Now I am afraid to say that this affair will not involve any sex, but it does have plentys of scandal. This scandal in particular involves a Captain in the French army, A corrupt governments and a journalist who wrote one of the most signifcant pieces of journalism in history.
Before we go any further into the scandal, it is time we open the classroom door and divulged into another history lesson. The year is 1871 and the French army have just been defeated by the Prussians in the Battle of Sedan. The Franco-Prussian war was brought about the Prussians and their leader Bismark who was trying to unify the Prussian and German states. The French army were led by Napoleon III, who unlike his namesake was not as ruthless a leader or a tactician.
This led to the eventual defeat of the French at Sedan and this lead to the provisional French government signing a armistice, but this came at a heavy price. They lost the Alsace Lorraine, which would become part of the newly formed German state and they had to pay a vast amount of money to Germany. This did not go down too well in Paris, who felt that the French government had let them down. However, there was a problem, the Germans had surrounded Paris and eventually seized control of the French capital, prior to the signing of the agreement.
This led to the Paris Commune where the landlords returned to Paris and demand the rent that they had missed out of and with interest on top. The new French national government had established control of the country, but this did not sit well with the proletariats who rebelled and this lead to the formation of the Paris commune between March and May 1871. The Commune had a strong female influence, as well as a combination of moderate socialists, left-wing activists and anarchists.
Karl Marx celebrated "the dictatorship of the proletariats" and had introduced social reforms, which separated the church and the state. At the same time it established better working rights and conditions for the proletariats. This did not sit well with the French government who returned and ruthlessly slaughtered the Commune and between 20,000 and 30,000 people were executed. Even though the Paris Commune was short lived it had a huge impact on the future of European politics.
Now that the history lesson if out the way, we can go back to why we are all reading this blog (seeing as the Alexa ranking competition has now ended and I finished with a Europa League spot). The Dreyfus Affair started in 1894 with the French still trying to rebuild their stature within Europe after the humiliation of 1871. They had begun to build a empire throughout Africa and Asia, but they were still concerned that they were still humiliated and decided to blame the defeat of the Jewish population of France.
The French believed that the Jewish had formed a syndicate which worked to undermine the French people and this led to the blaming of two Jewish businessmen in the failure of the Panama land scandal. This laid the foundation for the first example of anti-semanticism in France who were very materialistic with the army being their main symbol of identity.
The main example of this was the capture of Captain Alfred Dreyfus who was accused of treason by the French army. Dreyfus was accused of leaking secret documents from the French military, which was found in a bin in the German embassy by a French spy. Dreyfus was used as the scapegoat due to his intelligence and his upbringing, which had been in the Alsace Lorraine region.
Dreyfus was secretly trialled and found guilty of treason and was sentenced to life on Devil's Island. The trial pitted the right who were represented by the Army, the Catholic Church and the Monarchists against the left who were represented by the Socialists, the Jews and the intellectuals.
Later on a French officer looked further into the case and found that the evidence given in the trial was wrong. It showed who the real culprit was, an office called Esterhazy, however the officer's superiors dismissed the evidence. They quoted this by asking the officer "What is it to you if a Jew rots on Devil's Island?"
The stop the speculation, The French military put Esterhazy on trial and was acquitted. This did not sit well with Journalist Emile Zola who had been reporting on the trial. Zola published his feelings in the article J'Accuse on January 13 1898 on the front page of L'Aurore as a direct letter to the then French President, Felix Faure.
Zola accused the French military of being anti-semetic against Dreyfus and stated that the Faure was unaware of the truth. Lieutenant Colonel Du Paty De Clam was the office who carried out the Dreyfus affair, but Zola felt that he used Dreyfus as a scapegoat and did not take the case seriously. De Clam was described by Zola as the 1st culprit of the affair.
The memo, which was the property of Colonel Sandherr "disappeared". The memo had come from the office of the high command. Commander De Clam automatically frames Dreyfus without proper investigation. Zola claimed that De Clam had hypnotised the other officers of the high command to follow his orders. Zola also claimed the charge as "a childish affair" and "the most impudent of hoaxes."
The affair was carried out under closed doors and Dreyfus's intelligence was seen as a crime, according to Zola. All of the officers involved in the affair belonged to the war offices. Zola claimed that Commander De Clam was the clerical medium after the hunting of the "dirty jews" who was as far left politically as you could go.
The Esterhazy affair was corrupt as the memo was not mentioned and The High Command ensured he was found not guilty. Major Picquart was seen as a honest man by Zola as he pleaded that the truth was revealed, but was seen on a mission to Tunisia to keep him quiet, but was not told this otherwise. Every other general in the High Command was accused of protecting Esterhazy, when really is the Commander De Clam who was pulling the strings.
Zola praised Major Picquart as being the only honest officer in the High Command. General De Pellieux is accused by Zola by leading a investigation where "rascals are transfigured and decent people are dirtied." Zola then accuses the council of war of being corrupt and dishonest. This was expressed in the quote, "The Dreyfus Affair is the affair of the department of war."
Zola describes the French President as a "prisoner of the constitution" as he is unaware of the ongoing corruption. Zola concludes J'Accuse by accusing 7 groups of people of conspiring or being apart of the Dreyfus Affair. Zola accused them of the following:
1. Commander Du Paty De Clam for being the workman of this miscarriage of justice.
2. General Mercier of being an gutless accomplice.
3. General Billot of ignoring the evidence of Dreyfus's innocence.
4. General De Boisdeffre and General Gonse as accomplices of the same crime.
5. General De Pellieux and Commander Rovary of performing a rogue investigation.
6. The three handwriting experts of submitting fraudulent and untrue reports.
7. The officers of the war of an unfair press campaign in order to foil the public and cover up the truth.
Zola fled to London after the publication of J'Accuse because of fears of being sentenced to Prison over the article, but the article lead to Anti-Jewish riots across France. However, the French army started to recognise of the affair and brought Dreyfus back from Devil's Island a broken man, but was retried and found guilty with "extenuating circumstances."
Emile Zola article was revolutionary and was one of the first prime examples of investigative journalism and also established a new type of Journalism, which when we discussed this in the seminar we concluded that this type of Journalism is not seen as much anymore in modern western society. It is a type of social Journalism where you write or broadcast about something that you a passion for and that you want to show how something is wrong.
J'Accuse is seen today still as one of the most influential articles in the history of Journalism and is a prime example of if you express your disapproval of something and speak up, then eventually maybe the right thing will be done.
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