The Affair: The Case of Alfred Dreyfus
by Jean-Denis Bredin

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Book Reviews of The Affair: The Case of Alfred Dreyfus

Book Review: Great book on a defining event in modern French history
Summary: 5 Stars

One of the most striking features of Bredin's history is the amazingly small role that Captain Alfred Dreyfus himself played in the Affair. Not only did he not engage in the activities that caused his being tried for treason to begin with, he was not a major actor in the events that unfurled in the four years following his conviction. Dreyfus, in fact, was almost completely unaware of the Dreyfus Affair as it raged in France, dividing the nation and almost provoking a Civil War and inspiring a military coup d'etat. For most of those in the military who soon realized that Major Walsin-Esterhazy and not Dreyfus was the person engaged in espionage, and that therefore Dreyfus was innocent, Dreyfus's sufferings were utterly unimportant compared to the honor of the Army. Dreyfus the person dropped out, and Dreyfus the innocent victim became a potentially more dangerous threat to the Army than Dreyfus the supposed spy would have been (or Esterhazy the actual spy was). Ironically, after Zola's famous J'Accuse was published and the Affair gripped all of France, Dreyfus again was forgotten as a person. He became, instead, a symbol that the opponents of the Army and the Church could use as a weapon to attack those entrenched institutions. Indeed, when those who were more concerned with Dreyfus the individual rather than Dreyfus the cause, such as his brother Mathieu and his attorney Edgar Demange, undertook actions that were more beneficial to the individual than the cause, they were roundly criticized. Both sides seemed willing to make Dreyfus a martyr.

The most painful parts of the book are those that reveal the depth and irrationality of the anti-Semitism of the supporters of the Army and the willingness of the Church and masses to espouse the most paranoid fantasies about the Jews during the Affair. No individual supported Dreyfus's cause on the merits of the case in these person's minds, but only because the Jewish Syndicate had paid them off. Every piece of evidence either exonerating Dreyfus or incriminating either the Army or anyone else was declaimed to be a Jewish forgery. The Dreyfus Affair becomes in this way almost a prequel of the events that were to transpire on a few decades later in Nazi Germany. During Nazi occupation, France would cooperate with the extermination of its Jews to a greater extent than almost any other occupied country.

The social effects of the Affair in France are incalculable. If there had been a struggle since 1871 between Republicans and Monarchists, there never was one again. France had unquestionably become a Republic for good, and the political power of the entrenched institutions of privilege--the Army, the Church, and the aristocracy--was shattered for good. Never again would "the saber" truly threaten civilian rule. On the negative side, the Affair also unleashed all the latent anti-Semitism that lay dormant or inactive in the French populace. Many writers have noted that Jews enjoyed a higher standing in French society before the Affair than afterwards. Bredin does an excellent job of noting not merely the main facts and events connected with the Affair, but its aftermath.

The book serves also as a cautionary tale. In a time in the United States (where I live) where Civil liberties are under constant threat from the government that is supposed to be their guardian, the story of the ignoring of the rights of an innocent individual and the willingness to elevate the needs of the military and the state, this bit of history has an astounding relevance. As George Santayana famously said, "Those who do not learn from mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them."

Summary of The Affair: The Case of Alfred Dreyfus

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