The Dreyfus Affair

The Dreyfus case divided the French embassy and public. It was probably quite as hard-hitting as it was down to the fact that it followed other scandals such as the Wilson case and the Boulanger affair.
Alfred Dreyfus was the captain of French army, and descended from a Jewish family. In 1894 papers discovered in a wastebasket suggested that he was passing on secret information to the German Government.

Dreyfus was believed to commit treason, probably because he was a Jew and also because he had access to the information that was passed on to the German government. The French army then also stated that Dreyfus’ handwriting was identical to that on the papers. Although he constantly pleaded innocence, he was found guilty of treason and was shipped off to Devil’s Island and stripped of his rank.

Two years on, in 1896 an officer reopened the case, only to find that the evidence was wrong and the real culprit was Esterhazy. However, this was new information went to waste as Esterhazy was acquitted on his second day of trial.

Emile Zola, a journalist covered the army’s cover up in “J’accuse” but was found guilty of of libel and sentenced to prison. The public’s involvement however by this point had become more passionate, and the political right (the church) declared the Dreyfus case to be a conspiracy of the Jews.
A while later, another officer discovered that additional documents had been added to the Dreyfus file and found that Hubert Henry, the lieutenant had forged the documentations.

In September 1899, Dreyfus was pardoned by the president of France, and was allowed to re-enter Paris, but not until 1906- 12 years after the pardon. The case had forced the republicans, radicals and socialites to work together and in 1905, the Radical party succeeded in passing legislation separating church and state.