L’Affair Dreyfus
continues to reverberate long after the personalities
involved in the episode have died . Dreyfus was born in
Mulihouse, Alsace, on October 19th 1859 . This area came
under German control following the Franco-Prussian war of I
870-71. Dreyfus senior, as an act of French patriotism,
moved the family to Paris and Alfred was educated at the
Ecole Polytechnique. He later joined the army as an engineer
with the rank of lieutenant. He overcame anti-Jewish
sentiment to gain promotion to captain and subsequently
elevation to the general staff. What happened next has been
well stated in books, articles, plays and films. Suffice it
to say that Dreyfus was the victim of a plot that would
blame him for the activities of others. As Dreyfus was a
Jew, he was also an outsider and the tale against him would
therefore be readily believed. The plot succeeded and
Dreyfus was found guilty of treason. The public clamour
against him, promoted by the antisemitic press, made any
other verdict most unlikely. He was incarcerated on Devil’s
Island in South America for many years. At the end of the
19th century French society was split over the validity of
the original verdict - until Emile Zola, the famous
novelist, published what is probably the most famous letter
to a newspaper ever written. His letter, entitled ‘J’Accuse’,
printed in the newspaper L ‘Aurore, created an uproar. Zola
was himself accused of impeaching the military authorities
and sentenced to imprisonment. Instead he fled to South
Norwood, a suburb of London. The authorities reviewed the
case against Dreyfus and reduced his original sentence of
life imprisonment to ten years. This didn’t satisfy the
liberal President of France, Emile Loubert, who, outraged, a
week later granted Dreyfus a pardon. It was, however,
another seven years before Captain Dreyfus was finally
acquitted by the court of appeal. In 1906 Dreyfus was
reinstated in the army with the rank of major. A year later
he resigned. However, on the outbreak of the First World War
in August 1914 he rejoined the army on active duty. In 1916
he was promoted to lieutenant-colonel and awarded the Legion
of Honour.
The Dreyfus Affair had
the most dramatic effect on French society and led directly
to the separation of Church and State. The effects of the
affair were not confined to France. Theodore Herzl, one of
many moved by what had happened to Dreyfus because he was a
Jew, advanced the cause of a need for a Jewish homeland. It
was the beginning of political Zionism. It had cost the
Dreyfus family a million francs to clear Alfred’s name. He
died in Paris on July 12th 1935. In 1995, 101 years later,
the French Army authorities finally admitted they had been
wrong.
Stamp: France,
12-07-06
Acknowledgement: The Jewish Contribution to the 20th
Century, by Alan Symons
