What Was At Stake In The Dreyfus Affair? Who Were The Winners And Losers?
...these questions one must differentiate between the Dreyfus case; the arrest, prosecution and sentence of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, and the subsequent Affair which grew out of the case. In answering the questions posed, one will discuss the effects of both the case and the resulting affair on Dreyfus and those immediately involved with the case. One will also discuss the effects of the Dreyfus case and the Affair on French society at the time which split into two opposing factions, the Dreyfusards and the anti-Dreyfusards. The case was simple: in December 1894 Dreyfus, a Jewish officer serving in the French artillery, was found guilty of spying for the Germans and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil’s Island, a French penal colony in French Guiana. The Affair came about when, over the next few years, discovery of new evidence led a number of the French people to realise that a serious miscarriage of justice had taken place.
Dreyfus’ family were originally from Alsace where they owned a thriving textile manufacture. The Treaty of Frankfurt of 10 May 1871 gave residents in the German-annexed territories of Alsace and Lorraine the option to keep their French nationality, if they decided and left the region before 30 September 1872. The Franco-Prussian War and the annexation of his native province thus determined Alfred's choice of career-he swore that he would devote all of his strength and intelligence to serving his country against the nation that had wounded the Alsatians to the quick . French Jews had been integrated into the nation by law since the French revolution of 1789 and Napoleon’s first empire. As a result it was possible for French Jews to hold high offices in the army and government, unlike their other European counterparts. This may help to account for the decision of some members of the Dreyfus family to remain in France and leave their family...
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