Purpose and overview of the lectureTo examine one of the most famous trials of histoIt divided France as no trial has ever divided a countryEveryone French knows about it to this day, and many will still argue about itTo place that trial, and the ensuing “affair”, inTo make some broader observations about the role of anti-Semitism in history, looking toward nazism and the Holocaust[Students should be reading my book, Anti-Semitism before the Holocaust}Long-range background in EuropeMuch of the previous lecture is relevant to the background to this trialThe general weakening of liberalism in many arenasThe Great Depression of 1873-1894, shocking liberals and undermining faith in the free-market economyThe so-called “Second Industrial Revolution,” witA parallel tendency for industrial unions to growIn both of these there is a tendency to move away from the former sense that the individual could accomplish great things on his ownNow it was necessary to be part of a larger groupThe rise of “irrationalist” trends and theories
The Rise of Germany and the relative decline of FranceThe special tension between those two countries by the end of the centuryThe state system as a whole seemed to be engendering national tensions, especially after 1890, with alliance between France and Russia, etc.The rise of mass politics, and the rise of the masses in many other regardsNot only getting the vote, but new “yellow” journLong-range background in FranceThe situation of Jews in France in the nineteenth century:They were widely believed to be unusually favored:They got civil equality in 1791, rose in French society rapidly in 19th centuryJews in other countries tended to envy themFrench Jews prospered especially in the Third Republic, and most of them warmly supported it, which aligned them on the left, mostly the moderate leftTheir numbers were quite small compared to the Jewish populations of central and eastern EuropeFrench Jews constituted approximately .02% of the total population of France, around 40, 000German Jews were approximately 1% (500,000), Austrian 5%, Russian 10% --approximately 100 times more numerous than in FranceAnd French Jews were strongly over-represented in various areas: the professions, commerce, academia, government; generally in the urban areas, Paris in particular, under-represented in agriculture, manual laborAnti-Semitism in FranceA fair number of anti-Semitic writers or theorists appeared in France in the 19th centuryBut until the 1880s there had been relatively litOne of the most common charges against the Jews bThis was allegedly a body of men who manipulated the economy and state from behind the scenesThe Rothschilds were commonly charged with being key players in the SyndicateThe Third Republic in the 1880sA number of trends in the 1880s tended to turn against the JewsAnti-republican sentiment became especially raucous (even while general support for the Republic was slowly increasing)The French Right charged that the Republic \(la The Right believed that left-wing republicans wanThese beliefs were much intensified by a series of laws, called the Ferry Laws (after the French politician who authored them), passed from 1879 to 1886 that sought to move education out of the hands of the ChurchThe failure of the Union générale 1882The Union générale was a Catholic bank explicitlIts failure was blamed by many on Jewish machinations, especially the RothschildsMany small Catholic investors lost their savings, spreading resentment and suspicionThe scandals around the unsuccessful French effort to build a Panama canalParliamentary corruption was undeniably important in these scandals, and in fact a number of Jews were involved in bribery of deputiesThe anti-Semitic press makes a great deal of the Panama scandalsMost notable: Eduard Drumont’s paper, La libre paHe wrote a run-away best-seller, La France juive (1886) [Jewish France, charging that France was now almost completely in the hands of the Jews]Immediate background and outline of first stages of The AffairThe early 1890s were years of greatly increased tensions between France and GermanyFrance’s treaty with Russia made Germany feel “enMany in France feared that Germany might attack again, before the military aspects of the alliance could be worked outThere was a flurry of spy scandals, and a near maMany papers, Drumont’s as well as many others, chEven Jewish military officers were charged with spying for GermanyA Spy in the General Staff?The bordereauIt was ostensibly a list of secrets for sale, “foThe bordereau threw French military intelligence The traitor: Alfred Dreyfus?By a complicated process, mostly by comparing hanHe was a French captain, a candidate for the General StaffWhat became finally of central importance: He was also JewishAnd the key question: Was he unfairly charged because of the anti-Semitism of his officers?Dreyfus was arrested, told the evidence against him was overwhelming, and offered the honorable way out: suicideSince he was in fact innocent—as only later wouldHow overwhelming was the evidence in fact?Not very: similar handwriting, and a few other ra(Dreyfus was supposedly in the right places to get that kind of information)Did his accusers in fact choose him because he was a Jew? (that is the question, one that in fact is not easy to answer)The plot then thickens:News of Dreyfus’s arrest was leaked to the press,Drumont had already launched a campaign against “He now announced in his paper that Dreyfus had “aDrumont’s “revelations” made it all the more diffIf they did, Drumont would be sure to denounce them as being in the pay of the JewsThe trial (December, 1894)It was held in camera before a military tribunalMost observers at the time recognized that the evidence against Dreyfus was thin, and to some degree contradictoryThe bordereau was the main piece of material evidenceHandwriting experts differed about whether it was written by Dreyfus,It was in fact not clear that Dreyfus could have There were other problems:Dreyfus was a rich man, unlikely to be selling secrets for the paltry sums involvedHe had been since a child devoted to the army and to France, a conservative super-patriotWhat no outsider knew at the time, however, was that further evidence was given to the judges that the defense was not even allowed to seeThis of course violates courtroom rules, even for military trials, that someone charged with a crime must be able to see the