The Dreyfus Affair: A Nation Divided

The arrest of Captain Alfred Dreyfus in October 1894 for allegedly passing military secrets to Germany initially seemed routine. A Jewish officer from Alsace made a convenient scapegoat for military failures. The evidence was thin—a handwriting match to an incriminating document found in the German embassy's wastepaper basket. But in the fevered atmosphere of revanchism and anti-Semitism, thin evidence sufficed.

Dreyfus's degradation ceremony on January 5, 1895, provided public spectacle. In the École Militaire's courtyard, his sword was broken, his insignia torn off, while he cried, "I am innocent! Long live France!" The crowd howled "Death to the Jew!" The symbolism was perfect: the Republic purging itself of internal enemies. Dreyfus departed for Devil's Island, case closed.

But secrets have a way of surfacing. Lieutenant Colonel Georges Picquart, new head of military intelligence, discovered evidence implicating Major Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy as the real traitor. His superiors ordered him to remain silent. When he persisted, they shipped him to Tunisia. The conspiracy to protect the guilty and condemn the innocent revealed the military's moral rot.

The Affair split France into Dreyfusards and anti-Dreyfusards, creating divisions transcending traditional politics. Families broke apart over dinner arguments. Salons banned discussion to preserve social harmony. The divide revealed fundamental conflicts: republican values versus military honor, religious tradition versus secular justice, cosmopolitan France versus nationalist France.

Women played crucial but often unrecognized roles. Lucie Dreyfus, maintaining her husband's innocence against overwhelming pressure, became a symbol of wifely devotion. The journalist Séverine used her platform to attack injustice. The Russian-born Marguerite de Loynes hosted an influential anti-Dreyfusard salon where plots were hatched. The Affair politicized women excluded from formal politics.

The press transformed the scandal into daily drama. Each revelation sold papers, each accusation sparked counter-accusations. La Libre Parole's anti-Semitic cartoons competed with L'Aurore's investigations. The new mass media didn't just report events—it created them, teaching France that scandal sold better than news.