What was the result of the Dreyfus affair?

Answer 1

The Dreyfus Affair started out as a Dreyfus Case. In 1894, a group of French officers accused Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish captain on the French general staff, of selling military secrets to Germany. Dreyfus was then tried by court-martial, convicted, stripped of his rank, and deported for life to Devil's Island (an appalling prison in the Atlantic Ocean). When Colonel Georges Picquart, the new head of the Intelligence Division, questioned the verdict in 1896, searches revealed that the trial documents were forgeries.

Yet, the War Department denied Dreyfus a new trial, and this "case" became an "affair". This affair polarized France. Republicans, socialists, and liberals backed Dreyfus. These supporters were Dreyfusards and stood for progress and justice against prejudice. Among these Dreyfusards, was the famous writer Emile Zola. Zola blasted the French establishment in a controversial newspaper essay "J'accuse!" that accused the government, the courts, and the military of faking documents, covering up treason, and ignoring issues of justice. The anti-Dreyfusards, on the other hand, included monarchists, militarists, some clergy, and other socialists who thought of the affair as a distraction from more significant economic issues. A Catholic newspaper declared that the question was not whether Dreyfus was guilty or not, but whether Jews and unbelievers were not the "secret masters of France".

After six years of such controversy, Dreyfus was freed on an executive order in 1899. In 1906, the supreme court cleared him of all guilt, restoring his position in the army as a major and inducting him into the Legion of Honor. One of the most significant consequences of this affair was the separation of church and state in France. Republicans thought that the church and the army were hostile to the Republic, so laws were passed between 1901 and 1905 that banned religious orders in France that were not authorized by the state, forbade clerics to teach in schools, and dissolved the union of the Catholic Church and the state.

The Dreyfus Affair accomplished four things:

* Swung public opinion towards the government;

* Discredited anti-Semitism in France;

* Helped the government replace monarchist military officers with loyal republicans; and

* Brought about a law to weaken the clergy.

Answer 2

radical republicans gained control, and the church and state were separated