III.

Social and Political Significance

In the volatile France of the 1890s, the Dreyfus case provided the spark for an inevitable political and social flare-up. Extremists of the right and left used the affair to illustrate their disillusionment with the prevailing order. When Dreyfus was found guilty at his first court-martial, a storm of anti-Jewish propaganda was unleashed by the powerful anti-Semitic forces that existed at the time, particularly in the French army. Liberal French people, in view of Dreyfus's apparent guilt, initially remained silent. They did not remain silent, however, after the discovery of the evidence against Esterhazy, the dismissal of his accuser Picquart, and the subsequent acquittal of Esterhazy. These apparent injustices provoked widespread protests, and the Dreyfus case soon became the most important public issue in France. Right-wing political elements, the army, and the Roman Catholic Church upheld the verdict of the court-martial. Liberals and many intellectuals, led by the novelist Anatole France and the poet and essayist Charles Péguy, denounced them.

The novelist Émile Zola wrote an impassioned letter, printed in the Paris newspaper L'Aurore in January 1898, under the heading J'accuse (“I accuse”). Zola's courageous denunciation of both military and civil authorities, whom he accused of lying, resulted in his being tried for libel and sentenced to a fine and a year in prison. Zola fled to England, however, and during his brief, self-imposed exile there, his trial and his widely publicized polemic made the Dreyfus case a subject of worldwide concern.

In France, public demand for a retrial of Dreyfus was omnipresent and vociferous. The verdict of the second court-martial, again pronouncing Dreyfus guilty, proved so unpopular that a liberal-oriented government was voted into power in the national elections of 1899. After 1900 the power and prestige of the army declined in France, and anticlerical legislation was introduced in the assembly, leading in 1905 to the separation of church and state.