The Dreyfus Affair

Author Émile Zola’s famous defence of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, “J’accuse …” (“I accuse …”), is published in L’Aurore on January 13 1898. The open letter to French President Félix Faure accuses the government of antiSemitism and giving in to military pressure to perpetuate a cover-up in the Dreyfus treason case. The French Jewish artillery officer was convicted in a secret court martial on January 5 1895 for allegedly selling military secrets to the Germans in December 1894, publicly stripped of his rank and sentenced to life in prison on Devil’s Island, French Guiana. One of the tensest political dramas in modern French history has wide echoes across Europe and splits France into two camps. In August 1898 an important document implicating Dreyfus is found to be a forgery, to which Major Hubert-Joseph Henry of the intelligence section confesses. In response to continued disorder and demonstrations, a cabinet is set up in June 1899 hoping to settle the case. After a new court martial finds Dreyfus guilty in September 1899, (new) President Émile Loubet pardons him. On July 12 1906, Dreyfus is exonerated by a military commission. He is readmitted into the army on the 13th, promoted to the rank of major and a week later made Knight of the Legion of Honour