The Dreyfus Affair and the Left and Right Debate in the 20th Century - Essay Example

THE DREYFUS AFFAIR IS CONSIDERED BY MANY HISTORIANS AS HAVING SET THE SCENE FOR THE LEFT/RIGHT DEBATE AT THE DAWN OF THE 20TH CENTURY, COMMENT. Yes, it is true that the Dreyfus affair was considered by many historians as having set the scene for the left/ right debate at the dawn of the 20th century, it was a very prominent saga which took place in France, one can say that this political scandal completely rocked France and divided it in to two parts, the left/right debate started during the post revolution, throughout the 19th century the main dividing line was between the right in France which was concerned with the bourbons and the orleanists and the left wing were comprised of the republicans. The republicans itself were the objective of the French workers movement of the lowest common denominator of the French left. Concerning the right debate were the house of the bourbons where they were to power in the bourbon restoration, the restoration was to dominate the counter-revolutionaries who refused all inheritance of the revolution re-establishing the divine rights of the kings. The house of Orleans then came in to power with Louis Philippe marking the new right tradition of France. The 19th century in France was a time of repeated upheaval as the forces of tradition and radical changed both, they tried to reassert themselves as the dominant model within the French political society and create unity. Now there were the pro-monarchists which included the army, church and the judiciary establishment, they wanted to return to a more conservative rule. The republicans wanted a greater openness, equality and socialism. The dreyfuss affair showed how difficult this unity was and how quickly the divisions were exacerbated. Even though the republicans managed to recover from the wounds of the affair, the divisions would continue to haunt France and see the collapse of the 3rd republic at the hands of the Nazi Germany and Vichy. Now let me explain a bit about the dreyfuss affair. It was regarding Alfred Dreyfus, who was a captain in the French army. He was a graduate of both Ecole Polytechnique and the Ecole Superieure de guerre; at this academy he showed the promise of a very good artillery officer. Due to his high ranking in these well known institutes it led him to a training position on the French army’s general staff in 1893. His background was solely upper middle class and was rested on a successful family owned textile manufacture business. After the French were defeated in the france-prussion war of 1870/1871, part of the Dreyfus family had chosen to retain its French nationality and had moved to Paris for good. Alfred Dreyfus along with his other bother grew up here. But life seemed to change for him abruptly in October 1894, it was shortly after he had begun his training at the general staff that Captain Dreyfus was arrested and was charged with passing the military secrets to the German embassy in Paris. In December 1894, he was convicted of treason by a military tribunal and was sentenced by them to a life imprisonment and that too of a solitary confinement. His conviction seemed to be based on a hand written list, which was found in a waste paper basket in the German military attaché in Paris. The list seemed to contain a written list offering access to secret French military information. The list was founded by a French cleaning lady who actually was a spy and was working with the French military counter intelligence. Dreyfus was suspected of being a spy because of his artillery training, plus his Alsatian origins and the yearly trips which he used to make to Germany to visit his ailing father bought him in to suspicion. And the most important thing as to why he was acquitted was because he was a Jew. This lack of political stability was played out by the successive crisis ,the dreyfuss affair was an example of this and another was the boulanger crisis. The creation of the third republic in 1871 was also a compromise which failed everyone. The right wing was divided on whether to support a traditional bourbon king or an orleanist one. This was the reason why the Dreyfus affair became so famous and this was the reason of the debate which had started and effected the dawn of the 20th century. The charge against dreyfuss was an example of the indictivness of politics between the pro-nationalist/the anti-sematic, they were the RIGHT ones, then there were the LEFT who believed in concepts such as the rights of man, justice and truth, but the truth was not being told here, the sad part was that Dreyfus was in fact completely innocent and was charged falsely. How and why? Let me further explain. At first it was considered that the writing on the list was Dreyfus’s but later on the forensic experts did not agree that it was his writing. By the time the high command realized that they did not have enough evidence against Dreyfus it had become impossible to withdraw the prosecution without a scandal that would have degraded the French army. There were apparently officers who belonged to the French military counter intelligence who had in fact fabricated false documents just to incriminate Dreyfus, there were cover ups of such activities by the highly placed members of the army’s general staff which was right at the very heart of the Dreyfus affair. Major reason for putting Dreyfus in trouble was mostly because he was a Jew and considered to others, a wealthy man which made him not very popular amongst his colleagues. The army officer Henry who wanted to trap dreyfuss as a spy infact belonged to the right movement which didn’t believe in justice or truth. When Dreyfus’s court martial was taking place there were a notable amount of errors in the procedures also An example would be of the defense which was not made aware of a secret dossier that apparently the prosecution had provided to the military judges, under the French law this was illegal .the French military historian by the name of, Jean Doise had published evidence that had led him to suggest that Dreyfus initially at least had been used as a decoy by the French military counter intelligence. It was also later discovered that the list used to incriminate Dreyfus in reality been hand written and was delivered to the German embassy by some one and that some on was a French infantry officer by the name of Major Ferdinand Esterhazy. Apposed by the historian jean Doise, maybe Esterhazy had either hoped to extract money from the Germans. There was also talks that maybe he was a double agent which would explain him getting pension in England even after he had been acquitted by the French military in 1898.it was also found that later on another major by the name of Joseph Henry was also in collaboration with Esterhazy had forged the evidence against Dreyfus. The Dreyfus affair had managed to divide France in to two parts as I had mentioned in the beginning, there were those who were anti-Dreyfusards (the right wing) which included the royalists and the conservatives and then there were the Dreyfusards which were the socialists and the republicans. The intense dislike for and prejudice against the Jewish people in France in the latter part of the 19th century was very openly displayed in the form of print and public speeches, they were conducted by politicians and the journalists which belonged to the far right of politics. The Dreyfus affair bought a political change in France; it had put an end to the preferred status of the Catholic Church which was dated from as far back as the emperor napoleon with the Vatican. This had placed the French Protestants and the French Jews on the same level as the Roman Catholics. The dreyfuss affair witnessed the birth of the modern intellectual engaging himself in political nationalism, which had been previously under the form of a liberal nation, which was a characteristic of the republican left; it became a right wing trait mutating the ethic nationalism. emile zola was a perfect example of the left, he was a socialist who believed in justice and truth and that’s why he bought the Dreyfus affair to the public . He had written an extremely open letter to the president Faure in which he had written the headline “j’accuse!” ( I accuse) this created a stir amongst the people , Emile wanted this case to be aired and he succeeded in doing that, he considered what was happening to Dreyfus as unfair and un justified. The government believed that the honor of a nation cannot be sacrificed for the sake of one Jew whereas Emile symbolized the disregard of justice and human rights in the French republic. As this saga was followed all over the world it was believed by a Jewish journalist, Theodor Herzl, that no matter what high rank a person possessed no Jew was safe from the hatred. The Dreyfus affair is an excellent example of anti-Semitic incident that had engaged the French society and the political forces for so many years. even though in spite of legal equality in the western societies, even at the end of the 19th century and at the dawn of the 20th century anti-Semitism still remains a threat for the Jews but now they are opposed by the people as an issue of human rights of Jews. The debate on the Dreyfus affair would continue in my opinion as there are some who believe that he was convicted because he was a Jew and some believe it to be a case of human rights simply. Dreyfuss affair is an example of nationalism in the form of having a pure France, where justice is there and given to all despite being a Jew or a catholic. The army was defended by the government however it behaved, it had falsely accused dreyfuss knowing they had no evidence against him; the reason why the government protected the army was because of the safety of the nation. In the dreyfuss affair case we saw all of the right wing press, France versus the rest of the world. All of these will return in the first half of the 20th century to haunt Europe most clearly with Hitler this policy of national supremacy and racial cleansing. Today in this 21st century the French president Jacque Chirac in 2006 officially held a state ceremony marking the centenary of Alfred Dreyfus’s official rehabilitation. It was held in the same place where he was stripped off his officer’s rank when convicted. This marked the end of the Dreyfus affair with president Chirac calling him an “exemplary officer” and “a patriot who passionately loved France”. This showed the example of the right it showed justice served and truth recognized. BIBLIOGRAPHY 1). WIKIPEDIA, THE FREE ENCYCLOPEDIA 2).GEORGE L.MOSSE, TOWARDS THE FINAL SOLUTION, A HISTORY OF EUROPEAN RACISM,(NEW YORK, HARPER AND ROW,1978) Read More