He succeeded in improving stability, and it was under this stable government that the Dreyfus Affair occurred. He sought to appease religious, social, and economic tensions and conducted a fairly conservative policy. His government faced the opposition of the left and of some Republicans (including the Progressive Union) and made sure to keep the support of the right. This instability coincided with an equally unstable presidency: President Sadi Carnot was assassinated on 24 June 1894, his moderate successor Jean Casimir-Perier resigned on 15 January 1895 and was replaced by Félix Faure.įollowing the failure of the radical government of Léon Bourgeois in 1896, the president appointed Jules Méline as prime minister. These centrist policies resulted in cabinet instability, with some Republican members of the government sometimes aligning with the radicals and some Orléanists aligning with the Legitimists in five successive governments from 1893 to 1896. The opposition of the Radicals and Socialists resulted in a centrist government with policies oriented towards economic protectionism, a certain indifference to social issues, a willingness to break international isolation, the Russian alliance, and development of the colonial empire. The elections of 1893 were focused on the “social question” and resulted in a Republican victory (just under half the seats) against the conservative right and the reinforcement of the Radicals (about 150 seats) and Socialists (about 50 seats). Although the 16 May Crisis in 1877 had crippled the political influence of both the Bourbon and Orléanist royalists, its ministries continued to be short-lived as the country lurched from crisis to crisis: three immediately preceding the Dreyfus Affair were the near-coup of Georges Boulanger in 1889, the Panama scandal in 1892, and the anarchist threat (reduced by the “villainous laws” of July 1894). In 1894, the Third Republic was twenty-four years old. It embittered French politics and encouraged radicalisation. The affair from 1894 to 1906 divided France into pro-republican, anticlerical Dreyfusards and pro-Army, mostly Catholic “anti-Dreyfusards”. He served during the whole of World War I, ending his service with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. In 1906, Dreyfus was exonerated and reinstated as a Major in the French Army. The new trial resulted in another conviction and a 10-year sentence, but Dreyfus was pardoned and released. The intense political and judicial scandal that ensued divided French society between those who supported Dreyfus (now called “Dreyfusards”), such as Sarah Bernhardt, Anatole France, Henri Poincaré and Georges Clemenceau, and those who condemned him (the anti-Dreyfusards), such as Édouard Drumont, the director and publisher of the antisemitic newspaper La Libre Parole. In 1899, Dreyfus was returned to France for another trial. Subsequently, Émile Zola’s open letter J’Accuse…! stoked a growing movement of support for Dreyfus, putting pressure on the government to reopen the case. The Army laid additional charges against Dreyfus, based on forged documents. When high-ranking military officials suppressed the new evidence, a military court unanimously acquitted Esterhazy after a trial lasting only two days. In 1896, evidence came to light – primarily through an investigation instigated by Georges Picquart, head of counter-espionage – which identified the real culprit as a French Army major named Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy. He was sentenced to life imprisonment for allegedly communicating French military secrets to the German Embassy in Paris, and was imprisoned in Devil’s Island in French Guiana, where he spent nearly five years. Dreyfus was a 35-year-old Alsatian French artillery officer of Jewish descent. The scandal began in December 1894 when Captain Alfred Dreyfus was convicted of treason. The role played by the press and public opinion proved influential in the conflict. “L’Affaire”, as it is known in French, has come to symbolise modern injustice in the Francophone world, and it remains one of the most notable examples of a complex miscarriage of justice and antisemitism. The Dreyfus affair (French: l’affaire Dreyfus, pronounced ) was a political scandal that divided the Third French Republic from 1894 until its resolution in 1906.
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