The Dreyfus affair (, ) was a political scandal that divided the Third French Republic from 1894 until its resolution in 1906. has come to symbolise modern injustice in the Francophone world; it remains one of the most notable examples of a complex miscarriage of justice and antisemitism. The role played by the press and public opinion proved to be influential in the conflict.
The scandal began in December 1894 when Captain Alfred Dreyfus was convicted of treason. Dreyfus was a 35-year-old Alsatian French artillery officer of Jewish descent. He was baselessly convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for communicating French military secrets to the German Embassy in Paris. He was sent overseas to the penal colony on Devil's Island in French Guiana, where he spent nearly five years imprisoned in very harsh conditions.
In 1896, evidence came to light—primarily through an investigation made by Lieutenant Colonel Georges Picquart, head of counter-espionage—which identified the real culprit as a French Army Major named Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy. When high-ranking military officials suppressed the new evidence, a military court unanimously acquitted Esterhazy after a trial lasting only two days. The Army laid additional charges against Dreyfus, based on forged documents. Subsequently, writer Émile Zola's open letter in the newspaper stoked a growing movement of political support for Dreyfus, putting pressure on the government to reopen the case.
In 1899, Dreyfus was returned 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 Sarah Bernhardt, Anatole France, Charles Péguy, Henri Poincaré and Georges Clemenceau) and those who condemned him (the anti-Dreyfusards, such as Édouard Drumont, the director and publisher of the antisemitic newspaper ). The new trial resulted in another conviction and a 10-year sentence, but Dreyfus was pardoned and released. In 1906, Dreyfus was exonerated. After being 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. He died in 1935.
The affair from 1894 to 1906 divided France into pro-republican, anticlerical Dreyfusards and pro-Army, mostly Catholic "anti-Dreyfusards". It embittered French politics and encouraged radicalisation.
Summary
At the end of 1894, French Army Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a graduate of the École Polytechnique and a Jew of Alsatian origin, was accused of handing secret documents to the Imperial German military. After a closed trial, he was found guilty of treason and sentenced to life imprisonment. He was deported to Devil's Island in French Guiana. At that time, the opinion of the French political class was unanimously unfavourable towards Dreyfus.
The Dreyfus family, particularly his brother Mathieu, remained convinced of his innocence and worked with journalist Bernard Lazare to prove it. In March 1896, Colonel Georges Picquart, head of counter-espionage, found evidence that the real traitor was Major Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy. The General Staff refused to reconsider its judgment and instead transferred Picquart to a position in North Africa.
In July 1897, Dreyfus's family contacted the President of the Senate Auguste Scheurer-Kestner to draw attention to the weakness of the evidence against Dreyfus. Scheurer-Kestner reported three months later that he was convinced Dreyfus was innocent, and persuaded Georges Clemenceau, a newspaper reporter and former member of the Chamber of Deputies, of the same. In the same month, Mathieu Dreyfus complained about Esterhazy to the Ministry of War. In January 1898 two events raised the case to national prominence: Esterhazy was acquitted of treason charges (subsequently shaving his moustache and fleeing France), and Émile Zola published his J'accuse...!, a Dreyfusard declaration that rallied many intellectuals to Dreyfus's cause. France became increasingly divided over the case, and the issue continued to be hotly debated until the end of the century. Antisemitic riots erupted in more than twenty French cities, and several deaths resulted in Algiers from rioting.