Dreyfus Affair Research Paper free essay sample

The Dreyfus Affair was a political scandal, which polarized French society on a number of levels. The conviction of Jewish Artillery officer, Alfred Dreyfus raised many questions regarding the power of the French War Office, and called to attention the corruption within the French legal system. The Affair divided France on several levels, demonstrating the differing political methods of rural and urban France, as well as inspiring debate between Secularists and the Church, as well as the Left and Right wings. The Affair spurred an â€Å"emergence of anti-Semitic nationalist politics† (Fitch 57) and drove the formulation of a French Radical Right. This new divided and factional France, the disassociation between urban and rural society demonstrated by the Affair, as well the rampant anti-Semitism ignited by the trial established that the French were all too willing to turn on one another, and demonstrated that there was no real French unity, no real â€Å"French Nationalism. † Alfred Dreyfus was born October 9th in Mulhouse, France. He later moved to Alsace Lorrain, where he spent most of his childhood under the inattentive watch of his wealthy father. His family was forced to move to Paris when Germany Annexed the Alsace Lorrain Province in 1871. In 1877 Dreyfus entered the Ecole Polytechnique Military Academy at the age of eighteen; graduating three years later in 1880, he immediately joined the military, ultimately achieving the rank of captain in 1889, and was made assistant director to the polytechnical school. He was eventually admitted to the superior war college, where he graduated 9th in his class, eventually becoming a trainee at the army headquarters (Sinclair). A short while after his admittance to the army headquarters, Alfred Dreyfus was arrested on a claim of treachery drawn from his alleged writing of Bordereau: a document found in a wastebasket within the Statistical Section of the German embassy; the section concerned with counterintelligence. The document outlined the intentions of an army officer, believed to be Alfred Dreyfus, but later proved to be major the Count Ferdinand Walsin-Esterhazy, to sell military secrets to the Germans. It was around this time that Lieutenant Colonel du Paty de Clam, who was sure of Dreyfus’ guilt, even after being told otherwise by handwriting experts, was assigned chief investigator of the case. De Clam was ordered by his superiors to quickly conclude the matter, resulting in military pressure on the handwriting experts to produce results favorable to the Minister of War: the prosecuting side. De Clam’s conquest was joined by a number other generals due to religious affiliation, and their subsequent anti-Semitic sentiments, or their paranoia of national security. On October 15th, de Clam had Dreyfus write a dictation, which, unbeknownst to Dreyfus, was to be used as evidence against him. Satisfied with what he believed to be incriminating evidence, de Clam arrested Dreyfus on the spot, subtly offering him the alternative of suicide (Alfred Dreyfus Biography). Dreyfus was handed a guilty verdict after a corrupt trial of unreliable witnesses on the side of the prosecution. The defense was offered no testimony, no cross-examination, and faced a jury of minor officers trained to believe that the word of the Minister of War was absolute. The trial primarily consisted of slandering Dreyfus, painting him as the â€Å"dirty Jew† stereotype of the time (Mattar 144). The â€Å"Dirty Jew† stereotype evolved from anti-Semitic sentiments developed during the Middle Ages, where the newfound power of Christianity forced Jews to decide between conversion or death. The stereotype reached a high-point during the crusades, where the Jews were attacked, their synagogues burned, and the general populace was forced to flee. From their immigration into other nations developed the idea that they were scavengers, migrants, similar to rats. The Jews were looked down upon as unclean, as they were not Christian, and therefore not good, not â€Å"clean. † Dreyfus was sentenced to life in prison on the Devil’s Island penal colony in the Caribbean, coming as a surprise to both Dreyfus and his lawyer, as they believed he would be acquitted due to lack of evidence. Within the small circle interested in the trial, aristocrats and the urban populace, it was believed this punishment was far too harsh: â€Å"Had a traitor opened the border to the enemy and driven the German emperor straight to Notre-Dame† (Zola). On July 1st, 1895, Major Picquart became the head of the French Statistical Section. Picquart’s interest in the case lead to his discovery of forged case documents, planted by the former Statistical Section’s head. He presented this evidence to the Minister of War, but was ignored, concluding no matter the evidence presented proving Dreyfus’ innocence, no effort would be made to revise his case and no offer would be made for a retrial. The War Office wished to avoid a retrial, believing that acknowledging the innocence of Dreyfus would cause their own collapse under public contempt. Seeing the Major as a threat to this, Picquart was sent on a number of assignments, more often than not dangerous, in order to silence his pleas to retrial the innocent Dreyfus (Sinclair). It was around this time that a telegram sent by a foreign power was intercepted by the Lieutenant Colonel, proving Esterhazy’s guilt and, subsequently, Dreyfus’ innocence. Many came to the defense of Esterhazy, but it was clear that de Clam was at the heart of it, â€Å"with his trademark fruits of his fertile imagination† (Zola). Given a retrial after the surfacing of the new evidence, Dreyfus was again found guilty, his sentenced reduced to 10 years due to â€Å"extenuating circumstances. † This unjust punishment was met with the apathy of the people, primarily due to disassociation with political France or anti-Semitic beliefs. The War Office ultimately decided on the court-martialing of Esterhazy in order to establish his innocence and simultaneously confirm Dreyfus’. Esterhazy was unanimously acquitted after only two days, and the cause of the Dreyfusards was delivered a severe blow. A change of government in June 1898 appointed Godefroy Cavaignac, a staunch anti-revisionist, as the Minister of War. Cavaignac demanded a thorough investigation of the secret Dreyfus file, finding three documents supposedly indicative of both Dreyfus and Esterhazy’s guilt. Unfortunately for Cavaignac, one of the documents was found to be a forgery, and on August 30th, colonel Henry, the perpetrator of the forgery, was arrested. August 31st, Henry committed suicide, Esterhazy fled to Belgium, and a number of Generals involved in the cover-up resigned. Revision of the trial was inevitable, but in the months leading up to the trial, the army continued to resist, clinging to the belief that the truth would only cause internal collapse. Dreyfus is pardoned on September 19th, but is not restored his full position and his former honor until 1906. The Dreyfus trial had a number of resounding effects in the following years of the French political world. The Affair exposed corruption within both the military and the Church, calling attention to the flaws in the military hierarchy when dealing with internal Affairs. The jury, composed of minor military officers, had been taught obedience to the Ministry of War throughout their careers, eliminating the fairness and unbiased they were supposed to carry into a trial. The Affair also demonstrated the Church’s corrupt influence in the political world, as it was apparent Dreyfus’ religion played a large role on his persecution and conviction. This lead to the prompt passing of a secularist bill in 1905, separating Church and state. The Affair ultimately lead to a divided France- split due to religion, political affiliation, and wealth (Fitch 59). Throughout the trial, there existed the idea of anti-Semitism, ignited by the Affair itself. Despite his clear innocence, it was still maintained that Dreyfus was inherently guilty, dictated by the â€Å"Dirty Jew† stereotype of the time. Dreyfus was nothing more than a scapegoat, a cumulative expression of the anti-Semitic sentiments rampant at the time: â€Å"He [Dreyfus] is the victim of the lurid imagination of major du Paty de Clam, the religious circles surrounding him [the Church], and the ‘dirty Jew’ obsession† (Zola). This obvious societal division demonstrated the clear lack of unity among the French people. Despite identifying as French on a large scale, they first identified themselves as followers of the Church, as Christians, as anti-Semites. The French were so willing to turn on a clearly innocent man and the other half of the populace who supported him, because of religious stereotypes. This demonstrated that there was no real factor unifying the entirety of France, not nearly as much as there were factional loyalties, which made up a divided nation. During the Affair and in the period following it, France existed as a country, but not a nation. France existed as a place on the map, but there was no true â€Å"French† populace. The loyalties of the peoples were instead to their respective factions, created during the Affair. There were the Dreyfusards and the anti-Dreyfusards during the Affair, and immediately following it were the Left and Right wings, as well as the Church and the secularists. The Dreyfusards consisted of prominent liberals, Republicans, Socialists, anti-clerics, and aristocrats. On the opposing side: the anti-Dreyfusards were Royalists, anti-Semites, militarists, and those affiliated with the Church. The Affair was an amazing feat of unity as opposing groups were able to come together over similar opinions: the alliance between the Republicans and Socialists. Although the trial did promote unity, it was promoted on a factional level and small-scale. The Dreyfusards identified as Dreyfusards before they identified as French; on the opposing side, the anti-Dreyfusards too identified first as anti-Dreyfusards, and second as French. This factional dedication exhibited by those interested and involved in the trial demonstrated that there was no single factor unifying the general populace, instead there were unifying factors drawing small groups of people together, creating a plethora of factions which constituted France, and demonstrated that there was no French nationalism. There was instead factional nationalism: Dreyfusard nationalism or Secularist nationalism, but no French nationalism, no French nation. Despite its importance, a large majority of France, especially those who lived in rural areas, remained apathetic toward the trial. The disinterest was not a matter of intelligence, but a matter of relevance: â€Å"significant numbers of peasants remained indifferent to the Affair, not because they were unable to understand its complexities, but because it failed to strike a relevant chord in villages† (Fitch 56). This general disinterest in the countryside lead to the development of a differing political method than in urban France, where politics were based on leagues, mass movements, and mass culture. New rural politics were less driven by the â€Å"anonymous crowd† political method, which had preceded it, as less people in the countryside cared or were politically involved. The method became based on isolated political demonstrations, arguably granting greater power to the individual. The general rural populace remained uninterested in the larger ideas revealed during the Affair, viewing it only as a source of epithets and jokes to use in everyday life, contrasting greatly to the urban response to the trial where the majority of the populace was involved (Fitch 52). This disassociation between urban France and the majority of the population, who lived in rural France as peasants, goes to show the lack of a unifying factor for the majority of the people. This once again demonstrates a lack of â€Å"French† nationalism through a lack of French unity, further exemplified by the Affair. Many French historians believe that the Dreyfus Affair signified the birth French nationalism, but that was not the case. The Affair demonstrated that France was too factional, the classes too disassociated with one another for there to be any real unity across the country. The Affair teaches that on smaller scales, nationalism causes conflict. It is the overzealous pride in ones own belief, which can cause rational conflicts to spiral out of control. The Affair proposes that small-scale nationalism is the first step toward internal conflict and that nation-wide common unity is the sole cure to domestic strife.