What I Am Reading: "The Dreyfus Affair" by Piers Paul Read

Finally, I can stop saying “turn of the century” and go with “fin-de-siecle.” France’s great political and moral question of the first half of the Third Republic was L’affaire Dreyfus, whereby the nation’s culture lined up on two sides of the argument over whether a Jewish artillery officer, convicted as a spy in 1894 and sent to Devil’s Island, was wrongfully convicted.

This subject has been touched upon in several other books I’ve read, from Leon Daudet’s involvement as a right-wing polemicist in Gilded Youth to providing Leon Blum’s political awakening as a left-wing French Jew. I have never read a book directly about it until now, though there are many. Piers Paul Read, a British writer, is by no means sympathetic to the anti-Dreyfusards, or the right wing in general. He does, however, very consciously adopt a tone of correction as he tries to cut through some of the passions of the affair; and he is unambiguously sympathetic to French Catholics, not in terms of their opinions on Dreyfus but in terms of their repression at the hands of the anti-clerical French left, which was both a symptom and a cause of the division of France into two opposing camps on cultural lines. They were more than just anti-modern reactionaries, he is saying; their opposition to Dreyfus was not legitimate, but their grievances were.

In the years before the scandal, the non-Catholic elements in French society, Jews but also Protestants and atheists, were on the upswing. The government of the new Third Republic was left-wing, despite the government’s conservative founding, and many political battles were fought over the country’s education system. Catholics were slowly pushed out of the education game and steadily drained from the civil service, both through discrimination and through merit hiring of previously under-represented groups.

The army was the last bastion of conservative Catholicism, but here too reformers were pushing. Higher-level military personnel came either from the meritocratic Ecole Polytechnique feeder schools, or from the old Jesuit military colleges where tradition and family lineage was upheld. The military was, obviously, an important institution, not least because everyone expected an eventual rematch with Germany over Alsace-Lorraine after the defeat of 1870. The right wing was concerned about the proliferation in the army, as in other social institutions, of “Prussians of the Interior,” Jews and Protestants. This came across in many of their publications in the heavily slanted and sensationalist media environment, including the ripped-from-the-modern-zeitgeist La Libre Parole, a newspaper dedicated to antisemitism and other bigotry entitled, of course, “Free Speech.”

It was in this context of culture war and military rivalry that information came to the military’s elite counter-espionage office, the Statistical Section, that someone was passing military secrets to the Germans. The documents, taken from the German embassy’s burn pile, indicated that the specific agent had access to a wide cross-section of military documentation. After fruitless analysis, they stumbled upon the possibility that it was artillery officer Captain Alfred Dreyfus, who had, as virtue of having been in the top twelve in the class of the Ecole de Guerre, a graduate-level military school, served as an intern on the General Staff and rotated through different high-level postings. Semi-formal handwriting analysis concluded that the handwriting on the documents in question was that of Dreyfus.

Dreyfus was summoned to headquarters and arrested in late 1894. Despite continued investigation finding no additional evidence (and confrontation failing to elicit a confession), his prosecution was not halted. Instead, because of various high-level political maneuvering by the Generals responsible for instigating it, the situation was to be dispensed with quickly, with a court martial by the end of the year. Essentially, the Generals responsible, including Auguste Mercier, Minister of War, moved too fast and would later become trapped by decisions that they had made in haste. Mercier was considered a pro-Republican officer and a modernizer, but as someone always under fire in the right-wing press, he couldn’t afford a scandal whereby he went slow and easy on a Jewish officer who was later found to be guilty.

Dreyfus’s court martial moves fast: a board of military officers without legal training convicted him largely based on their faith in their superior officers. The evidence was all scraped-together inference and circumstantial, assembled by the Statistical Section to look as damning as they could make it; but with nothing directly indicating Dreyfus’ guilt. Some of the dossier that the Statistical Section assembled was shown to the judges, but not the defense. Regardless, after his conviction, everyone thought that he was actually guilty, and the left and the Jewish community were among those celebrating this seemingly swift and effective operation of the French security apparatus. The law was changed so that, rather than an exile on the comparatively easy-going New Caledonia that had housed many of the Communards, Dreyfus could be sent to the harsh penal colony of Devil’s Island, in tropical French Guiana.

Here, for about four years, Dreyfus was kept on his own small island, living in a tiny hut, with no contact from his guards, occasionally receiving harsh and degrading treatment, and slowly going insane. Dreyfus himself is an interesting figure. The book later repeats subsequent social gossip of the Dreyfusards that, if possible, they would have chosen a hero in a different mold. Dreyfus was not grandiose; he was in fact not very charismatic at all. He was an aloof grind who had made few friends and built little network in the military, he spoke in a nasally monotone, he was stoic and uncomplaining and believed dogmatically in the ideals and virtues of Republican France that had allowed him to rise into the military elite (even as antisemitism kept him out of a permanent place in the halls of power before casting him down). Even after his sentencing he continued to exhort the generals who had scapegoated him to find the actual spy, for the good of France. Later in life he did not publicize his suffering, his martyrdom; he kept it all to himself and spoke little of it even to his family. The touching thing about him, though, is the devotion he inspired in his wife, who corresponded with him throughout his imprisonment. Their passionate letters, subject to censure by the military authorities, revealed a deep connection, though he had possessed at minimum a roving eye prior to his scandal.

Dreyfus was not a cause, at first. The original Dreyfusards were members of the family, such as Dreyfus’ industrialist brother Mathieu, or intellectuals that they directly recruited into their work to exonerate Alfred. These included Bernard Lazare, a Jewish journalist, and Joseph Reinach, a Radical Party MP, who started assembling written material on the case.

Meanwhile, in the halls of power, the Statistical Section had had a change in leadership in mid-1895. Command passed from Colonel Jean Sandherr, who had instigated the investigation and pursued the prosecution, to another Alsatian, Colonel Georges Picquart. Picquart, a fairly normal representative of the officer corps (pro-Republican and antisemitic) and the Alsatian French (jingoistic to reclaim their lost home territory for France and to dispel any suspicion of disloyalty), was in charge when the Statistical Section acquired a new note from their German Embassy source in July of 1895, with similar handwriting to the “Dreyfus” note, inventorying similar services. Picquart quickly pieced together the situation. He was undiplomatic about Dreyfus’ innocence, and did not finesse the situation to the military brass he reported to who had the power to correct their previous mistake. Injustice was chosen over disorder, and instead Picquart’s lieutenant in the Statistical Section, the obsequious and peasant-born Commandant (Major) Hubert Joseph Henry, set about forging new evidence to provide an artificial smoking gun in the case, creating various letters between German sources discussing Dreyfus by name and including fake outreach from the Kaiser himself, who of course would not have written directly to a confidential informant.

By late 1896, the Dreyfusards were pushing in the media the story of the hidden evidence that had been kept out of the hands of the defense in the court martial trial, and, after the note had been leaked, of the difference in the note’s handwriting from Dreyfus’ own. Picquart, who had continued to push this matter through internal channels, had been marginalized by being sent out on increasingly distant inspection tours, and was sidelined from the Statistical Section. As a kind of secret weapon of bureaucratic CYA, though, he had left his own information around, including in the hands of his friend attorney Louis Leblois, an upscale attorney.

The information, at this point, concerned the suspected identity of the actual spy, Commandant Marie-Charles-Ferdinand Walsin-Esterhazy (every time I read that last name I think of Le Carre’s Esterhazy in the upper ranks of The Circus, a minor character who is always re-introduced by his nationality and work, “the Hungarian pavement artist”). Esterhazy, in fact a descendent of Hungarian nobility, was a louche and dissolute officer who was embittered and frustrated by the absence of promotions and general appreciation to which he thought he was entitled. He gambled, he drank, he chased women, he was chronically short of cash. At a low point, he decided to try to get some by selling information to the German military attaché, Maximilian von Schwartzkoppen. Esterhazy actually didn’t have access to any kind of top secret or classified material; instead, in Read’s telling (and that of prior authors quoted), Ezterhazy was in fact a “good journalist,” who stayed current on military theory and proposals through his intellectual circle of retired officers, and matched this with gossip he gathered from others in the officer corps to assemble bits and pieces of what the French military was actually up to.

This information was given to Leblois by his old friend Picquart. Leblois was sworn to secrecy, but felt that the information was so important that he took into his confidence Auguste Scheurer-Kestner, the Senator-for-life who officially represented the lost Alsace-Lorraine in the legislature. Scheurer-Kestner and Leblois joined the Dreyfus family in their cause, though honor precluded them from using the secret evidence as ammunition. Instead, they argued in the halls of power, costing Scheurer-Kestner influence and respect, as Dreyfus was not yet a mainstream cause. They all caught a break late in 1897 when another source, someone who had lent Esterhazy money, spotted the handwriting on one of the propaganda posters that the Dreufysards had plastered all over Paris, and identified it as Esterhazy’s. This gave a relieved Leblois and Scherurer-Kestner parallel confirmation of their secret, and of course the Dreyfus faction took it up in the press. The statistical section linked up with Esterhazy directly after this, cranking out forgeries on his behalf. They were completely committed to fostering the narrative that they had themselves forged years before as a way to cut corners.

The establishment’s forgeries and lies worked for the first official re-hearing of the subject, in late 1897. The military dismissed the Esterhazy claims, and behind the scenes moved to court martial Esterhazy, so that they could exonerate him and bury the subject decisively, with no statements concerning Dreyfus that would be subject to libel hearings in civilian courts. The conspirators kept their game rolling, and fake evidence and testimony led to Esterhazy’s court martialgoing exactly as planned; he was acquitted in early 1898. The tables were turned on the Dreyfusards as Picquart was arrested for having given secret information to Leblois.

The terrain returned to the PR battle. Through the publicity and the obvious frame-job revealed in the Esterhazy trial, the Dreyfusard cause had by now drawn in big names such as Radical politician Georges Clemenceau, and France’s leading novelist Emil Zola. Zola wrote his famous J’Accuse letter to the President, laying out the full case (largely by conjecture and inference, though mostly right on the points), calling for increased investigation, and hoping to draw a libel charge from one of the participants so that the case could go into civilian court, where the more rigorous legal standards could only help Dreyfus.

Zola’s letter has become a legendary polemic. His involvement, as an anti-Catholic novelist of sexually charged works, turbocharged the partisanship of the debate, which largely divided on Catholic/traditionalist vs. progressive/modernist lines. Some Catholics rioted in its aftermath, targeting Jews with violence. Some supporters later criticized Zola’s involvement; Dreyfusard cracks would appear later between those more mundane members looking merely to reverse a miscarriage of justice and those who saw the cause as the primary front in a battle for a secular, modern France.

The parliamentary left swung into battle as well, as Jean Jaures of the Socialists lined up behind Dreyfus. Zola’s letter, after careful tactical consideration by the anti-Dreyfusards, led to libel charges filed by some of the judges who had acquitted Esterhazy. Despite Dreyfusard efforts to expand its scope, this trial proceeded, as designed, along very topical lines. In a setback, despite the involvement of high-profile attorneys who had avoided the case in earlier stages (and a young Leon Blum as an assistant), Zola lost his case, after various members of the high command who had been involved testified and tacitly threatened to resign if their honor was called into question. This was another legal failure for the Dreyfusards, but progress was made because one general foolishly revealed the existence of the long-theorized letters implicating Dreyfus by name, which 1) were forgeries and 2) had not been shown to the defense at Dreyfus’ court martial hearing. These had not seen the light of day yet, and had been used only behind the scenes to satisfy the inquiries of curious generals.

The elections of 1898 were largely fought on the Dreyfus issue, according to Wikipedia, or were not, according to this book. The results were mixed. On one hand, several Dreyfusard members of the legislature, including Jean Jaures, lost their seats. On the other hand, the election was successful overall for our old friends, the bourgeoise anti-clerical Radical Party. The Radicals formed a government under Henri Brisson after the pro-Republic centrists who had backed the previous center-right government jumped to him in the face of increased agitation by the right, who had been eager to campaign against the Dreyfus situation. Socialists also backed Brisson’s pro-Dreyfusard government.

Brisson appointed Godefroy Cavaignac as Minister of War. Cavaignac, an anti-clericalist Republican and decorated war hero, had a reputation for stubborn integrity in public office. Brushing aside the concerns of the Statistical Section and other conspirators in the military, he decided to review the Dreyfus dossier to get to the bottom of things. In what I think of as a hilarious French deconstruction of an Aaron Sorkin storyline, the upstanding Cavaignac triumphantly declared Dreyfus guilty, publicizing in the process the smoking guns that had been forged by the Statistical Section. Though the anti-Dreyfusard cause was able to take a big victory lap at the time, this was the middle of the end for the conspirators. Various trials were initiated and dispensed with by both sides, with the only one to last being the continuing prosecution of Picquart for revealing state secrets. The forgeries, however, were out in the open.

In August of 1898, a young officer, the son of so-and-so, who had been perusing the Dreyfus file under orders for several administrations and was now doing so to provide Cavaignac material against the Dreyfusards, discovered that the letter between the German and Italian military attaches in Paris discussing Dreyfus by name was a forgery. This letter was a post-hoc item that had been cooked up to further the case against rehabilitation, not part of the original parcel. Cavaignac must have been furious, but he did have his carefully-crafted reputation to uphold. He revealed the information to the leadership, and after some turnover (including Cavaignac himself, who didn’t actually want to do anything for Dreyfus, and had his resignation bluff called by the Premier) and some other drama, Brisson called for an official appeal. He lost his post soon after. Some of that drama was that Commandant Henry, the loyal peasant second-in-command of the Statistical Section, killed himself after having been questioned and imprisoned. Though this made him a martyr in certain quarters, it was a big PR element in the increasing popularity of the Dreyfusard cause. Other drama included the titillating death of President Félix Faure and a section of the right urging a military coup upon some of the conspirator generals, who declined. Normal stuff, but all furthering the Dreyfusard cause.

In June of 1899, the court that heard the review of the case judged that they couldn’t reverse Dreyfus’ conviction, but that they could annul it, and order another court martial trial: exactly what the Dreyfusard cause was looking for to clear Alfred’s name. My conception of the Dreyfus Affair prior to reading this book was as of a long string of setbacks and defeats to the Dreyfus cause (this book confirmed that, but tightened my timeline to a five-year period with an aftermath). As such, I thought that this appeal would go poorly. When it didn’t, I still expected one more disaster. Things were going well at this point, though. The new President, Émile Loubet, was pro-Dreyfus, as was the Premier, Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau. The cause had many adherents, though there was growing fracture between the celebrity activists and the Dreyfus family.

Dreyfus himself, ill and mentally distracted, was liberated from his solitary confinement on Devil’s Island and brought to the metropole for his second court martial. This was the disaster that I expected. It was just as sloppy and biased as the first. The same forged or circumstantial evidence was admitted, and the pushback from Dreyfus’ lawyers was scattershot as they disagreed between a modest “there is reasonable doubt” defense and a bombastic “this whole court is on trial!” defense. The difference this time was that the trial was publicized before the media of the entire world. The world was not impressed when Dreyfus was convicted a second time, though there were “extenuating circumstances” and the vote of the officer-judges was not unanimous. The British and Americans especially deplored the emotional speechmaking of the trial and its lack of adherence to the conventions of Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence.

Some Dreyfusards were ready to continue the battle with an appeal. Those close to Dreyfus were not. He was convinced by his brother to accept an offer from the President for a formal pardon. His sense of honor and righteousness would not be served by this, but he put this aside in consideration of his family. The decision seems to have been justified by the immediate enjoyment of his return to freedom. The pardon was enacted in 1899; as a compromise, Waldeck-Rousseau also passed a bill in parliament to provide amnesty to those involved in the affair, so that punishment would not fall on the conspirators.

This “let down” some of those who saw the affair as a struggle for the soul of France, or as a defining cause of Zionism (which was given a major boost, under the argument that Jews would not be safe from persecution in a nation that they did not control). In most cases, this excess of zeal would pale in the face of the human considerations of Dreyfus and his long-suffering family; but some who felt this way had legitimate claims to having suffered as well in the pursuit of higher ideals, such as the persecuted Picquart. Dreyfus himself remained a dreary and uncharismatic presence at Parisian salons, speaking little of his own situation and seeming to hold to a simple “the arc of history bends toward justice” explanation that placed blame on reactionaries and was only happy to see a miscarriage of justice rectified. The book doesn’t usually get bogged down in romanticism, but it does note in discussion of Dreyfus-as-dullard that despite his personal lack of inspiration, his was the cause that inspired the activism of an entire generation.

That empowered left remained on top until World War One. Premier Waldeck-Rousseau spent his administration cracking down on the right of religious orders to assemble without state permission, shutting down many charitable orders in the process. Anti-clericalism was popular with both the urban and the rural poor who viewed the church as pro-establishment and sexually-repressive; but the crackdown expired a flowering of Catholic intellectuals as a backlash. After winning the 1902 election, Waldeck-Rousseau was succeeded by Émile Combes, also a small-town anti-clericalist.

This new administration, before it fell because of overzealous use of secret Masonic networks to purge Jesuits from the army officer corps, ordered a re-investigation of Dreyfus’ case. The additional forgeries were discovered by this point, and early in 1904 all of the figures reassembled for yet another trial. This one was listless and lacking in passion; those conspirators who were not dead brought as little charisma and energy as Dreyfus usually did. It took a few more years for the results to be read, as the Socialist-Radical alliance based on the Dreyfus issue crumbled, but in 1906 Dreyfus (in a decision not technically allowed) was declared innocent, and promoted to Major, at which point he retired from the military.

Everyone lived happily ever after, if you consider World Wars One and Two to be happy. Some anti-Dreyfusards won glory and met their end on the battlefield, as did some descendants of Dreyfus and his relatives. The Third Republic did not survive its divisions. Everyone receives a note or two in the postscript, the most poignant of which are that Dreyfus’ granddaughter Madeleine Lévy died in Auschwitz after being captured as a French Resistance agent; and that Dreyfus’ wife Lucie hid in a convent during the war, sheltered anonymously by the Mother Superior. Dreyfus himself died in 1935, taciturn to the end.

This book served to clarify the Dreyfus Affair timeline for me. I appreciated its notes on the status of French Catholicism in this era, covering the persecution by the government without judging that this cultural antipathy in any way justified hostility to Dreyfus and his side of the affair. I think that part of the reason that the book was so straightforward that it was an elite-level history, with only occasional glimpses of the action on the ground, or of the indifference of the peasantry. It could have used a little more grassroots passion pertaining to the event that shaped an entire era of French political and cultural history. Dreyfus was an elite cause, and I am interested in the extent to which it was a popular one as well.