure in the past. Anti-Semitism was circulated not only by by La Libre Parole, but also by L’Éclair, Le Petit Journal, La Patrie, Intransigeant, and La Croix, drawing on anti-Semitic roots in many Catholic circles, reached its peak.

Origins of the case and the trial of 1894

The beginning: Acts of espionage

Photograph of the bordereau dated 13 October 1894. The original disappeared in 1940

The origin of the Dreyfus affair, although fully clarified since the 1960s, has aroused much controversy for nearly a century. It is an affair about espionage for which the intentions remain unclear until today. Many of the most eminent historians express several different hypotheses about the affair, but all arrive at the same conclusion: Dreyfus was innocent of any crime.

Discovery of the bordereau

The staff of the Military Intelligence Service (SR) worked constantly so that in September 1894, the "usual way" brought a letter to French counter-espionage, known thereafter as "the bordereau". This letter, partially torn into six large pieces, written on tissue paper, unsigned and undated, was addressed to the German military attaché stationed at the German Embassy, Max von Schwartzkoppen. It stated that confidential military documents of relative importance were about to be sent to a foreign power.

The Search for the author of the note

General Auguste Mercier , Minister of War in 1894

This catch seemed of sufficient importance for the head of the "Statistical Section", the Mulhousian Jean Sandherr, to inform the Minister of War, General Auguste Mercier. Indeed the SR suspected that there had been leaks since the beginning of the year 1894, and had been trying to find the perpetrator. The Minister had been violently attacked in the press for his actions which were deemed incompetent, and seemed to want to take advantage of this affair to boost his image. He delegated immediately two secret investigations, one administrative and one judicial. To find the culprit, if the reasoning is simple although crude: the circle of the search is arbitrarily restricted to a suspect posted to, or a former employee of the General Staff, necessarily an artillery or temporary officer.

The ideal culprit was identified: Captain Alfred Dreyfus, graduate of the École polytechnique and an artillery officer, of the Jewish faith and Alsatian origin, coming from the republican meritocracy. At the beginning of the case, the emphasis is rather on the Alsatian origins of Dreyfus rather than on religious affiliation. These origins were not, however exceptional, because these officers were favoured by France for their dual knowledge of the German language and German culture. But anti-Semitism did not spare the offices of the General Staff, and fast became the centre of the affair by filling the voids of an unbelievable preliminary enquiry.

In fact, the legend of Dreyfus being of a character cold and musty, even a haughty man, and his "curiosity", worked strongly against him. These traits of character, some false, others natural, made all the charges plausible by turning the most ordinary acts of everyday life in the ministry into facts of espionage. From the first instruction a biased and one-sided multiplication of errors led to a state of falsehood. This was present throughout the affair where irrationality prevailed over the positivism in vogue at that time:

"From the first hour occurs the phenomenon that will dominate the whole affair. It is no longer controlled by the facts, the circumstances carefully examined which will constitute a belief; it is the sovereign conviction, irresistible, which distorts the facts and beliefs. ' - Joseph Reinach

Expertise in writing

Alphonse Bertillon is not a handwriting expert, but he invented the theory of "autoforgery"

Major du Paty de Clam, head of investigation, Arrests Captain Dreyfus

To foil Dreyfus, the writing on the bordereau and of the Captain were compared. There was nobody competent to analyse the writing on the General Staff. Then Major du Paty de Clam entered the scene, an eccentric man who prided himself on being an expert in Graphology. On being shown the letters of Dreyfus and of the bordereau on the 5th October, du Paty concluded immediately who wrote the two writings. After a day of additional work, he provided a report that, despite some differences, the similarities were sufficient to warrant an investigation. Dreyfus is therefore "the probable author" of the bordereau in the eyes of the General Staff.

General Mercier believed he had the guilty party, but he overly exaggerated the value the affair, which took the status of an affair of state during the week preceding the arrest of Dreyfus. Indeed, the Minister consulted and informed all the authorities of the State. Despite prudent counsel and courageous objections expressed by Gabriel Hanotaux in the Council of Ministers he decided to pursue it. Du Paty de Clam was appointed as a Judicial Police Officer in charge of an official investigation.

Meanwhile several parallel sources of information were opening, some on the personality of Dreyfus, others on ensuring the reality of the identity of the author of the bordereau. The expert Gobert was not convinced, found many differences and even wrote that "the nature of the writing on the bordereau excludes disguised handwriting". Disappointed, Mercier then called Alphonse Bertillon, the inventor of forensic Anthropometry, but no handwriting expert. He is initially not more positive than Gobert, but he does not exclude the possibility of it being the writing of Dreyfus. Later, under pressure from the military, he argued that Dreyfus had autocopied it and developed his theory of "autoforgery".

The Arrest

On 13 October 1894, without any tangible evidence and an empty file, General Mercier summoned Captain Dreyfus for a general inspection "held bourgeois", that is to say, in plain clothes. The purpose of the General Staff was to obtain the perfect proof under french law: a confession. That confession was to be obtained by surprise, by dictating a letter based on the bordereau to reveal his guilt.

On 15 October 1894 in the morning, Captain Dreyfus underwent this ordeal, but admitted nothing. Du Paty even tried to suggest suicide by placing a revolver in front of Dreyfus, but the accused refused to take his life, saying he "wanted to live in order to establish his innocence." The hopes of the military were crushed. Du Paty de Clam still arrested the captain and accused him of conspiring with the enemy and that he would be brought before a Court Martial. Dreyfus was imprisoned at the Cherche-Midi prison in Paris.

The enquiry and the first Military Court

Mrs Dreyfus was informed of the arrest the same day by a requisition to search the apartment of the young couple. She was terrorized by Du Paty who ordered her to keep secret the arrest of her husband, and he even said: "One word, one single word and it will be a European war!". Totally illegally, Dreyfus was placed in solitary confinement in prison, where Du Paty interrogated him day and night in order to obtain a confession, which failed. The captain was morally supported by the first dreyfusard: Major Forzinetti, commandant of the military prisons of Paris.

On 29 October 1894, a story of the affair was printed by the anti-Semitic newspaper of Edouard Drumont, La Libre Parole, in an article that marked the beginning of a very violent press campaign until the trial. This event puts the affair in the field of anti-Semitism, it does not leave until its final conclusion.

On 1 November 1894, Mathieu Dreyfus , Alfred's brother, called urgently to Paris, became aware of the arrest. He became the architect of the tough fight for the liberation of his brother. Without hesitation, he began looking for a lawyer, and retained the distinguished criminal lawyer Edgar Demange.

The enquiry

On 3 November 1894, reluctantly, General Saussier gives the order for an enquiry. He has all the powers to stop the machinery, but he does not, perhaps because of an exaggerated confidence in military justice. Major Ormescheville Besson, recorder for the Military Court, wrote an indictment in which "moral elements" of the charge (which gossips about the habits of Dreyfus and his alleged attendance at "gambling circles", his knowledge of German, and his "remarkable memory") are developed more extensively than the "material elements", which are rarely seen in the charge: "This is a proof of guilt, because Dreyfus made everything disappear ". The complete lack of neutrality of the indictment led to Émile Zola calling it a "monument of bias".

On 4 December 1894, with the empty file, Dreyfus is referred to the first Military Court. The secrecy is lifted and Mr. Demange could for the first time access the file. After reading it, the lawyer has absolute confidence, as he has seen the emptiness of the prosecution’s case. The prosecution rested completely on the writing on a single piece of paper, the bordereau, about which the experts disagreed, and on vague indirect testimonies.

The trial: "Behind Closed Doors or war!"

From the Petit Journal of December 23, 1894

During the two months before the trial, the press went wild. La Libre Parole, L’Autorite, Le Journal, Le Temps told the supposed life of Dreyfus through lies and bad fiction. This was also an opportunity for extreme headlines from La Libre Parole and The Cross to justify their previous campaigns against the presence of Jews in the army, on the theme "You have been told!". This long delay was above all for the General Staff to prepare public opinion and to put pressure on the judges indirectly. On 8 November 1894, General Mercier declared Dreyfus guilty in an interview with Le Figaro. He repeated himself on 29 November 1894 in an article by Arthur Meyer in Le Gaulois, which in fact condemned the indictment against Dreyfus and asked: "How much freedom will the Military Court have to judge the defendant?".

The jousting of the columnists took place within a broader debate about the issue of a closed court. For Ranc and Cassagnac who represented the majority of the press, the closed court was a low maneuvre in order to enable acquittal of Dreyfus, "because the Minister is a coward." The proof was that "he grovels before the Prussians" by agreeing to publish denials of the German Ambassador in Paris. But other newspapers, such as L’Éclair on 13 December 1894: "the closed court is necessary to avoid a [casus belli] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)", whereas for Judet in Le Petit Journal of the 18th December, "the closed court is our impregnable refuge against Germany" or the edict of La Croix the same day, it must be " the most absolute closed court" (Fr).

The trial opened on 19 December at one o'clock, a closed court being immediately pronounced. This closed court was also not legally consistent since Major Picquart and Prefect Louis Lépine were present at certain proceedings in violation of the law, a measure that still allowed the military to not disclose the emptiness of their evidence to the public and to stifle debate. As expected, the emptiness of their case appeared clearly during the hearings. Detailed discussions on the bordereau showed that Captain Dreyfus could not be the author. On the other hand, the accused himself protested his innocence and defended point by point with energy and logic. Moreover, his statements were supported by a dozen defence witnesses. Finally, the absence of motive for the crime was a serious thorn in the prosecution case. Dreyfus was indeed a very patriotic officer and highly rated by his superiors, very rich, and with no tangible reason to betray France. The justification of Dreyfus's Jewishness, only used by the right-wing press, was not presented in court.

Alphonse Bertillon, who was not an expert in handwriting, was presented as a scholar of the first importance. He advanced the theory of "autoforgery" during the trial and accused Dreyfus of imitating his own handwriting, explaining the differences in writing by using extracts of writing from his brother Matthieu and his wife Lucie. This theory, although later regarded as bizarre and astonishing seemed to have some effect on the judges. In addition, Major Hubert-Joseph Henry made a theatrical statement in open court. He argued that leaks betraying the General Staff had been suspected to exist since February 1894 and "a respectable person" accused Captain Dreyfus. He swore on oath that the traitor was Dreyfus, pointing to the crucifix hanging on the wall of the court. Dreyfus was apoplectic with rage and demanded to be confronted with his anonymous accuser, which was rejected by the General Staff. The problem had an undeniable effect on the Court, composed of seven officers who were both judges and jury. However, the outcome of the trial was uncertain. The conviction of the judges had been shaken by the firm and logical answers of the accused. The judges took leave to deliberate. But the General Staff still has a card in hand to tip the balance permanently against Dreyfus.

Transmission of a secret dossier to the judges

Max Schwarzkoppen always claimed to have never known Dreyfus

Military witnesses at the trial alerted high command about the risk of acquittal. For this eventuality, the Statistics Section had prepared a file containing, in principle, four proofs "absolute" of the guilt of Captain Dreyfus, accompanied by an explanatory note. The contents of this secret file are still uncertain today, because no archive listing of exhibits has reached us. Recent research indicates the existence of a numbering suggesting the presence of a dozen documents. Among these letters were some of an erotic homosexual nature (the Davignon letter among others) raising the question of the tainted methods of the Statistics Section and the objective of their choice of documents.

The secret file was submitted at the beginning of the deliberations totally illegally, by the President of the Military Court Colonel Maurel Emilien, by order of the Minister of War, General Mercier. Later, at the Rennes trial of 1899, General Mercier explained the nature of the prohibited disclosure documents submitted in the courtroom. This file contained, in addition to letters without much interest, some of which were falsified, a piece famously known as the "Scoundrel D ...".

It was a letter from the German military attache, Max Schwarzkoppen to the Italian military attaché Alessandro Panizzardi intercepted by the SR. The letter was supposed to accuse Dreyfus definitively since, according to his accusers, it was signed with the initial of his name. In reality, the Statistics Section knew that the letter could not be attributed to Dreyfus, and if it was, it was by criminal intent. Colonel Maurel confirmed in the second Dreyfus trial that the secret documents were not used to win the support of the judges of the Court Martial. But he contradicted himself by saying that he read only one document, "which was enough".

Conviction, degradation, and deportation

Cover of the Petit Journal of 20th January 1895

On 22 December 1894, after several hours of deliberation, the verdict was reached. Seven judges unanimously convicted Alfred Dreyfus of collusion with a foreign power to the maximum penalty under section 76 of the Criminal Code: permanent exile in a walled fortification that is to say a prison and the dismissal of his rank and military degradation. Dreyfus was not sentenced to death; it had been abolished for political crimes since 1848.

For the authorities, the press, and the public, their doubts had been dispelled by the trial: his guilt was certain. Right and left regretted the abolition of the death penalty for such a crime. Anti-Semitism peaked in the press and occurred in areas so far spared. Jean Jaurès regretted the lightness of the sentence in an address to the House, and wrote: "A soldier has been sentenced to death and executed for throwing a button in the face of his corporal. So why leave this miserable traitor alive?". Clemenceau , in Justice , made a similar comment.

On 5 January 1895 , the ceremony of degradation took place in the Morlan Court of the Military School in Paris: while the drums rolled, Dreyfus was accompanied by four artillery officers who brought him before an officer of the state who read the judgment. A Republican Guard Adjutant tore off badges, thin strips of gold, his stripes, cuffs and sleeves of his jacket. Witnesses report the dignity of Dreyfus, who continued to maintain his innocence while raising his arms: "Innocent, Innocent! Vive la France! Long live the Army". The Adjutant broke his sword on his knee and then the condemned Dreyfus marched at a slow pace in front of his former companions. An event that is known as "the legend of the confession", took place before the degradation. In the van that brought him to the military school, Dreyfus is said to have confided his treachery to Captain Lebrun-Renault. It appears that in reality, the captain of the Republican Guard had boasted that Dreyfus had made no admission. Due to the nature of the affair being related to national security, the prisoner was then held in solitary confinement in a cell awaiting transfer. On 17 January 1895, he was transferred to the prison on the Île de Ré, where he was held for over a month. He had the right to see his wife twice a week in a long room, each of them at one end, with the director of the prison in the middle.

At the last minute, at the initiative of General Mercier, a law was passed on 9 February 1895, restoring the Îles du Salut in Guyana as a place of fortified deportation so that Dreyfus was not sent to Ducos, New Caledonia. Indeed, during the deportation of the Adjutant Lucien Châtelain, sentenced for conspiring with the enemy in 1888, the facilities did not provide the required conditions of confinement and detention conditions were considered too soft.

On 21 February 1895, he embarked on the ship Ville de Saint-Nazaire. The next day, the ship sailed for French Guiana.

Hut of Dreyfus on Devil's Island in French Guiana

The Petit Journal of 27th September 1896

On 12 March 1895, after a difficult voyage of fifteen days, the ship anchored off the Îles du Salut. Dreyfus stayed one month in prison on île Royale, then he was transferred to Devil's Island on 14 April 1895. Apart from his guards, he was the only inhabitant of the island, staying in a stone hut four by four metres. Haunted by the risk of escape, the commandant of the prison sentenced him to a hellish life even though living conditions were already very painful. Dreyfus became sick, shaken by fevers which got worse every year.

Dreyfus was allowed to write on paper numbered and signed. He underwent censorship by the commandant even when he received mail from his wife Lucie, whereby they encouraged each other. On 6 September 1896 , the conditions of life for Alfred Dreyfus worsened again: he was chained double looped, the torture forcing him to stay in bed, motionless, ankles shackled. This measure was the result of false information of his escape, as revealed by a British newspaper. For two long months, Dreyfus plunged into a deep despair. At that time, he was convinced that his life would end on this remote island.

The Truth on the March (1895-1897)

The Dreyfus family reveals the affair and takes action

Mathieu Dreyfus , the elder brother of Alfred Dreyfus, was convinced of his innocence. He was the chief architect of the restoration of his brother, and spent all his time, his energy, and his fortune to gather around him a movement more and more powerful to get a retrial in December 1894, despite the difficulties of the task: "After the degradation, the vacuum was around us. It seemed to us that we were no longer human beings like others, we were cut off from the world of the living".

Mathieu tried all paths, even the most fantastic. Thus, thanks to Dr. Gibert, friend of President Félix Faure, he met at Le Havre a woman who, under hypnosis, spoke for the first time of a "secret file". This fact was confirmed by the President of the Republic to Dr. Gibert in a private conversation.

Little by little, despite threats of arrest for complicity, machinations and open traps by the military, he managed to convince various moderates. Thus, the libertarian journalist Bernard Lazare looked into the shadows of the procedure. In 1896, Lazare published in Brussels the first dreyfusard booklet. This publication had little influence on the political and intellectual world, but it contained so much detail that the General Staff suspected the new head of SR Picquart to be responsible.

The campaign for the review, relayed little by little into the leftist anti-military press, triggered a return of vague anti-Semitism very violent in attitude, France was so overwhelmingly anti-dreyfusard. Major Henry, from the Statistics Section, in turn, is aware of the fragility of the prosecution case. At the request of his superiors, General Boisdeffre , Chief of the General Staff, and Major-General Gonse, he was charged with the task to grow the file to prevent any attempt at a review. Unable to find any evidence, he decided to build some after the fact.

The discovery of the real culprit: Picquart "going to the enemy"

Lieutenant Colonel Georges Picquart dressed as an African hunter

The real culprit of the betrayal was discovered by chance in two distinct ways: Mathieu Dreyfus on one hand, collecting the denunciation of the banker Castro, and the SR on the other hand, following an investigation. Colonel Sandherr fell ill, so Lieutenant Colonel Georges Picquart was assigned to be head of the SR in July 1895. In March 1896, Picquart, who had followed the Dreyfus affair from the outset, now required to directly receive documents stolen from the German Embassy, without any intermediary. He discovered a document called the "petit bleu": a telegram never sent, written by von Schwarzkoppen and intercepted at the German embassy at the beginning of March 1896. It is addressed to a French officer, Major Walsin-Esterhazy, 27 rue de la Bienfaisance - Paris. In addition, in another letter in black pencil von Schwarzkoppen shows the same espionage relationship with Esterhazy.

On seeing letters from that officer, Picquart realized with amazement that his writing was exactly the same as the "bordereau" which served to incriminate Dreyfus. He procured the "secret file" given to judges in 1894, and at the sight of its emptiness, became convinced of the innocence of Dreyfus. Very moved by his discovery, Picquart diligently conducted an enquiry in secret, without the consent of his superiors. The enquiry demonstrated that Esterhazy had knowledge of the elements described by the "bordereau" and that he was in contact with the German Embassy. It was established that the officer sold the Prussians many secret documents whose value was however quite low.

Ferdinand Walsin Esterházy was a former member of French counter-espionage where he had served after the War of 1870. He had worked in the same office as Major Henry from 1877 to 1880. A man with a personality disorder, a sulfurous reputation, crippled by debt, he is for Picquart a traitor likely to be driven by a certain motive: money. Picquart then communicates the results of his investigation to the General Staff, which opposed him under "the authority of the principle of already judged" After this, everything was done to oust him from his position with the help of his own deputy Major Henry. It was primarily the upper echelons of the Army that did not want to admit that the conviction of Dreyfus could be a grave miscarriage of justice. For Mercier, then Zurlinden, and the General Staff, what was done is done: it never returns. They found it convenient to separate the Dreyfus and Esterhazy affairs.

The denunciation of Walsin-Esterhazy and the progress of Dreyfusism

The nationalist press launched a violent campaign against the heart of the burgeoning dreyfusards. In counter-attack, the General Staff discovered and revealed the information, hitherto ignored, in the "secret file". Doubt began to establish itself and figures in the artistic and political spheres asked questions. Picquart tried to convince his seniors to react in favour of Dreyfus, but the General Staff seemed deaf. An investigation was started against him, he was monitored when he was in the east, then transferred to Tunisia "in the interest of the service".

This was the moment chosen by Major Henry to take action. On 1 November 1896, he created a false document, the "faux Henry" [false Henry], keeping the header and signature of an ordinary letter from Panizzardi, and himself writing the central text:

"I read that a deputy will call on Dreyfus. If you ask further explanations from Rome, I would say that I never had relations with the Jew. That is understood. If asked, speak like that, because that person should never know what happened with him."

This was a rather crude forgery. Generals Gonse and Boisdeffre, without asking questions, however, bring the letter to their Minister, General Billot. The doubts of the General Staff regarding the innocence of Dreyfus flew out the window. With this discovery, the General Staff decided to protect Esterhazy and persecute Colonel Picquart, "who did not understand anything". Picquart, who knew nothing of the “faux Henry”, quickly felt isolated from his fellow soldiers. Literally accused of embezzlement by Major Henry, he protested in writing and returned to Paris.

Picquart confided in his friend, lawyer Louis Leblois, who promised secrecy. But Leblois spoke to the Vice-President of the Senate, the Alsatian Auguste Scheurer-Kestner , who was in turn affected by doubt. Without citing Picquart, the Senator revealed the affair to the highest people in the country. But the General Staff still suspected Picquart of causing leaks. This was the beginning of the Picquart affair, a new conspiracy against the General Staff by an officer.

Major Henry, although deputy to Picquart, but jealous, headed his own malicious operation to compromise his superior. He engaged in various malpractices (making a letter designating it as an instrument of a "Jewish syndicate" wanting to help Dreyfus to escape, rigging the "petit bleu" to create a belief that Picquart erased the name of the real recipient, drafting a letter naming Dreyfus in full).

Parallel to the investigations of Picquart, the defenders of Dreyfus were informed that the identity of the writer of the "bordereau" was Esterházy in November 1897. Mathieu Dreyfus had a reproduction of the bordereau published by Le Figaro. A banker, Castro, formally identified the writing as that of Major Walsin Esterházy, his debtor, and told Mathieu. On 11 November 1897, the two paths met, during a meeting between Scheurer-Kestner and Mathieu Dreyfus. The latter finally received confirmation of the fact that Esterhazy was the author of the note. On 15 November, on this basis, Mathieu Dreyfus complained to the Minister of War against Walsin-Esterhazy. The controversy was now public, the army had no choice but to open an investigation. At the end of 1897, Picquart returned to Paris and made public his doubts about the guilt of Dreyfus because of his discoveries. Collusion to eliminate Picquart seemed to have failed. The challenge was very strong and turned to confrontation. To discredit Picquart, Esterházy sent, without effect, letters of complaint to the President of the Republic.

Émile Zola in 1898

The dreyfusard movement, led by Bernard Lazare, Mathieu Dreyfus, Joseph Reinach and Auguste Scheurer-Kestner widened. Émile Zola, informed in mid-November 1897 by Scheurer-Kestner with documents, was convinced of the innocence of Dreyfus and undertook to engage himself officially. On 25 November 1897, the novelist published Mr. Scheurer-Kestner in Le Figaro , the first article in a series of three. Faced with threats of massive cancellations from its readers, the paper's editor stopped supporting Zola. Gradually, in late November - early December 1897, the authors Octave Mirbeau, his first article published three days after Zola, and Anatole France, academic Lucien Lévy-Bruhl , the librarian of the School normale supérieure Lucien Herr, who convinced Léon Blum and Jean Jaurès, the authors of La Revue Blanche, where Lazare knew the director Thadee Natanson, the Clemenceau brothers Albert and Georges all got involved in the fight for retrial . Blum tried in late November 1897 to sign with his friend Maurice Barrès a petition calling for a retrial, but Barrès refused, broke with Zola and Blum in early December, and began to popularize the term "intellectuals". This first break was the prelude to a division of the educated elite, after 13 January 1898.

If the Dreyfus Affair occupied more and more discussions, the political world did not always recognize this, and Jules Méline declared in the opening session of the National Assembly on 7 December 1897: "there is no Dreyfus affair. There is not now and there can be no Dreyfus Affair."

Trial and acquittal of the Traitor

Portrait of Georges Clemenceau by the painter Edouard Manet.

General Pellieux was responsible for conducting an investigation. It was brief, the investigator being skillfully manipulated by the General Staff. The real culprit, they said, was Lieutenant-Colonel Picquart. The investigation was moving towards a non-sequitur, when the former Mistress of Esterházy, Madame de Boulancy, published, in Le Figaro, letters in which Esterhazy, ten years earlier, expressed violently his whole hatred of France and his contempt for the French Army. The militarist press flew to the rescue of the traitor through an unprecedented anti-Semitic campaign. The dreyfusard Press replied with strong new evidence in its possession. Georges Clemenceau, in the newspaper L'Aurore, asked:

"Who protects Major Esterhazy? The law must stop sucking up to this ineffectual Prussian disguised as a French officer. Why? Who trembles before Esterházy? What occult power, why shamefully oppose the action of justice? What stands in the way? Why is Esterházy, a character of depravity and more than doubtful morals, protected while the accused is not? Why is an honest soldier such as Lieutenant Colonel Picquart discredited, overwhelmed, dishonoured? If this is the case we must speak out!".

Although protected by the General Staff and therefore by the government, Esterhazy is obliged to admit authorship of the francophobe letters published by Le Figaro. This convinces the Office of the General Staff to act: a solution to stop the questions, doubts and the beginnings of demands for justification must be found. The idea was to require Esterházy to himself demand a trial and to be acquitted in order to stop the noise and allow a return to order. So to finally exonerate him, according to the old rule [Res judicata pro veritate habetur] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help), Esterhazy was to be presented on 10 January 1898 before a Military Court. A “delayed” closed door trial is pronounced. Esterházy is notified of the matter on the following day with guidance on the defensive line to hold. The trial was not normal: the civil trial requested by Mathieu and Lucy Dreyfus was denied, the three handwriting experts did not recognize the writing of Esterházy in the bordereau and concluded to the contrary. The accused himself is applauded, the witnesses booed and jeered, Pellieux intervened to defend the General Staff without legal substance. The real accused is Colonel Picquart, dishonoured by all the military protaganists of the affair. Esterhazy was acquitted unanimously the next day after three minutes of deliberation. With all the cheers, it was hard to make way towards the exit where 1500 people were waiting.

Anti-Semitic riots in an engraving of Le Petit Parisien.

By error, an innocent person was convicted, but by order, the guilty party was acquitted. For many moderate Republicans, it was an intolerable infringement of the fundamental values they defended. The acquittal of Esterhazy therefore brought about a change of strategy for the Dreyfusards. Liberalism-friendly Scheurer-Kestner and Reinach, took more combative and rebellious action. In response to the acquittal, large and violent riots by anti-Dreyfusards and anti-Semites took place throughout France. They respected neither property nor people.

With its victory, the General Staff arrested Lieutenant Colonel Picquart on charges of violation of professional secrecy, following the disclosure of his investigation through his lawyer who revealed it to Senator Scheurer-Kestner. The Colonel, although placed under arrest at Fort Mont-Valérien, did not give up and engaged further in the affair. To Mathieu who thanked him, he replied curtly that he was "doing his duty". Major Esterházy was quickly declared unfit for service, and due to the personal risk to himself, went into exile in England, where he ended his days comfortably in the 1920s. Esterházy benefited at the time of "The Affair", from special treatment by the upper echelons of the Army, which was inexplicable except for the desire of the General Staff to stifle any inclination to challenge the verdict of the court martial which convicted Captain Dreyfus in 1894.

The case explodes in 1898

"J'accuse ...!": The Dreyfus Affair became The Affair

Page one of L'Aurore , "J'accuse ...!" by Emile Zola

On 13 January 1898 Zola created a new dimension to the Dreyfus Affair, which became The Affair. The first great intellectual dreyfusard, he was at the height of his glory: the twenty volumes of the Rougon-Macquart were distributed in dozens of countries. He was a leader in the literary world, and was fully aware of it. To General Pellieux, he said at his trial:

"I ask General Pellieux if there are not many ways to serve France? It can be served by the sword or the pen. General Pellieux probably won great victories! I have won mine too. By my work, the French language has been brought into the world. I have my victories! I bequeath to posterity the name of General Pellieux and that of Émile Zola: history chooses!".

Outraged by the acquittal of Esterhazy, Zola decided to strike a blow. He published on the front page of L'Aurore a 4,500 word article of six columns as an open letter to President Félix Faure. Clemenceau thought of the headline "J'Accuse ...!". Usually selling thirty thousand copies a day, circulation of the newspaper distributed that day was nearly three hundred thousand copies. This article had the effect of a bomb. The article was a direct attack, explicit and clear. All those who had conspired against Dreyfus were denounced, including the Minister of War, and the General Staff. The article contained numerous errors, and the major and minor roles of all the actors, but Zola did not claim to be a historian.

"J'Accuse ...!" provided for the first time a combination of all existing data on the Affair. The goal was to expose Zola deliberately to force the authorities to prosecute him. His trial would be used for a new public review of the Dreyfus and Esterházy affairs. Here he went against the strategy of Scheurer-Kestner and Lazare, who advocated patience and reflection. Due to the national and international success of the brilliant coup, a trial was inevitable. From this critical moment, the case followed two parallel paths. On the one hand, the state used its apparatus to impose a limitation on the trial to a simple defamation case, in order to separate the Dreyfus and Esterházy cases already judged. On the other hand, conflicting camps of opinion tried to influence judges and government, for one to obtain a review and the other to convict Zola. But Zola achieved his aim: the opening of a public debate at the Assizes.

On 15 January 1898, Le Temps published a petition calling for a retrial. Here were the names of Émile Zola, Anatole France, Emile Duclaux director of the Pasteur Institute, Daniel Halévy, Fernand Gregh, Félix Fénéon, Marcel Proust, Lucien Herr, Charles Andler, Victor Bérard, Francois Simiand, Georges Sorel, then the painter Claude Monet, the writer Jules Renard, the sociologist Émile Durkheim, the historian Gabriel Monod, etc..

On 20 January 1898, following a speech at the Chamber of Deputies by the Catholic Albert de Mun against Zola, the Chamber decided to prosecute by 312 votes to 122. In L'Aurore on 23 January 1898, Clemenceau, in the name of a "peaceful revolt of the French spirit," continued the positive theme of "intellectuals". On 1 February 1898, Barres criticizes them in Le Journal. Anti-intellectualism is a major theme of right-wing intellectuals, who reproach the dreyfusards to reflect on the interests of the nation, an argument that was found throughout the years that followed, and which was the basis of the public debate: a choice between Justice and Truth or the defense of the nation, preservation of society and superiority of the state. This mobilization of intellectuals was not repeated at first by the political left: On 19 January 1898, Socialist MPs distanced themselves from the "two rival bourgeois factions."

The trial of Zola

Anthropometric photography of Émile Zola at his trial

Zola the outrages, oil on canvas by Henry de Groux, 1898

General Billot, Minister of War, filed a complaint against Zola and Alexandre Perrenx, the manager of L'Aurore, to be heard at the Assizes of the Seine from 7 to 23 February 1898. Defamation of a public authority is liable to Assizes, while the public insults uttered by the nationalist and anti-Semitic press brings only very few prosecutions, and above all almost no convictions. The Minister referred to only three passages of Zola’s Article or eighteen lines out of hundreds. He accused Zola of having written that the Court Martial had committed "unlawful acts [...] by order". The trial opened in an atmosphere of extreme violence: Zola had been the object of "the most shameful attacks" as well as important support and congratulations.

Fernand Labori, Zola's lawyer, intended to call about two hundred witnesses. The reality of the Dreyfus Affair, unknown to most of the public, was published in the press. Several papers published Shorthand notes verbatim of the debates every day, to build support in the population. These notes were, for the dreyfusards, an essential tool for later debates. However the nationalists, behind Henri Rochefort, were more visible and organized riots, forcing the prefect of police to intervene to protect Zola when he was leaving every hearing.

This trial was also the scene of a real legal battle, in which the rights of the defence were constantly violated. Many observers were aware of the collusion between the political world and the military. Evidently the Court received instructions that the subject of former judicial error was not to be raised. President Delegorgue on the pretext of the long duration of the hearings, juggled incessantly with the law to ensure that the trial only dealt with the alleged defamation by Zola. His phrase "the question will not be put" repeated dozens of times, became famous.

Example of an exchange between Fernand Labori, lawyer for the defence and the President of the Court, Delegorgue

• Labori : I beg your pardon, Mr President, to intervene but I would be interested to hear Messrs Couard, Belhomme and Varinard.
• President : No, No I have said ...
• Labori : But I have a question to put
• President : You will not put it.
• Labori : I insist Mr President.
• President : I have told you, you may not put it.
• Labori : Oh ! Mr President ! It is of interest...
• President : It is pointless to shout so loud.
• Labori : I shout because I need to be heard.
• President : The question will not be put.
• Labori : I understand you have said that; but I said that I want to put it.
• President : Well ! I say No, and it is a case already heard! The President has a right to dismiss this debate all this prolongs the debate uselessly. It is my right to do this.
• Labori : You do not understand the question. You do not know what the question is.
• President : I know perfectly well what you are going to ask.
• Labori : Well, I have come to the conclusion that the Court should be stopped at this point.
• President : Come to all the conclusions that you want.
• Labori : If you believe you can cut short the debate, you deceive yourself.
• President : Well we will decide on the findings during the recess
• (To the Court Bailiff :) Another Witness
• (Mr. Auguste Molinier presents himself at the bar and takes the oath)
• President : Has the witness been summoned in the normal way ?
• Court Clerk : Yes Mr. President.
• President : What is the question Master Labori
• Labori : I beg your pardon, I have written a finding, and I consider it absolutely essential that the testimony of Mr Paul Meyer and the events described therein finish being discussed before the testimony of another witness. I do not need more than two minutes. I ask respectfully that you allow me to quickly question the witness.
• President : But this witness has been sworn; It is absolutely necessary that he be questioned now.
• Clemenceau : It is a question of two minutes.
• President : Ask your question now! It is useless to waste our time.
• Labori : I think that hearing Messrs Couard, Belhomme, and Varinard is essential to the truth and I maintain that the refusal of this order is recorded before the witness testifies: I consider it essential from the standpoint of defence.
• (The President turns the pages in the Code of Criminal practice)
• President to Mr Molinier : Sir, would you please leave.
• (To the Court Bailiff :) Would you remove this witness please.
• (Mr. Labori wrote his conclusions.).

Zola was sentenced to one year in prison and a fine of 3,000 francs, the maximum penalty. This harshness was due to the atmosphere of violence surrounding the trial: "The excitement of the audience, the exasperation of the crowd in front of the courthouse were so violent that one could fear the worst excesses if the jury acquitted Mr. Zola". However, the Zola trial was rather a victory for the dreyfusards. Indeed, the Affair and its contradictions had been widely discussed throughout the trial, especially by the military. In addition, the violent attacks against Zola and the injustice of the conviction of Dreyfus reinforced the commitment of the dreyfusards: Stéphane Mallarmé declared "[I am] imbued by the admirable actions [of Zola]" and Jules Renard wrote in his diary: "From tonight, I hold on to the Republic, that inspires respect in me, a tenderness in me that I do not know. I declare that the word Justice is the most beautiful in the language of men, and must cry if men do not understand more". Senator Ludovic Trarieux and Catholic jurist Paul Viollet founded the League for the Defence of Human Rights. Even more than the Dreyfus affair, the Zola affair resulted in a regrouping of intellectual forces into two opposing camps.

On 2 April 1898, an application to the Supreme Court received a favourable response. This was the first intervention of the Court in this Affair. The complaint was actually made by the Military Court and not by the Minister. The Prosecutor-General Manau supported the review of the Dreyfus trial and strongly opposed the anti-Semites. The judges of the Military Court, challenged by Zola, sued for libel. The case was brought before the Assizes of Seine-et-Oise in Versailles where the public was considered to be more favourable to the Army, more nationalistic. On 23 May 1898, at the first hearing, Mr. Labori appealed to the Supreme Court regarding the change of jurisdiction. The trial was adjourned and the hearing was postponed to 18 July 1898. Labori advised Zola to leave France for England before the end of the trial, which the writer did, departing for a one year exile in England. The defendants were convicted again. As for Colonel Picquart, he found himself again in prison.

Henry unmasked, the Affair rebounds

Photograph of the "faux Henry". The header (my dear friend) and signature (Alexandrine) are from Panizzardi. The rest is from the hand of Henry.

The acquittal of Esterhazy, the convictions of Émile Zola and of Georges Picquart, and the continued presence of an innocent man in prison, had a considerable national and international impact. France was exposed as an arbitrary state which contradicted the founding republican principles. Anti-Semitism made considerable progress, and riots were common throughout the year 1898. However, politicians were still in denial about the Affair. In April and May 1898, they were mostly concerned with elections , after which Jaurès lost his seat of Carmaux. The majority was moderate, and a parliamentary group in the House was anti-Semitic. Nevertheless, the cause of the dreyfusards was restarted.

Portrait of Godefroy Cavaignac, Minister of War

Indeed, Godefroy Cavaignac, the new Minister of War and a fierce supporter of anti-revisionism, definitely wanted to prove the guilt of Dreyfus, and from there "wring the neck" incidentally of Esterházy, who he considered "a pathological liar and blackmailer". He was absolutely convinced of the guilt of Dreyfus, reinforced in this idea by the legend of the confession, after meeting the main witness, Captain Lebrun-Renault. Cavaignac had the honesty of a doctrinaire intransigent, but absolutely did not know the depths of the Affair, as the General Staff had kept him from knowing. He had been surprised to learn that all the documents on which the prosecution was based had not been expertly appraised, Boisdeffre had "absolute confidence" in Henry. He decided to investigate himself in his office with his assistants, and retrieved the secret file which now had 365 items.

On 7 July 1898 , during question time in the House, Cavaignac reported three items "overwhelming, among a thousand," two of which have no connection with the case, and the other is the "faux Henry". Cavaignac’s speech is effective: The MPs give him an ovation and vote to display copies of the three documents in the 36,000 communes of France with 572 votes. The anti-dreyfusards triumph, but Cavaignac implicitly recognized that the defence of Dreyfus had not had access to all the evidence: the application for annulment made by Lucie Dreyfus becomes admissible. The next day, Colonel Picquart declared in Le Temps to the Council President: "I am in a position to establish before a court of competent jurisdiction that the two documents bearing the date of 1894 can not be applied to Dreyfus and that which bears the date of 1896 had all the characteristics of a fake". Which earned him eleven months in prison.

In the evening of 13 August 1898, Captain Cuignet, attached to the cabinet of Cavaignac, who was working by the light of a lamp, observed that the colour of the lines on the paper header and footer did not correspond with the central part of the document. Cavaignac was still trying to find logical reasons for the guilt and conviction of Dreyfus but was not silent on this discovery. A board of inquiry was formed to investigate Esterházy, before which he paniced and confessed his secret reports to Major du Paty de Clam. Collusion between the General Staff and the traitor was revealed. On 30 August 1898, Cavaignac resigned himself to demanding explanations from Colonel Henry, in the presence of Boisdeffre and Gonse. After an hour of questioning by the Minister himself, Henry broke down and made a full confession. He was placed under arrest at the fortress at Mont-Valérien and he killed himself the next day, by cutting his throat with a razor. The request for review filed by Lucie Dreyfus could not be rejected. Yet Cavaignac says "less than ever!", but the President of the Council, Henri Brisson, forced him to resign. Despite his role, apparently totally involuntary, in the retrial in 1894, he remained a convinced anti-dreyfusard and made a statement disparaging and offensive to Dreyfus at the Rennes trial.

The Drawing by Caran d'Ache in Le Figaro on 14th February 1898.

The anti-revisionists did not consider themselves beaten. On 6 September 1898, Charles Maurras published a eulogy of Henry in La Gazette de France , in which he called him a "heroic servant of the great interests of the State". La Libre Parole , Drumont’s anti-Semitic newspaper, spread the notion of "false patriotism". The same newspaper launched in December a subscription in favour of his widow, to erect a monument to Henry. Each gift was accompanied by pithy remarks on Dreyfus and the dreyfusards which were often abusive. 14,000 subscribers, including 53 MPs, sent 131,000 francs. On 3 September 1898 , the President of the Council, Brisson, urged Mathieu Dreyfus to file an application for review of the Military Court of 1894. The government transferred the case to the Supreme Court for its opinion on the past four years of proceedings.

France was really divided into two, but no more generalization is possible: the Jewish community is little involved, intellectuals are not all dreyfusards, the Protestants were divided, Marxists refuse to support Dreyfus. The split transcends religion and social background, as shown in the famous cartoon by Caran d'Ache "A family dinner".

Crisis and reshaping the political landscape

Henry was dead, Boisdeffre had resigned, Gonse had no more authority, and du Paty has been severely compromised by Esterházy: for the conspirators, it is a débâcle. The government is now caught between two fires: the law and the law against nationalist pressure between the street and the higher command that resumes. Cavaignac, having resigned for continuing to spread his anti-dreyfusard vision of the Affair arises as an anti-revisionist leader. General Zurlinden who succeeded him, influenced by the General Staff, delivered a negative opinion at the review on 10 September 1898, comforting the extremist press by saying that, "a review means war." The obstinacy of the Government, which voted to revert to the Supreme Court on 26 September 1898, leads to the resignation of Zurlinden, soon replaced by General Chanoine. The latter, when questioned in the House, handed in his resignation; trust being denied Brisson, he was also forced to resign. Ministerial instability caused some governmental instability.

On 1 November 1898 the Progressive Charles Dupuy was appointed in place of Brisson. In 1894, he had covered the actions of General Mercier at the beginning of the Dreyfus Affair, and four years later he announced that he would follow the judgment of the Supreme Court, blocking the road for those who wanted to stifle the review and divest the Court. On 5 December 1898, in the shadow of a debate in the House on the transmission of the "secret file" to the Supreme Court, the tension rose another notch. Insults, invective and other nationalistic violence gave way to threats of an uprising. Paul Déroulède declared: "If there has to be a civil war, so be it."

A new crisis arose at the same time in the heart of the Supreme Court, since Quesnay de Beaurepaire, President of the Civil Chamber, accused the Criminal Chamber of dreyfusism in the press. He resigned on 8 January 1899 as a hero of the nationalist cause. This crisis led to the divestiture of the Criminal Division in favour of joint chambers. This was the blockage for the review.

In 1899 , the Affair takes up more and more of the political scene. On 16 February 1899 , President of France Félix Faure died. Émile Loubet was elected, an advance for the cause of the review, the previous president having been a fierce opponent. On 23 February 1899, at the funeral for Felix Faure, Paul Déroulède attempted to force a coup at the Élysée Palace. It was a failure, as it was not supported by the military. On 4 June 1899, Loubet was assaulted on the Longchamp Racecourse. These provocations, plus permanent demonstrations from the extreme right, although it never actually put the Republic in danger, created a burst of Republicanism leading to the formation of a "government of republican defence" around Rousseau on 22 June 1899. The progressive anti-dreyfusard Republicans such as Jules Méline, were rejected outright. The Dreyfus affair led to a clear reorganization of the French political landscape.

The Appeal on the judgment of 1894

The judges of the criminal division in Le Petit Journal

The Supreme Court considered the affair in the context of press campaigns against the Criminal Division, the magistrates being constantly dragged through the mud in nationalist newspapers from the Panama scandal. On 26 September 1898 after a vote of the Cabinet, the Minister of Justice appealed to the Supreme Court. On 29 October 1898, after the submission of the report from the recorder Alphonse Bard, the Criminal Chamber of the Court stated that "the application is admissible and will proceed with a supplementary investigation."

The recorder Louis Loew presided. He was subject to a very violent campaign of anti-Semitic insults due to his being an Alsatian protestant accused of being a deserter, tainted by the Prussians. Despite the compliant silence of Mercier, Billot , Zurlinden, and Roget who hid behind the authority of "already judged" and "state secret", understanding of the Affair increased. Cavaignac made a statement of two days, but failed to prove the guilt of Dreyfus. On the contrary, he unwittingly exonerated him by a demonstration of the exact date of the bordereau (August 1894).

Picquart then demonstrated all the workings of the error and the conspiracy. In a decision dated 8 December 1898 in response to his divestiture announcement, Picquart is protected from the Military Court by the Criminal Division of the Supreme Court. This is a new obstacle to the wishes of the General Staff. A new furiously anti-semitic press campaign bursts during the event, while L'Aurore on 29 October 1898 published an article entitled Victory in the same character as J'Accuse ...!. The work of the investigation is still to be taken back by the Criminal Division. The "secret file" is analyzed from 30 December 1898, and the Criminal Division requested disclosure of diplomatic records, which was granted.

On 9 February 1899, the Criminal Division submitted its report by highlighting two important facts: it is certain Esterhazy used the same paper as the bordereau and the secret file is completely void. These two major events alone destroyed all proceedings against Alfred Dreyfus. But in parallel, in response to the Beaurepaire incident, President Mazeau conducted an inquiry by the Criminal Division, which led to divestiture thereof "to not only leave it to bear alone all responsibility for the final decision," protecting the Criminal Division from actions arising from its report.

On 28 February 1899, Waldeck-Rousseau spoke to the Senate on the floor and denounced "moral conspiracy" within the government and in the street. The review is no longer avoidable. On 1 March 1899 , the new President of the Civil Chamber of the Supreme Court, Alexis Ballot-Beaupré was appointed reporter for the consideration of the application for review. He took on the legal files and decided on a further investigation. Ten additional witnesses were interviewed, which further weakened the version of the General Staff. In the final discussion and by a model of objectivity, President Ballot-Beaupré demonstrated the inanity of the bordereau, the only charge against Dreyfus. The prosecutor Manau echoed the views of the President. Mr. Mornard who represented Lucie Dreyfus argued without any difficulty or opposition from the prosecution.

On 3 June 1899 , the joint chambers of the Supreme Court overturned the judgment of 1894 in solemn audience. The case was referred to the Military Court of Rennes. The consequences were immediate: Zola, exiled in England, returned to France, Picquart was released, Mercier was accused of unlawful communication of documents. By that judgment, the Supreme Court imposed itself as an absolute authority, capable of standing up to the military and political power. For many dreyfusards, this ruling is the prelude to the acquittal of the captain; they forgot to consider that it was again the army who would judge. The Court, in overturning the judgement, believed in the legal autonomy of the Military Court without taking into account the laws of esprit de corps.

The trial in Rennes 1899

Conduct of the trial

Defense of Dreyfus in Rennes: Edgar Demange and Fernand Labori

The prisoner was in no way aware of what was happening thousands of kilometres from him. Neither was he aware of the schemes hatched that he could never return, or the commitment of countless honest men and women to his cause. The Prison Administration filtered information deemed confidential. At the end of 1898, he learned with astonishment the actual size of the Affair, about which he knew nothing: the accusation by his brother against Esterházy, the acqittal of the traitor, confession and suicide of Henry, the reading of the record of investigations of the Supreme Court which he received two months after its publication. On 5 June 1899, Alfred Dreyfus is notified of the decision of the Supreme Court on the judgment of 1894. On 9 June 1899, he left Devil's Island, heading to France, locked in a cabin as if guilty even though he was no longer. He disembarked on 30 June 1899 in Port Haliguen on the Quiberon peninsula in the greatest secrecy, "a clandestine and nocturnal return". After five years of martyrdom, he was on his native soil, but he was immediately locked up from 1 July 1899 in the military prison in Rennes. He is remanded on 7 August 1899 before the Military Court of the Breton capital.

General Mercier, champion of the anti-dreyfusards, intervened constantly in the press, to confirm the accuracy of the first judgment: Dreyfus is surely guilty. But immediately dissent was emerging in the defence of Dreyfus. His two lawyers actually had opposing strategies. Mr. Demange wanted to stand on the defensive and just get the acquittal of Dreyfus. Mr. Labori, a brilliant lawyer of 35 years old, offensive, trying to hit higher, wanted the defeat of the General Staff and their public humiliation. Mathieu Dreyfus imagined a complementarity between the two lawyers. The conduct of the trial showed up the error, which served the prosecution before a defence so impaired.

The trial of Alfred Dreyfus at the Rennes Court Martial

The trial opened on 7 August 1899 in an atmosphere of extreme tension. Rennes was in a state of siege. The judges of the Court Martial were under pressure. Esterházy, who admitted authorship of the bordereau in exile in England, and du Paty, were both excused. On the appearance of Dreyfus the emotion is strong. His physical appearance disturbed his supporters and some of his opponents. Despite his deteriorated physical condition, he had a complete mastery of the files acquired in only a few weeks. All the General Staff testified against Dreyfus without providing any proof. They stubbornly considered null and void the confessions of Henry and Esterházy. The Trial even tended to go out of control, to the extent that the decisions of the Supreme Court were not taken into account. They discussed in particular the bordereau, which was the proof of guilt of Esterházy. Nevertheless, Mercier booed at the end of the hearing. The nationalist press and the anti-dreyfusards could only speculate on his silence about the "conclusive evidence" (the pseudo note annotated by the Kaiser, which nobody will ever see in evidence) that he had not ceased to report before the trial.

On 14 August 1899 Mr. Labori was the victim of an attack on his way to court. He was shot in the back by an extremist who escaped and was never found. The lawyer was missing from discussions for over a week, at the decisive moment of the examination of witnesses. On 22 August 1899, his condition had improved, and he returned. Incidents between the two lawyers for Dreyfus multiplied, Labori reproached Demange about his excessive caution. The Government before the stiffening military trial could still have two ways to influence events; call for testimony from Germany or abandon the charge. But these negotiations in the background had no results. The German Embassy sent a polite refusal to the government. The Minister of War, General Gaston de Galliffet, sent repectful word to Major Louis Carrière, the government commissioner. He asks him to stay in the spirit of the revised judgment of the Supreme Court. The officer pretended not to understand the allusion and helped the nationalist lawyer Auffray, true soul of the charge, to make the indictment against Dreyfus. The defence side needed to make a decision because the outcome of the case looked bad, despite evidence of the absence of charges against the accused. On behalf of the President of the Council, Waldeck-Rousseau, aided by Zola and Jaurès, Mr. Labori is convinced to give up his argument so as not to offend the military. They decided to risk conciliation in exchange for acquittal that seemed to be promised by the government. But this is a new game of fools. Mr. Demange, alone and without illusions, continued the defence of Dreyfus, in an atmosphere of civil war. In Paris, the anti-Semitic and nationalist agitators of Auteuil were arrested. Jules Guerin and those who fled and holed up in Fort Chabrol were assaulted by the police.

Reconviction

Reconviction Dreyfus

On 9 September 1899 , the Court rendered its verdict: Dreyfus was convicted of treason but "with extenuating circumstances" (by 5 votes against 2), sentenced to ten years' imprisonment and a further degradation. Contrary to appearances, this verdict was on the verge of acquittal by one vote. The Code of Military Justice in effect expected the principle of a minority vote of three against four to be an acquittal. This absurd verdict had the appearance of a guilty confession by members of the Court Martial. They seemed unwilling to deny the decision in 1894, and well knew that the file is no light matter. But we can also interpret this decision as a clever verdict, as the judges, while allowing their peers as well as the moderates anxious about the risk of civil war, implicitly recognize the innocence of Dreyfus (can you betray with extenuating circumstances?).

The day after the verdict, Alfred Dreyfus, after much hesitation, filed an appeal for a retrial. Waldeck-Rousseau, in a difficult position, tackled for the first time the possibility of a pardon. Dreyfus is to accept guilt. Exhausted, having been away from his family for too long, he accepts. The decree was signed on 19 September 1899 and he was released on 21 September 1899 . Many dreyfusards were frustrated by this final act. Public opinion welcomed this conclusion indifferently. France wanted the civil peace and harmony on the eve of the Universal Exhibition of 1900 and before the big fight that the Republic was about to take for the freedom of association and secularism.

Colonel Jouaust, Chairman of the Court Martial, reads the verdict of conviction, in one of the weekly Le Monde illustre.

It was in this spirit that on 17 November 1899 , Waldeck-Rousseau filed an amnesty law covering "all criminal acts or misdemeanours related to the Dreyfus affair or that have been included in a prosecution for one of these acts". The dreyfusards protested, they could not accept that the real culprits were absolved of their crimes of State, while at the same time Zola and Picquart must stand trial. Despite massive protests, the bill was passed. There was then no longer any recourse for the recognition of the innocence of Dreyfus; there must now be a new fact found that may lead to review.

Reactions

Reactions in France were strong, consisting of "shock and sadness" in the revisionist camp. Still other reactions tended to show that the "verdict of appeasement" made by the judges was understood and accepted by the population. The Republicans sought above all social peace, to turn the page on this extremely long and controversial affair. Also, there were very few demonstrations in the provinces, while the agitation persisted somewhat in Paris. In the military world, appeasement was also essential. Two of the seven judges voted for acquittal. They refused to yield to the implied military order. This was also clearly seen. In an apostrophe for the army, Galliffet announced: "The incident is closed."

Anti-French demonstrations took place in twenty foreign capitals and the press was outraged. Reactions were twofold. The Anglo-Saxons, as legalists, focused on espionage, and challenged rather strongly this conviction devoid of positive arguments in its construction. As such, the report of the Lord Chief Justice of England, Lord Russell of Killowen , in the reign of Queen Victoria on 16 September 1899 , was a symbol of the global impact of the Affair in Great Britain. The English magistrate, who went as an observer to Rennes, criticised the weaknesses of the Military Court:

"The Military judges" were not familiar with the law "[...]. They lacked the experience and skill that can see the evidence behind the evidence. [...] They acted according to what they saw as the honour of the army. [...] They granted too much importance to fragile allegations which were only made against the accused. Thus he concludes: it seems certain that if the review process had taken place before the Supreme Court , Dreyfus would now be a free man."

In Germany and Italy, the two countries widely challenged by lawsuits against Dreyfus, there is relief. Even if the Emperor of Germany regretted that the innocence of Dreyfus was not recognized, the normalization of future Franco-Prussian relations was seen as a welcome relaxation. No nation has an interest in permanent tension. Diplomacy of the three powers, with the help of England, sought to relax in an atmosphere that will deteriorate again on the eve of the First World War.

This judicial conclusion also had an unfortunate consequence for the relationship between the Dreyfus family and the branch of ultra dreyfusists. Fernand Labori, Jaures, and Clemenceau, with the consent of General Picquart openly accused Alfred Dreyfus of accepting the pardon and only gently protesting the amnesty law. Two years after the conclusion, their friendship ended in this way, with squalid self-interest.

The long road to rehabilitation - 1900-1906

Preferring to avoid a third trial, the government decided to pardon Dreyfus by a decree signed by President Émile Loubet on 19 September 1899, after much hesitation. Dreyfus was not found innocent. The rehabilitation process would not be completed until six years later, without sparkle or passion. Many books appeared during this period. In addition to the memoires of Alfred Dreyfus, Reinach published his History of the Dreyfus Affair, and Jaurès published The Proofs. As for Zola, he wrote the third of his Gospels: Truth. Even Esterházy took advantage of his secrets and sold several different versions of the text of his statement to the consul of France.

Death of Zola

On 29 September 1902, Zola, the initiator of "The Affair", the first of the intellectual drefusards, died, asphyxiated by fumes from his chimney. His wife, Alexandrine, narrowly escaped. It was a shock for the clan of dreyfusards.

Anatole France, who demanded that Dreyfus be present at the funeral, while the Chief of Police wanted his absence "to avoid problems", read his famous funeral oration for the author of "J’Accuse’....!":

The funeral of Zola where Anatole France paid homage to his friend.

"Before recalling the struggle undertaken by Zola for justice and truth, is it possible for me to keep silent about those men bent on the destruction of an innocent man and who, after feeling lost was saved and overwhelmed with the desperate audacity of fear ?

How to depart from your sight, then I have a duty to show you
Zola rises up, weak and disarmed against them?
Can I hide their lies?
It would silence his heroic righteousness.
Can I hide their crimes?
That would conceal his virtue.
Can I silence the insults and calumnies which they have pursued?
It would silence his reward and honours.
Can I hide their shame?
It would silence his glory.
No, I will speak.
Envy him: he honored his country and the world by a vast and a great act.
Envy him, his destiny and his heart gave out the greatest.
It was a moment of human conscience."

The semi-rehabilitation

Legal rehabilitation

Manuel Baudoin, Attorney General at the heart of the rehabilitation of Dreyfus

The elections of 1902 saw the victory of the left. This was Jean Jaurès, reelected, who revived the Affair on 7th April 1903 , while France thought the Affair buried forever. In a speech Jaurès evoked the long list of falsehoods peppering the Dreyfus case, and placed particular emphasis on two key points:

• The letter of resignation from Pellieux, worded in very harsh terms. Legally, it formed an admission of the collusion of the General Staff:

"[It] Dupes people without honour, [and] can no longer rely on the trust of subordinates, without which command is impossible, and for my side I can not trust any of my chiefs who have been working on falsehoods, I ask for my retirement."

• The note allegedly annotated (by Kaiser Wilhelm II) which General Mercier had alluded to at the Rennes trial, which is reported by the press to have influenced the judges of the Military Court.

Given these developments, General André, the new Minister of War, led an investigation at the instigation of Émile Combes, assisted by judges. The investigation was conducted by Captain Targe, aide to the minister. During searches of the Statistics Section, he discovered numerous documents most of which were obviously fabricated. In November 1903, a report was submitted to the Minister of Justice by the Minister of War. It was in compliance with the regulations, since the Minister found an error committed by the Military Court. This was the beginning of a new review, led by lawyer Ludovic Trarieux, founder of the League of Human Rights , with a thorough investigation to run over two years.

The years 1904 and 1905 were devoted to different legal phases before the Supreme Court. The court identified three events (grounds) for review:

• demonstration of the falsification of the Panizzardi telegram .
• demonstration of a date change on a document in the 1894 trial (April 1895 changed to April 1894).
• Demonstration of fact that Dreyfus had not removed the minutes related to heavy artillery in the army.

In regard to the writing of the bordereau, the court was particularly severe against Bertillon who "reasoned badly on forged documents." The report showed that the writing was certainly by Esterházy, and that the latter had also confessed subsequently. Finally, the Court demonstrated by a comprehensive and skilled analysis of the bordereau the futility of this purely intellectual construction, and a commission of four headed by a general of artillery, General Sebert maintained "it is highly unlikely that an artillery officer could write this missive".

At right, Captain Alfred Dreyfus rehabilitated at the Invalides, talks with General Gillain. In the centre, Captain Targe, investigator and discoverer of many falsehoods.

On 9 March 1905, the Attorney-General Baudouin delivered an 800-page report in which he demanded the convictions be quashed without further reference to another court and denounced the army. He began a divestiture of the military justice system which did not conclude until 1982. It was not until 12 July 1906 that the Supreme Court, unanimously, canceled the judgment without reference to Rennes in 1899 and pronounced "the end of the rehabilitation of Captain Dreyfus". The anti-Dreyfusards protested at this hasty rehabilitation. The goal was obviously political: it was to finish and finally turn the page. Nothing could dent the conviction of the opponents of Dreyfus. This method was the most direct and most definitive. What was annulled not only put a stop to Rennes, but the entire chain of prior acts, beginning with the arraignment order given by General Saussier in 1894. The Court focused on the legal aspects only and observed that Dreyfus did not have a duty to be returned before a Military Court for the simple reason that it should never have taken place due to the total absence of charges:

"Whereas, in the final analysis, of the accusation against Dreyfus, nothing remains standing, and setting aside the judgment of the Military Court leaves nothing that can be considered to be a crime or misdemeanour; therefore by applying the final paragraph of Article 445 no reference to another court should be pronounced."

Military Injustice

Alfred Dreyfus in 1935, the year of his death.

Dreyfus was partially reinstated in the army with the rank of Cavalry Major, by law on 13 July 1906. Five years of imprisonment were not taken into account for the reconstruction of his career, and he could not claim a rank of general officer. This decision blocked any hope of a career worthy of his past successes before his arrest in 1894. He was forced to a painful resignation in June 1907. Judges could do nothing against this ultimate injustice which was voluntarily committed. Law and equality were again denied. Dreyfus had never asked for any compensation from the State, nor damages from anyone. The only thing that mattered to him was the recognition of his innocence.

On 4 June 1908, on the occasion of the transfer of the ashes of Émile Zola to the Pantheon, Alfred Dreyfus was the target of an attack. Louis Grégori, extreme right-wing journalist, assistant of Drumont, fired two shots from a revolver and wounded Dreyfus slightly in the arm. He was driven to do this for French Action, not only to disrupt the ceremony for the "two traitors" Zola and Dreyfus, but also to remake the Dreyfus trial through a new trial, a revenge of some sort. The trial was at the Assizes of the Seine, where Grégori was acquitted - the latest in a long series of judicial misconducts. It was an occasion for new anti-Semitic riots that the government suppressed half-heartedly.

As a reserve officer, Dreyfus participated in the First World War of 1914-1918 at a fortified camp near Paris, as head of the artillery depot and was posted to the Chemin des Dames and to Verdun. Ironically, he was the only soldier involved in the affair to serve in the First World War. He was promoted to the rank of officer of the Légion d'honneur in 1919. His son, Pierre Dreyfus, also served in World War I as an artillery officer and was awarded the Croix de Guerre. Alfred Dreyfus's two nephews also fought as artillery officers in the French Army during World War I, but both were killed. The same artillery piece, the secrets of which Dreyfus was accused of revealing to the Germans, was used in blunting the early German offensives because of its ability to maintain accuracy during rapid fire. He ended his military career as a Colonel.

He died on 12 July 1935 at the age of seventy-six years to general indifference. His funeral cortège passed through ranks assembled for Bastille Day celebrations at the Place de la Concorde, and he was buried in Montparnasse Cemetery.

Colonel Picquart was also officially rehabilitated and reintegrated into the army with the rank of Brigadier general. He was even Minister of War from 1906 to 1909 in the first Clemenceau government. He died in 1914 in a riding accident.

Consequences of the Dreyfus Affair

Has the Dreyfus affair left any trace? What legacy did it leave for French society over those twelve years? For some, the Dreyfus affair marked French society as a tortured society. All sections of society were affected, some were devastated.

Assessment at the end of the century, anti-Republican caricature published in The Pilgrim in 1900

Political consequences

The Affair brought to life the confrontation between the two sides of France. However, this opposition served the republican order, according to all historians. There was indeed a strengthening of parliamentary democracy and a failure of monarchist and reactionary forces. The excessive violence of the nationalist parties brought together Republicans in a united front, which defeated attempts to return to the old order. In the short term, the progressive political forces, from the elections of 1893, confirmed in 1898, as a result of the Dreyfus affair, disappeared in 1899. The shock trials of Esterházy and Zola created a dreyfusian politics whose aim was to develop a Republican consciousness and to fight against authoritarian nationalism which expressed itself during the Affair. For the uninhibited growth of populist nationalism was another great result of the event in French politics, even though it did not originate from the Dreyfus affair, since nationalism was theorized by Maurice Barrès in 1892. Nationalism had its ups and downs, but managed to maintain itself as a political force, under the name of French Action, until the defeat of 1940, when, after fifty years of struggle, it came to power and tried out the old dream of Drumont, "to purify" the state with the consequences that everyone knows. It should be noted that on that occasion many Republicans rallied to Vichy, without which the operation of the State would have been precarious, which showed the fragility of the republican institution in extreme circumstances. Upon liberation, Charles Maurras, convicted on 25 January 1945 for acts of collaboration, exclaimed at the verdict: "This is the revenge of Dreyfus!".

Nationalism led by reactionary effect, the other result was, an intellectual mutation of socialism. Jaurès was a late dreyfusard (January 1898), persuaded by revolutionary socialists. But his commitment became unwavering, alongside Georges Clemenceau from 1899, under the influence of Lucien Herr. The year 1902 saw the birth of two parties: the French Socialist Party, which brought together jaurésiens, and the Socialist Party of France, under the influence of Guesde and Vaillant. Both parties merged in 1905 as a French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO).

In addition, 1901 saw the birth of the Republican radical socialist Party, the first modern political party conceived as an electoral machine of the Republican group. It had a permanent structure and relied on networks of dreyfusards. The creation of the French League for Human Rights was contemporaneous with the affair. It is the hub of the intellectual left, extremely active at the beginning of the century, the conscience of the humanist left.

The final consequence on the political scene at the turn of the century saw a profound renewal of political personalities, with the disappearance of great republican figures, beginning with Auguste Scheurer-Kestner. Those that, at the end of the century could weigh heavily on the events of the affair had now disappeared, giving way to new men whose ambition was to reform and correct the errors and injustices of the past.

The social consequences

Family of Félix Vallotton in Le Cri de Paris. The Dreyfus Affair lastingly cut France in two even within families.

Socially, Anti-Semitism was at the forefront. Existing prior to the Dreyfus affair, it had expressed itself during the boulangisme affair and the Panama Canal scandal. But it was limited to an intellectual elite. The Dreyfus Affair spread racial hatred through all strata of society, a movement that certainly began with the success of Jewish France by Edouard Drumont in 1886, but was then greatly amplified by various legal episodes and press campaigns for nearly fifteen years. Anti-Semitism was from then on official and was exposed in numerous settings, including the working classes. Candidates for the legislative elections took advantage of anti-Semitism as a watchword in parliamentary elections. This anti-Semitism was reinforced by the crisis of the separation of church and state in 1905, probably leading it to its height in France. Anti-Semitic actions were permitted by the advent of the Vichy regime, which allowed free and unrestrained expression of racial hatred. At the end of the war, the monstrosity of the final solution was known by all, even until today the expression of anti-Semitism is revealed from time to time through declarations of nationalist parties, all the more startling that they have become rarities. The persistence of residual anti-Semitic sentiment in France, still seems likely to continue for certain crimes which, from time to time, may make headlines.

Another social consequence, the enhanced role of the press: for the first time it exerted an important influence on French political life. It is possible to speak of a fourth estate, since it can act the part of all state organs. Especially as the high editorial quality of the press was mainly derived from the work of writers and novelists who used newspapers as a revolutionary way of expression. The power of the press certainly brought politicians to action, an example of which was Mercier who appeared to have pushed at the Dreyfus trial in 1894 to please La Libre Parole who attacked ferociously. This being said, the role of the press was limited by the size of circulation, important in both Paris and to a lesser extent nationwide. The entire run of the national press appeared to revolve around four and a half million copies, which made their real influence relatively strong. There was also assistance through the publication in 1899 of a specific newspaper intended to coordinate the fight (in the dreyfusist camp), with the People's Daily of Sébastien Faure.

International Consequences

Theodor Herzl created the Zionist Congress after the Dreyfus affair.

The Dreyfus affair created difficulties, blocking the way of improved relations, between France and Italy after the customs war, as Italy was Europe's most dreyfusard nation.

The shock of the Dreyfus Affair also had an impact on the Zionist movement "which found fertile ground for its emergence".

The Austro-Hungarian journalist Theodor Herzl appeared profoundly moved by the Dreyfus affair which followed his debut as a correspondent for the Neue Freie Presse of Vienna and was present at the degradation of Dreyfus in 1895. "The Affair [...] acted as a catalyst in the conversion of Herzl". Before the wave of anti-Semitism that accompanied the degradation, Herzl was "convinced of the need to resolve the Jewish question", which became "an obsession for him". In Der Judenstaat (State of the Jews), he considered that: "if France - bastion of emancipation, progress and universal socialism - [can] get caught up in a maelstrom of anti-Semitism and let the Parisian crowd chant 'Kill the Jews!' Where can they they be safe once again - if not in their own country? Assimilation does not solve the problem because the Gentile world will not allow it, as the Dreyfus affair has so clearly demonstrated". The shock was much stronger having lived his youth in Austria, an anti-Semitic country, Herzl chose to live in France for the humanist image which it claimed was a shelter from extremist excess.

He organized in 1897, the 1st Zionist Congress in Basel and is considered the "inventor of Zionism as a real political movement" . The Dreyfus affair also marked a turning point in the lives of many Jews from Western and Central Europe, as the pogroms of 1881-1882 had done for the Jews of Eastern Europe.

Other Related Events

Commission of sculpture

In 1985, President François Mitterrand commissioned a statue of Dreyfus by sculptor Louis Mitelberg. It was to be installed at the École Militaire, but the Minister of Defense refused to display it, even though Alfred Dreyfus had been rehabilitated into the Army and fully exonerated in 1906. Today it can be found at Boulevard Raspail, n°116–118, at the exit of the Notre-Dame-des-Champs metro station. A replica is located at the entrance of the Museum of Jewish Art and History in Paris.

Centennial commemoration

On 12 July 2006, President Jacques Chirac held an official state ceremony marking the centenary of Dreyfus's official rehabilitation. This was held in the presence of the living descendants of both Émile Zola and Alfred Dreyfus. The event took place in the same cobblestone courtyard of Paris's École Militaire, where Capitaine Dreyfus had been officially stripped of his officer's rank. Chirac stated that "the combat against the dark forces of intolerance and hate is never definitively won," and called Dreyfus "an exemplary officer" and a "patriot who passionately loved France." The French National Assembly also held a memorial ceremony of the centennial marking the end of the Affair. This was held in remembrance of the 1906 laws that had reintegrated and promoted both Dreyfus and Picquart at the end of the Dreyfus Affair.

Tour de France and L'Auto

The roots of both the Tour de France bicycle race and the daily sporting newspaper L'Auto (now L'Équipe) can be traced to the Dreyfus Affair. Le Velo, then the largest sports daily in France, was Dreyfusard. In 1900 a group of anti-Dreyfusards started L'Auto to compete with Le Velo. L'Auto in turn created the Tour de France race in 1903.

The trigger for these events was a brawl between Dreyfusards and anti-Dreyfusards at the Auteuil racetrack in Paris in 1899. In this incident, the President of France, Émile Loubet, was struck on the head with a walking stick by Count Albert de Dion, owner of the De Dion-Bouton motor car company.

De Dion served 15 days in jail and was fined 100 francs. De Dion's behavior was savagely criticised by Le Vélo and its Dreyfusard editor, Pierre Giffard. De Dion responded by starting L'Auto. He was supported by other wealthy anti-Dreyfusards such as Adolphe Clément and Édouard Michelin. (They were also concerned with Le Vélo because its publisher was their rival, Automobiles Darracq SA.)

L'Auto was not the success its backers wanted. By 1903, its circulation was declining. To boost its circulation, L'Auto launched the Tour de France, a new long-distance bicycle race with distances and prizes far exceeding any previous race.

Historiography of the Dreyfus Affair

First brochure of Bernard Lazare, a miscarriage of justice, published in 1896 in Brussels

The Dreyfus Affair is distinguished by the large number of books published on this subject. A substantial portion of these publications is mere polemic and not historical books. These works can however be consulted in the context of a study of psycho-social aspects of the Affair.

The great interest in the study of the Dreyfus affair lies in the fact that all records are readily available. Although the debates of the Military Court of 1894 were not taken in shorthand, the accounts of all public hearings of the many trials in the Affair can be consulted. In addition, a large number of records are easily accessible in the French National Archives and in the Military Archives at the fort of Vincennes.

The contemporary literature of the case was published between 1894 and 1906. Beginning with the pamphlet of Bernard Lazare, the first intellectual dreyfusard: despite factual errors, it remains a testament of the different stages of the review.

The work of Joseph Reinach, the history of the Dreyfus Affair in seven volumes, which first appeared in 1901 and ended with the index in 1911, was the reference for the publication of the scientific historical work delivered from 1960. It contains a wealth of accurate information, despite some interpretations generally challenged on the why of the Affair.

On the other hand, there are "instant memoires" of direct witnesses like the anti-Semitic and dishonest book of Esterházy, or those of Alfred Dreyfus himself in five years of my life. These are testaments to complete the panorama of the Affair.

The precis of the Dreyfus Affair by Henri-Dutrait Crozon under the pseudonym of Colonel Larpent is the basis of all anti-dreyfusard literature after the Affair to the present time. The author develops the theory of conspiracy, fueled by Jewish finance to push Esterházy to accuse himself of crime. Under a scientific exterior, there will be found there an elaboration of theories without evidence or support.

The publication of notes by Schwartzkoppen in 1930 shed light on the guilty role of Esterházy in the Affair and exonerated Alfred Dreyfus at the same time, if it was needed. The extreme right questioned the value of this testimony, but most historians hold it to be a valid source, despite some ambiguities and inaccuracies.

The period of the Occupation throws a veil over the case. The Liberation and the revelation of the Holocaust brought a deep reflection on all of the Dreyfus Affair. Jacques Kayser (1946) then Maurice Paléologue (1955) and Henri Giscard d'Estaing (1960) revived the case without great revelations, a process generally considered insufficient historically.

There is Marcel Thomas, paleographic archiver, chief curator at the National Archives , who, in 1961, provided, through his The Affair without Dreyfus in two volumes, a complete renewal of the history of the Affair, supported by all available public and private archives. His work is the foundation of all subsequent historical studies.

Henri Guillemin, in the same year, with his Enigma Esterházy seemed to find the key to the "riddle" in the existence of a third man (other than Dreyfus and Esterházy) an explanation that was shared momentarily with Michel Lombarès then abandoned a few years later.

Jean Doise, of the Ecole Normale Superieure and specialist on armies with strong ideas and technical descriptions, attempts to explain the genesis of the case through the 75mm gun 1897 model in A well-kept secret , but his concluding hypotheses are regarded very critically.

Jean-Denis Bredin, lawyer and historian: his book The Affair in 1983, is recognized as the best summary of the Dreyfus Affair. The interest of the book focuses on a strictly factual relating of the story with documented facts and multifaceted reflection on the different aspects of the event.

We return finally to Vincent Duclert whose book in 2005 the first Biography of Alfred Dreyfus in 1300 pages, among a dozen other publications about the Dreyfus affair, including the complete correspondence of Alfred and Lucie Dreyfus 1894 to 1899.

In addition, the Dreyfus Affair provided the basis for many novels. The last work of Émile Zola (1902), Truth, transposes the Dreyfus affair to the world of education. Anatole France published Island of penguins (1907), which recounts the Affair in Book VI: "The Case of 80,000 bundles of hay." Other authors have also contributed, such as Roger Martin du Gard, Marcel Proust, and Maurice Barres.

Sources

Template:Plume Book or article used as a source for writing this article

References

Primary Sources

• 1898 ( Fr ) Verbatim record of the trial of Emile Zola in the Assizes of the Seine and the Supreme Court. Template:Plume
• 1898 ( Fr ) Enquiry of the Supreme Court (1898-1899). Template:Plume
• 1898 ( Fr ) Proceedings of the Supreme Court for the revision of the Dreyfus trial. Template:Plume
• 1899 ( Fr ) Verbatim record of the proceedings of Rennes Volume 1,Volume 2, Volume 3 Template:Plume
• 1904 ( Fr ) Memoire of Alfred Dreyfus to the Supreme Court. Template:Plume
• 1904 ( Fr ) Enquiry of the Supreme Court. Template:Plume
• 1906 ( Fr ) Debates of the Supreme Court. Template:Plume
• 1906 ( Fr ) Decision of the Supreme Court for the verdict of the Dreyfus trial without reference to 1899. Template:Plume
• 2013 ( Fr ) The Secret File, posted online by Ministry of Defence 6 March 2013

Reference bibliography

• 1901 ( Fr ) Joseph Reinach, History of the Dreyfus Affair, Fasquelle , 1901-1911; éd. Robert Laffont, two vol., 2006 231. Template:Plume
• 1961 ( Fr ) Marcel Thomas, The Affair without Dreyfus, Fayard - Idégraf (Geneva), 1961 - 1979 - 2 volumes. Template:Plume
• 1981 ( Fr ) Jean-Denis Bredin, The Affair, Fayard, Paris, 1993 ( 1 re édition 1981) ( ISBN 2-260-00346-X ). Template:Plume
• 1986 ( En ) Jean-Denis Bredin, The Affair: the Case of Alfred Dreyfus, George Braziller, New York, ISBN 0-8076-1175-1
• 2005 ( Fr ) Vincent Duclert, Biography of Alfred Dreyfus, The honour of a patriot, Fayard, Paris, 2006 ( ISBN 2213627959 ). Template:Plume

Other General Works

• 1961 ( Fr ) Pierre Miquel, The Dreyfus Affair, University of France Press - PUF - coll. "What do I know?", réprinted 2003 ( ISBN 2130532268 ) Template:Plume
• 1989 ( Fr ) Pierre Miquel, The Third Republic, Fayard Template:Plume
• 1986 ( Fr ) Michel Winock, The fever of France. The great political crises. 1871-1968, Points Seuil, ( ISBN 2020098318 ) Template:Plume
• 1999 ( Fr ) Michel Winock, The School of Intellectuals, Le Seuil, coll. Points Template:Plume
• 1991 ( En ) Alfred S. Lindemann, The Jew Accused: Three Anti-Semitic Affairs, Dreyfus, Beilis, Frank, 1894–1914 (Cambridge University Press).
• 1994 ( Fr ) Pierre Birnbaum, The Dreyfus Affair, The Republic in peril, Gallimard, coll. "Discoveries", ( ISBN 978-2070532773 ). Template:Plume
• 1994 ( Fr ) Pierre Birnbaum, The France of the Dreyfus Affair, Gallimard, Paris
• 1998 ( Fr ) Pierre Birnbaum, Was the French Army Antisemitic?, pp 70–82 in Michel Winock: The Dreyfus Affair, Editions du Seuil, Paris, ISBN 2-02-032848
• 1994 ( Fr ) Michael Burns, History of a French Family, The Dreyfuses, Fayard, 1994 ( ISBN 978-2213031323 ) Template:Plume
• 1998 ( En ) Michael Burns, France and the Dreyfus Affair: A Documentary History (Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's)
• 1994 ( Fr ) Éric Cahm, The Dreyfus Affair, Päperback, coll. "references"
• 1994 ( Fr ) Michel Drouin (dir.), The Dreyfus Affair Dictionary, Flammarion, reprinted 2006 ( ISBN 2082105477 ). Template:Plume
• 1994 ( Fr ) Vincent Duclert, The Dreyfus Affair, The Discovery, reprinted 2006 ( ISBN 2707147931 ). Template:Plume
• 2006 ( Fr ) Vincent Duclert, Dreyfus is Innocent: History of an Affair of State, Larousse, ( ISBN 203582639 ) Template:Plume
• 2006 ( Fr ) Vincent Duclert, Alfred Dreyfus, Librairie Artheme Fayard, ISBN 2-213-62795-9
• 2010 ( Fr ) Vincent Duclert, The Dreyfus Affair. When justice enlightens the Republic, Private
• 1999 ( En ) Martin P. Johnson, The Dreyfus Affair: Honour and Politics in the Belle Epoque (New York: Palgrave Macmillan).
• 2000 ( Fr ) Francis Démier, The France of the Nineteenth Century, Seuil, coll. "Points in History". Template:Plume
• 2006 ( En ) George R. Whyte, The Accused – The Dreyfus Trilogy, Inter Nationes, ISBN 3-929979-28-4
• 2006 ( En ) George R. Whyte, The Dreyfus Affair – A chronological history, Palgrave Macmillan 2006, ISBN 978-0-230-20285-6
• 2006 ( Fr ) Méhana Mouhou, Dreyfus Affair: conspiracy in the Republic, Éd. L'Harmattan. Template:Plume
• 2007 ( En ) Ruth Harris, The Assumptionists and the Dreyfus Affair, Past & Present (2007) 194#1 175-211. in Project MUSE
• 2010 ( En ) Ruth Harris, Dreyfus: Politics, Emotion, and the Scandal of the Century (Henry Holt and Company)
• 2008 ( Fr ) Philippe Oriol, History of the Dreyfus Affair - Vol 1 - The History of Captain Dreyfus, Stock, ( ISBN 978-2-234-06080-7 )
• 2009 ( En ) Louis Begley, Why the Dreyfus Affair Matters (Yale University Press)
• 2010 ( En ) Frederick Brown, For the Soul of France: Culture Wars in the Age of Dreyfus (Alfred A. Knopf)
• 2012 ( Fr ) Pierre Gervais, Pauline Peretz et Pierre Stutin, The secret file of the Dreyfus Affair, Alma editor, ( ISBN 978-2362790430 )
• 2012 ( En ) Piers Paul Read, The Dreyfus Affair, Bloomsbury, London

Specialised Works

• 1960 ( Fr ) Patrice Boussel, The Dreyfus Affair and the Press, Armand Colin, coll. "Kiosk", 272 p. Template:Plume
• 1962 ( Fr ) Henri Guillemin, The Esterhazy Enigma, Gallimard Template:Plume
• 1994 ( Fr ) Jean Doise , A Secret well guarded - Military History of the Dreyfus Affair, Le Seuil, 225 p. ( ISBN 2-02-021100-9 ) Template:Plume
• 1998 ( Fr ) Philippe-E. Landau, Jewish Opinion and the Dreyfus Affair, Albin Michel, "The Presence of Judaism", paperback
• 2000 ( Fr ) Armand Israël, The hidden truth of the Dreyfus Affair, Albin Michel, ( ISBN 2-226-11123-9 )
• 2000 ( Fr ) Collective, Intellectuals face the Dreyfus Affair, then and now, L'Harmattan, ( ISBN 978-2738460257 ) Template:Plume
• 2004 ( Fr ) Général André Bach, The Army of Dreyfus. A political history of the French army from Charles X to "The Affair, Tallandier, ( ISBN 2-84734-039-4 ) Template:Plume
• 2006 ( Fr ) Thierry Lévy, Jean-Pierre Royer, Labori, a lawyer, Louis Audibert Éditions, ( ISBN 2-226-11123-9 )
• 2006 ( Fr ) Supreme Court, collective, Justice in the Dreyfus Affair, Fayard, ( ISBN 978-2213629520 ) Template:Plume
• 2006 ( Fr ) Pierre Touzin et Francois Vauvillier, Guns of Victory 1914–1918, Volume 1, "The Artillery of the campaign". History and Collections, Paris. ISBN 2-35250-022-2
• 2010 ( Fr ) Georges Joumas, Echos of the Dreyfus Affair for an Orléanais, Corsaire Éditions, ( ISBN 978-2-910475-12-3 )

Antidreyfusard Works

• 1909 ( Fr ) Henri Dutrait-Crozon, Précis of the Dreyfus Affair, Paris, New National Library, First Editionmière, Final Edition 1924.

Articles and Newspapers

• 1978 ( Fr ) Dreyfusards!: Memories from Mathieu Dreyfus and other novelties (presented by Robert Gauthier). Gallimard & Julliard, coll. Archives No. 16, Paris
• 1988 ( Fr ) Max Guermann, The terrible truth, Revue Les Cahiers Naturalistes , No. 62.
• 1994 ( Fr ) Revue in L'Histoire n o 173, Spécial Dreyfus, January 1994 Template:Plume
• 2005 ( Fr ) Special edition of Le Figaro on 12th July 2005, The centenary of the rehabilitation of Captain Dreyfus
• 2006 ( En ) Kim Willsher (27 June 2006), Calls for Dreyfus to be buried in Panthéon, The Guardian
• 2006 ( En ) Ronald Schechter (7 July 2006), The Ghosts of Alfred Dreyfus, The Forward.
• 2006 ( En ) Stanley Meisler (9 July 2006), Not just a Jew in a French jail, The Los Angeles Times
• 2006 ( En ) Adam Kirsch (11 July 2006), The Most Shameful of Stains, The New York Sun
• 2007 ( Fr ) Thomas Loué, The Dreyfus Affair, in L. Boltanski et alii éds., Affairs, scandals, and great causes, Paris, Stock, p. 213-227
• 2012 ( En ) Schultheiss, Katrin. "The Dreyfus Affair and History", Journal of The Historical Society, 12 189–203. doi: 10.1111/j.1540-5923.2012.00362.x Template:Plume

Testimonials

• 1898 ( Fr ) Jean Jaurès, The Evidence, Collection of Articles appearing in La Petite République,- Available on Wikisource
• 1898 ( Fr ) Alfred Dreyfus, Letters of an Innocent man, Stock
• 1935 ( Fr ) Alfred Dreyfus, Five years of my life, Fasquelle, Paris, 1935, reprinted 2006 (The Discovery) ( ISBN 2707148067 )
• 1898 ( Fr ) Paschal Grousset, The Dreyfus Affair and its secret remits: a historical summary, ed Godet et Cie, Paris, 240p.
• 1899 ( Fr ) Paschal Grousset, The Dreyfus Affair, the word of an enigma. Paris, Stock.
• 1899 ( Fr ) Georges Clemenceau, Towards Reparation, Tresse & Stock
• 1899 ( Fr ) Georges Clemenceau, The Iniquity, Stock
• 1903 ( Fr ) Georges Clemenceau, The Disgrace
• 1955 ( Fr ) Maurice Paléologue, The Dreyfus Affair and the Quai d'Orsay, Plon Template:Plume
• 1978 ( Fr ) Mathieu Dreyfus, The Affair that I have lived, Bernard Grasset, Paris. ( ISBN 2-246-00668-6 ) Template:Plume
• 1991 ( Fr ) Octave Mirbeau, The Dreyfus Affair, Librairie Séguier.
• 1993 ( Fr ) Léon Blum, Memories of The Affair, Flammarion, Folio Histoire, ( ISBN 978-2070327522 )
• 2006 ( Fr ) Émile Zola, Fight for Dreyfus. Preface by Martine Le Blond-Zola. Postscript by Jean-Louis Lévy. Presentation and notes d'Alain Pagès. Dilecta Edition.

Other Reference Material

Literature

• 1898 ( En ) Poems written by Philadelphia poet Florence Earle Coates (1850–1927) about the affair:

Dreyfus – published in Poet Lore (September 1898) and subsequently in Mine and Thine (1904).

Dreyfus – a fugitive poem published in The Independent (16 February 1899).

Picquart – published in The Century Magazine (July 1902) and subsequently in Mine and Thine (1904) and Poems Vol II.

Le Grand Salut – published in The Living Age (25 August 1906) and subsequently in Lyrics of Life (1909) and Poems Vol II.

• 1908 ( Fr ) Anatole France, A satirical take on the Dreyfus affair appears in Island of Penguins.
• 1922 ( Fr ) Marcel Proust, The Dreyfus affair plays an important part in In Search of Lost Time, especially Vols. 3 and 4.
• 1994 ( En ) The Dreyfus Centenary Committee, The Dreyfus Centenary Bulletin, London/Bonn.
• 1994 ( Fr ) George Whyte, The Affair in Song; Paris Bibliothèque de documentation internationale contemporaine BDIC; Paris, Flammarion.
• 1996 ( En ) George Whyte, The Dreyfus Trilogy, Inter Nationes.
• 2006 ( En ) George Whyte, The Dreyfus Affair, A Chronological History, Palgrave Macmillan.
• 2007 ( En ) George Whyte. Admission is not Acceptance – Reflections on the Dreyfus Affair. Antisemitism. London Valentine Mitchell, 2007; Paris Editions Le Manuscript/Unesco 2008, Buenos Aires Lilmod 2009, Moscow Xonokoct 2010.
• 2009 ( En ) A. S. Byatt, The Dreyfus Affair is mentioned several times in The Children's Book.
• 2010 ( En ) Kate Taylor, A Man in Uniform.
• 2010 ( It ) Umberto Eco, The Dreyfus Affair is woven into the plot of The Prague Cemetery.
• 2010 ( De ) Peter Lang, Die Dreyfus Affaere – Die Macht des Vorurteils, Frankfurt, ISBN 978-3-631-60218-8
• 2011 ( En ) The Dreyfus Affair – A Trilogy of Plays, Oberon Books, London, January 2011.

Filmography

News and Stories

• 1899 ( Fr ) Dereliction of Duty in the Trial at Rennes - Sequence of images.
• 1899 ( Fr ) Mrs Dreyfus and her lawyer at the exit of the prison at Rennes - Sequence of images.
• 1899 ( Fr ) The Dreyfus Affair (reconstructed scenes, 11 episodes, 15 min ) by Georges Méliès (a dreyfusard) - DVD 2008 par Studio Canal
• 1899 ( Fr ) The Dreyfus Affair (reconstructed scenes, 6 episodes) - Actualités Pathé
• 1902 ( Fr ) The Dreyfus Affair - French film attributed to Ferdinand Zecca produced by Pathé
• 1907 ( Fr ) The Dreyfus Affair - French film by Lucien Nonguet produced by Pathé

Documentaries

• 1965 ( Fr ) The Dreyfus Affair, French film by Jean Vigne, made for schools – Black and White - 18 min
• 1972 ( En ) The Dreyfus Affair, American Documentary Film – Black and White - 15 min
• 1974 ( Fr ) Dreyfus or the Intolerable Truth, French Documentary Film by Jean Chérasse - Colour - 90 min - DVD 2006 by Alpamedia/Janus Diffusion
• 1994 ( Fr ) Reasons of State: Chronicle of the Dreyfus Affair, French film in two episodes by Pierre Sorlin - Colour - 26 min

Cinema Films

• 1899 ( En ) Trial of Captain Dreyfus, American film - Black and White
• 1930 ( De ) The Dreyfus Case, German Film by Richard Oswald – Black and White - 115 min
• 1931 ( En ) The Dreyfus Case, English Film by F Kraemer and Milton Rosmer – Black and White - 90 min
• 1937 ( En ) The Life of Émile Zola, American Film by William Dieterle – Black and White - 90 min
• 1958 ( En ) I Accuse, American film by José Ferrer – Black and White - 90 min
• 2014 ( En ) (in progress) : D , film by Roman Polanski

TV films

• 1964 ( En ) In the first season episode "Rock-a-Bye Munster", of the TV show "The Munsters", Herman and Lilly mention meeting 'that charming Captain Dreyfus' on their honeymoon at Devil's Island.
• 1966 ( En ) The Time Tunnel, episode Devil's Island. Story in which Drs. Newman & Phillips encounter Captain Dreyfus, newly arrived on Devil's Island. ABC, broadcast on 11 November 1966.
• 1968 ( De ) Affaire Dreyfus, German film in 3 episodes by ZDF
• 1978 ( Fr ) Zola or the Human Conscience, French film in four episodes by Stellio Lorenzi - Produced by Antenne 2 - Colour
• 1991 ( En ) Can a Jew Be innocent ?, English film in four episodes by Jack Emery – Produced by the BBC - Colour - 30 min (X4)
• 1991 ( En ) Prisoner of Honour, American Film by Ken Russell - Colour - 88 min
• 1994 ( Fr ) The Dreyfus Affair, French film in two episodes by Yves Boisset – Produced by France 2 - Colour
• 1994 ( Fr ) Rage and Outrage, by George Whyte , French film – Produced by ARTE - Colour
• 1995 ( En ) Dreyfus in Opera and Ballet , German and English film by arte – Produced by WDR - Colour
• 1995 ( De ) Die Affäre Dreyfus, German film in two episodes by arte.

Theatre

• 1895 ( En ) Seymour Hicks wrote a drama called One of the Best, based on the Dreyfus trial, starring William Terriss. It played at the Adelphi Theatre in London in 1895. The idea was suggested to Hicks by W. S. Gilbert.
• 1992 ( En ) AJIOM/Captain Dreyfus, Musical. Music and text by George Whyte.
• 1994 (De En) The Dreyfus Trilogy by George Whyte (in collaboration with Luciano Berio, Jost Meier and Alfred Schnittke) comprising the opera Dreyfus-Die Affäre (Deutsche Oper Berlin, 8 May 1994; Theater Basle, 16 October 1994; The Dreyfus Affair New York City Opera, April 1996); the dance drama Dreyfus-J'accuse (Oper der Stadt Bonn, 4 September 1994) and the musical satire Rage et Outrage (Arte, April 1994; Zorn und Schande, Arte 1994; Rage and Outrage Channel 4, May 1994.
• 1998 ( En ) Dreyfus: Prisoner of Devil's Island – Music Theatre piece – Music and Lyrics by Bryan Kesselman, St Giles Cripplegate, London, November 1998; Part of the 9th London international Jewish Music Festival.
• 2008 ( X ) Dreyfus In time by George Whyte, Opernhaus Zurich, December 2008; Jüdisches Museum Berlin, May 2009. Also in German, English, French, Hungarian, Hebrew and Czech.

Radio

• 1995 ( Fr ) The Dreyfus Affair, interview with George Whyte, France Culture, 25 March 1995.
• 1998 ( Fr ) J'accuse, George Whyte, Canadian Broadcasting Service (CBS), 10 October 1998.
• 2005 ( En ) The Dreyfus Affair, interview with George Whyte, BBC Radio 3. By John Pilgrim, 28 October 2005.
• 2009 ( En ) BBC Radio, J'Accuse, UK, Hattie Naylor. Radio dramatisation inspired by a newspaper article written by Emile Zola in response to the Dreyfus Affair of the 1890s. BBC Radio 4, broadcast on 13 June 2009.
• 2009 ( En ) "In Our Time, The Dreyfus Affair" Downloadable discussion on BBC Radio 4. Melvyn Bragg; Robert Gildea, Professor of Modern History at Oxford University; Ruth Harris, Lecturer in Modern History at Oxford University; Robert Tombs, Professor of French History at Cambridge University.
• 2010 ( En ) Interview with Ruth Harris about her book Dreyfus: Politics, Emotion, And the Scandal of the Century (2010).

See also

People

Note : Unless otherwise indicated, this list is the work on the rehabilitation of Dreyfus published on the Internet by the Ministry of Culture.

• Family:

Alfred Dreyfus (accused), Mathieu Dreyfus (brother), Lucie Dreyfus (wife)

• Anti-dreyfusards:

Officers: Louis-Norbert Carrière - Esterhazy (the true culprit) - Hubert-Joseph Henry (author of the “faux Henry”) - Auguste Mercier - Armand Mercier

Politicians: Jean-Baptiste Billot - Godefroy Cavaignac - Félix Faure - Jules Méline

Journalists and intellectuals: Maurice Barrès - Paul Bourget - Ferdinand Brunetière - Édouard Drumont - Charles Maurras - Henri Rochefort - Léon Daudet - Paul Valéry - Jules Verne

Judges and Lawyers: Jules Quesnay de Beaurepaire

Others: Edgar Degas - Auguste Rodin - Paul Cézanne - Pierre-Auguste Renoir - Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec - Léon Dehon (former abbot proposed for beatification)

• Dreyfusards including dreyfusists and dreyfusiens :

Officers: Ferdinand Forzinetti - Georges Picquart - Antoine Louis Targe

Politicians: Georges Clemenceau - Jean Jaurès - Émile Loubet - Francis de Pressensé (Director of L'Aurore where “J'accuse…!” was printed) - Joseph Reinach - Auguste Scheurer-Kestner - Ludovic Trarieux - Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau

Journalists and intellectuals: Victor Basch - Léon Blum - Émile Duclaux - Anatole France - Lucien Herr - Bernard Lazare - Octave Mirbeau - Gabriel Monod - Charles Péguy - Caroline Rémy (known as Séverine) - Émile Zola (author of “J'accuse…!”) - André Spire (writer)

Judges and Lawyers: Fernand Labori - Edgar Demange - Henry Mornard - Alexis Ballot-Beaupré - Alphonse Bard - Manuel Achille Baudouin - Louis Loew - Jean-Pierre Manau - Clément Moras - Henri Guernut

Others: Raoul Allier (protestant pastor)- Zadoc Kahn (rabbi and close friend of the family)

Events

• Crises of the Third Republic ( 1870 - 1940 ):

Commune of Paris (1871) - Scandal of décorations ( 1887 ) – The Schnaebele Affair (1887) - Boulangisme ( 1886 - 1889 ) – The Panama Scandal ( 1892 ) - Fort Chabrol ( 1899 ) - The Fiches Affair ( 1904 ) – The Thalamas Affair ( 1908 ) - The Liabeuf Affair, the “Dreyfus Affair for the Workers” ( 1910 ) – First World War (1914-1918) - The Stavisky Affair ( 1933 ) – The Mortara Affair – ( 1934 ) - Second World War ( 1939 )

Events concerning the Dreyfus Affair

• 13 July 1906 : Homage of the Senate to A. Scheurer-Kestner
• 11 February 1908 : The Senate inaugurated a monument to Scheurer-Kestner
• 8 July 1994: The creation at the Festival d'Avignon of a show called "Dreyfus, the Affair".

Movements and Politics

• Journals and organisations : French Action, La Libre Parole , French League of Patriotism, French League of the rights of man ( 1898 )
• Anti-Semitism → French Anti-Semites: Édouard Drumont, Jules Guérin
• Political: French nationalism, Radical Restoration

External links

On the other Wikimedia projects

• Dreyfus on Wikimedia Commons
• Dreyfus on Wikisource
• Template:En icon Template:Fr iconText of J'accuse!
• Dreyfus Affair, on Wikiquote
• Template:En icon Template:Fr icon1906 : Dreyfus site of the French Ministry of Culture
• Dreyfus Collection of the Museum of Jewish Art and History
• Template:Fr icon Dreyfus Site of the National Assembly
• Colloque Symposium organised by the Supreme Court on 19 July 2006, on the centenary of the rehabilitation of Alfred Dreyfus
• The blog of the Dreyfus Affair International Historical Society

See also

• J'accuse
• Antisemitism
• Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy
• History of Jews in Alsace

Extracts from the Jewish Encyclopedia

• Trial and conviction of Alfred Dreyfus
• Picquart's Investigations of the Dreyfus Affair
• Others look into the Dreyfus Affair
• The public scandal of the Dreyfus Affair
• Resolution of the Dreyfus Affair

Other Links

• Jewish Library: Alfred Dreyfus and "The Affair"
• America's Dreyfus Affair, by David Martin
• Greatest Newspaper Article of all Time (Journalistic retrospective of Zola's "J'accuse!")
• JewishEncyclopedia.com – Andre Cremieu-Foa
• Temporal and Eternal by Charles Péguy, translated by Alexander Dru
• Anya Rous The Rising Celebrity and Modern Politics—The Dreyfus Affair
• Leslie Derfler, The Dreyfus Affair. A Tragedy of Errors?
• Nicholas Halasz, Captain Dreyfus
• Dreyfus Rehabilitated
• Dreyfus Society for Human Rights
• George R. Whyte and The Dreyfus Affair
• Ephemera and Original Art Documenting the Dreyfus Affair