The Dreyfus Affair - Analysing Antisemitism

1894, Paris. Captain Alfred Dreyfus of the French Army is accused of handing top-secret military documents to members of the Imperial German military. An investigation by the French army had found damning evidence against Dreyfus, the worst being a letter to the German military attache in Paris penned in Dreyfus' own handwriting. But why would Dreyfus commit such a crime? He was a wealthy man from a prominent family, with no need for the alleged payoffs from the German Empire. He reportedly loved France and enjoyed serving his nation in the army. Dreyfus himself refused to confess, adamant he had done nothing wrong. Although France wasn't convinced, they believed Dreyfus was a liar. But why?

                        Alfred Dreyfus.

Well, Dreyfus was a Jew. 

Whilst Dreyfus sat in jail awaiting his trial, France's right-wing newspapers got a hold of the story and used it as a catalyst for their already popular anti-semitism. One of France's biggest talking points in the 1890s was the Jewish people; particularly the idea that they couldn't be trusted to be in the army - or in any capacity, really. The idea that the Jewish people weren't really loyal to any nation, only to themselves, and Dreyfus was the perfect subject for the media to seize and use as an example for their rhetoric. When the trial eventually came, the trial was closed to the public - the French government wanted the affair to be kept on the low down, as some thought that this trial could be the spark that incited war with the German Empire. A lot of what happened during the Dreyfus trial has only very recently been declassified by the French government. After the trial was held closed from the public eye, Dreyfus was charged with treason and sentenced to life imprisonment on the French penal colony of Devil's Island, in modern French Guinea. But whilst Dreyfus was held on Devil's Island, his family started their own investigation, launching a public campaign to help prove Alfred's innocence that made them incredibly unpopular with the French people and government alike. George Picquardt, who was a Colonel in the French army's intelligence division launched an investigation and quickly gathered evidence that convinced him not only of Dreyfus' innocence but of the guilt of a different officer, Major Charles Esterhazy. Colonel Piquardt submitted his findings to his superiors in the intelligence division - and was very quickly transferred to service in Tunisia, but not before giving his report to Dreyfus' family. 

The Dreyfus Family, along with their lawyers, initiated a battle to bring Major Esterhazy to trial and confirm the innocence of Alfred. A former lover of Esterhazy's came forward with letters showing that he hated the French army and had massive debts, which gave him more than enough motive, much more than was ever shown for Dreyfus. As this new information came to be public knowledge, France quickly split between those who supported Dreyfus (and the obvious truth,) and those who were on Esterhazy's side (and were largely anti-Semitic.) Now, under great pressure from the French people, the army court-martialed Esterhazy, giving him a military tribunal and receiving much press attention, but he was acquitted of any wrongdoing. In jubilation, the anti-Dreyfus camp celebrated by initiating a huge wave of anti-Semitic riots across the country, whilst a clearly spooked Esterhazy received a discharge from the army and fled to England. Now, Émile Zola!

Émile Zola was a French novelist at the time, and not a Jew (I swear that's relevant, although it would be funny if I started pointing out if each person in this article is or isn't a Jew.) He wrote many classics, like L'Assommoir, which I am mentioning because it's the only book of his I've read - it was okay, I guess, not my cup of tea. Anyways, Zola was so incensed by the injustice and anti-Semitism of his time that he wrote an extremely famous letter in the newspaper titled, "J'accuse...!" which is admittedly a very cool title for an open letter. In the letter, he said that this whole thing is a conspiracy, Dreyfus is innocent, and that the French army is coving it up. Zola named names, and dared the army to sue him if he was wrong - which he was convinced they couldn't do, he was convinced he was correct. The letter had a huge effect across Europe and even across the Atlantic, which was exactly what Zola intended, he knew the army couldn't just sweep the Dreyfus Affair (as it became known) under the rug. If the army didn't sue Zola, he knew they'd look guilty - but a trial would mean more lawyers and more investigators sniffing around the army's investigation. Plot twist - Zola was charged with libel and his reputation was destroyed by the right-wing media. Who's surprised? In The Origins of Totalitarianism, by Hannah Arendt, it is said that the aftereffects of the scandal were dramatic and devastating, the book claims that:

The cry "Death to the Jews" swept the country [...] antisemitic riots broke out and were invariably traced to one source. Popular indignation broke out everywhere on the same day at precisely the same hour. Under the leadership of Guerin, the mob took on a military complexion. Antisemitic shock troops appeared on the streets [...] the complicity of the police was everywhere patent.

Guerin, there, is Jules Guerin (ironically pronounced jew-lee.) Geurin was a French journalist, founder of a very subtly named organisation called La Ligue Antisemetique, and editor of the also very subtle newspaper named L'Antijuif. Apart from being a master of subtlety, he was a fascist, although nobody quite knew that yet because Hitler was only five years old (and in my opinion, still very killable.) Although looking back with the knowledge we have now, it becomes very quickly apparent that the anti-Dreyfus gang were early proto-fascists: they hated communists, they were very conservative, and they feasted on mobilised antisemitism. 

In contrast, a lot of liberals at the time has different reactions to the Dreyfus affair. A lot of liberals were absolutely outraged at what they perceived to be a gross miscarriage of justice and rallied around Dreyfus' cause out of a genuine and pure sense of belief in the legal system. But initially, a lot of leftists were sceptical, they asked if the justice system was really a tool for the ruling class to control the proletariat?! Pas le Merde, Sherlock. Leftists knew that the justice system wouldn't help Dreyfus because it was systematically and institutionally pitted against the Jewish struggle. What was very apparent was that everyone in France at the time was using the topic of Jews, Judaism, and anti-Semitism to think about their own lives and not the lives of actual Jews in France. 

Now, as the heat built in France, more and more members of the conspiracy started to crack as the plan started to fall apart. Esterhazy confessed to writing the original letter to the Germans and had secretly been in touch with the Dreyfus Affair's investigation director the whole time. In addition, one of Colonel Piquardt's subordinates confessed to sabotaging the investigation at the request of Piquardt's supervisors. In fact, the conspiracy seemed to be unveiling names all the way up to the cabinet via the Minister for War. So, in 1899, Dreyfus was hauled back to France and another trial was set up - with even more of media sensation surrounding it. Dreyfus' lawyer was shot in the street! After all this, Dreyfus was finally acquitted in what is one of history's most obvious not-guilty verdicts. 

I'm kidding, he was found guilty again. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison for treason, before being suddenly pardoned by the President of France - declaring that there would be total amnesty for everyone involved in the conspiracy. That's right, Esterhazy isn't even going to prison for the crime he admitted to, and Dreyfus was sent to jail for almost a decade for. This was clearly France's final attempt to just make it all go away! and historians now almost unanimously agree that Dreyfus was - from the start - a completely innocent man. But still, it went on!

In 1906 France's Court of Appeal officially acquitted Dreyfus - because why should you accept a pardon when they genuinely haven't done anything. But turns out that the Court of Appeal didn't actually have the authority to do that, they were meant to order a third trial so technically Dreyfus was never acquitted and was still guilty. It just never ended. In 1931 (after a whole world war fought against anti-Semitism) a play about the Dreyfus affair had to be shut down because the audience wouldn't stop fighting. 

So what does the Dreyfus Affair teach us? Well, anti-Semitism is never about picking on an individual Jewish person, it's about the whole of society waging war on itself. It set France on fire, literally and metaphorically, and the affair - in retrospect - was only an appetizer for the feast of anti-Semitism that Hitler brought to Europe a decade later. Anti-semitism is a disgusting disease. It's a bug, it's a festering, horrible Holocaust-denying, Jew-hating disgraceful scourge on the earth, and it is YOUR duty (as a non-Jew) to fight it. 

Do it, kill a fascist today. 

07/01/2022

by Frankie E.J. Robinson