And that would have been the last anyone ever heard of him, had it not been for his brother Mathieu....
Matheiu Dreyfus was convinced of his brother's innocence and started trying to get journalists on his side to expose the truth. At the same time, a new head of intelligence, Major Georges Picquart, started to think there was something fishy about the case. Investigating, he discovered evidence incriminating Major Ferdinand Esterhazy (the evidence also proved that the spying continued after Dreyfus's arrest). Esterhazy's handwriting perfectly matched the bordereau used to convict Dreyfus, and he had an actual motive to become a spy- a relative of one of the most prominent Hungarian aristocratic families, he was constantly in debt and squandering his money, and was resorting to desperate measures to appease his creditors. Picquart might have thought his bosses would be pleased that he had found the real spy and saved everyone from an embarrassing screw-up. That was not the case. Instead, the General Sta smeared Dreyfus further by sharing the "secret dossier" with the press. A certain Major Henry, who had been involved in the original prosecution, forged new evidence against Dreyfus. And Major Picquart was Reassigned to Antarctica (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ReassignedToAntarctica) , err, Tunisia, "in the interests of the Service." The entire investigation had managed to convince the General Sta that Esterhazy was the real German spy, and not Dreyfus. But they felt it would damage their prestige to admit they had accused the wrong person. So they did what any sensible army would do- decided to protect the guy spying against their country by any means necessary.
Meanwhile, Mathieu Dreyfus had not given up on clearing his brother's name. He publicized a leaked copy of the bordereau as much as possible, hoping that someone would recognize the handwriting. A South America stockbroker recognized the handwriting of Esterhazy, who of course owed him money. Mathieu confirmed the identity of Esterhazy with a pro-Dreyfus politician who had heard the truth from Picquart's lawyer. By this time the press was divided on the issue and leaks had made it clear there was something strange going on. Via the aforementioned politician and lawyer, Mathieu was able to meet the famous writer Emile Zola, who joined the pro-Dreyfus campaign through his articles in Le Figaro. Le Figaro also published Esterhazy's letters to an ex-girlfriend, in which he vented about his hatred of France (he was really not that good at the whole secrecy business). The anti-Dreyfusards in the press and military hit back with more anti-Semitism as well as by character assassination of Picquart. In January 1898, the military decided to put an end to all this speculation by formally accusing Esterhazy of espionage....so that he could be acquitted in a rigged trial. The trial was basically an excuse to glorify Esterhazy and the General Sta , and soon afterward, Picquart was arrested for "violating professional secrecy." As far as Emile Zola was concerned, the acquittal of Esterhazy was the last straw. Le Figaro had dropped him under pressure and he was now writing for Clemenceau's pro-Dreyfusard L'Aurore. He wrote an open letter to the President, which took up the entire front page of L'Aurore under the headline "I Accuse..! (http://en.wikisource.org /wiki/J%27accuse...!) ". He mocked the ridiculous "evidence" against Dreyfus: "Dreyfus knows several languages, crime; one found at his place no compromising papers, crime; he returns sometimes to his country of origin, crime; he is industrious, he wants to know everything, crime; he is unperturbed, crime; he is perturbed, crime." He mocked the smear campaign against Picquart, who had refused to cover up the truth despite his own prejudices: "One might just as well say that he was the forger, that he manufactured the carte-télegramme to convict Esterhazy. But, good God! why? with what aim? give a motive. Is he also paid by the Jews? The joke of the story is that [Picquart] was in fact an anti-Semite. " He criticized the anti-Semitism and militarism behind the whole a air, contrasting it with the best liberal traditions of France: "It is a crime to poison the small and the humble, to exasperate passions of reaction and intolerance, while taking shelter behind the odious antisemitism, from which, if not cured, the great liberal France of humans rights will die. It is a crime to exploit patriotism for works of hatred, and it is a crime, finally, to turn into to sabre the modern god..." "But this letter is long, Mr. President, and it is time to conclude. I accuse Major Du Paty de Clam as the diabolic workman of the miscarriage of justice, without knowing, I have wanted to believe it, and of then defending his harmful work, for three years, by the guiltiest and most absurd of machinations.....
I accuse General Billot of having held in his hands the unquestionable evidence of Dreyfus's innocence and of suppressing it.... I accuse the three handwriting experts, sirs Belhomme, Varinard and Couard, of submitting untrue and fraudulent reports, unless a medical examination declares them to be affected by a disease of sight and judgment.
I accuse the offices of the war of carrying out an abominable press campaign, particularly in the Flash and the Echo of Paris, to mislead the public and cover their fault.
Finally, I accuse the first council of war of violating the law by condemning a defendant with unrevealed evidence, and I accuse the second council of war of covering up this illegality, by order, by committing in his turn the legal crime of knowingly discharging the culprit. While proclaiming these charges, I am not unaware of subjecting myself to articles 30 and 31 of the press law of July 29, 1881, which punishes the offense of slander. And it is voluntarily that I expose myself. As for the people I accuse, I do not know them, I never saw them, I have against them neither resentment nor hatred. They are for me only entities, spirits of social evil. And the act I accomplished here is only a revolutionary mean for hastening the explosion of truth and justice. I have only one passion, that of the light, in the name of humanity which has suffered so and is entitled to happiness. My ignited protest is nothing more than the cry of my heart.”
He challenged them to bring him to court
“I am waiting."
With Zola's letter, in which he basically dared the authorities to arrest him, society became even more polarized around the case. On the Dreyfusard side, a group of well-known people got together to sign the "Manifesto of the Intellectuals." This case is the origin of the term intellectuals, as well as their importance in France. On the anti-Dreyfusard side, anti-Semitic rioting broke out. They also made xenophobic criticisms of Zola (who was the son of an Italian immigrant). Zola was brought to court to be tried for libel amid this atmosphere of hate and was sentenced to a year in prison. Understandably, he decided not to wait to be jailed but went into exile in Britain. During the trial, Col. Picquart fought and won a duel with the forger Col. Henri. The new Minister of War, Cavaignac, was genuinely convinced that Dreyfus was guilty and unaware of what the General Staff had been up to. He wanted to settle doubts once and for all so that he could then be done with the increasingly annoying Esterhazy. Cavaignac decided to have the evidence reviewed. Out of all the evidence, Cavaignac picked three documents to present to the parliament as proof of Dreyfus's guilt. Unfortunately for him, one of the documents was Col. Henry's forgery. Meanwhile, Picquart was arrested again on Cavaignac's orders. Esterhazy too found himself in legal trouble due to his financial dealings. He wasn't convicted, but he did wind up kicked out of the army. In August 1898, one of Cavaignac's subordinates discovered forgeries amid the evidence, including the very document Cavaignac had presented as proof. Cavaignac confronted Col. Henri, who broke down and confessed to forgery. Henri committed suicide soon afterward, and was lionized by the anti-Dreyfusard press as a patriotic martyr. Cavaignac remained convinced that Dreyfus was guilty, but he had to resign. In light of misconduct uncovered, the Court of Cassation (supreme court) granted the possibility of a retrial. Meanwhile, street unrest and government instability increased.
The anti-Dreyfusards had the support of the Catholic right, which had never reconciled itself to the republic, and which saw itself as the real France and the victim of conspiracy. The Catholic church and press spread a lot of poison about Dreyfus and Jews generally. Clericalism and anti-republicanism were linked with the anti-Dreyfus campaign, so the Dreyfusards were increasingly hostile to the Catholic church. In 1899, the disorder became even more provocative- an anti-Dreyfusard politician made an (extremely unsuccessful) coup attempt, and another anti-Dreyfusard bashed the French President over the head with a cane. A few weeks after being attacked, the President asked Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau to form a "government of republican defense" to deal with the ongoing crisis. Waldeck-Rousseau brought into his cabinet all shades of pro-Dreyfus republican opinion, right and left, ranging from General de Gallifet, the "butcher of the Commune," to Alexandre Millerand, who was at that time a socialist, though he moved right later, and whose decision to take part in a "bourgeois" government alongside de Gallifet was the subject of much controversy among socialists internationally, giving rise to the term "Millerandism." Waldeck-Rousseau's ministry managed to bring some stability and support the ongoing attempts to clear Dreyfus. Around the same time as the political changes, Dreyfus arrived in France for the retrial of his case. Zola had recently returned to France and Picquart had been released as well. Esterhazy finally admitted (from the safety of England) that he was the real author of the bordereau, though he still claimed he wasn't the spy. Things seemed to be going well for Dreyfus as the retrial got underway. However, the retrial was a court martial, and the General Staff was still set against Dreyfus. Violence continued- one of Dreyfus's lawyers was shot by a would-be assassin, though he survived. In Paris, the police started a crack-down on people linked to the failed coup-attempt, leading to a 23-day-long standoff between the police and and the editor of "L'antijuif" ("The Anti-Jew"), who, with his armed supporters, fortified his house in Rue Chabrol against them. This gave rise to the French expression "Fort Chabrol," for a building occupied by an armed individual and besieged by the police. Despite all this, the trial seemed sure to clear Dreyfus's name. There was no longer any real evidence against him and much proof in his favor. In September, 1899, the new verdict came in- guilty, but with extenuating circumstances. The Dreyfusards were shocked.
Paris was scheduled to hold a World Fair in 1900, and there were threats that it would be boycotted to protest the persecution of Dreyfus. Also, the Waldeck-Rousseau government clearly believed in his innocence. To resolve the uproar over the re-conviction of Dreyfus, and at the urging of Mathieu Dreyfus, President Loubet offered to pardon Alfred Dreyfus. This was controversial among the Dreyfusards because it would mean compromising and not fully clearing his name, and some of them even criticized Dreyfus's acceptance of the pardon. However, after years in prison, he was finally a free man, and he accepted on the condition that he could continue trying to clear his name. In 1900, a general amnesty was passed for all crimes committed during the Dreyfus a air. The Dreyfusards, especially those who had been prosecuted and would therefore benefit from the amnesty, like Zola and Picquart, were seriously annoyed to be pardoned when they hadn't done anything wrong. Another reason they criticized the amnesty was that it made it impossible to prosecute the actual criminals behind the framing of Dreyfus as well as other crimes by the anti-Dreyfusards. All this led to more quarreling among the Dreyfusards, and a sort of split between the actual case of Dreyfus himself and the wider cause that had sprung up as a result. People who had formerly been united now became bitter against each other. Mathieu summed it up: "After the fight is over, comes the return to normal life, with its pettiness, its needs, and its necessities. We become what we were: complicated machines, animated by good and bad sentiments." However, the indirect consequences of the affair continued to play out. The negative role of the Catholic church in the a air and the increased strength of anti-clerical republicans contributed to the aggressive anti-clerical program of the next few years. Religious orders were suppressed and complete separation of church and state was achieved in 1905.
Another long-term effect is that Theodore Herzl, the founder of Zionism, covered the case as a journalist and was influenced toward Zionism by the anti-Semitism he witnessed. France's first Jewish Prime Minister, Leon Blum, was one of the intellectuals who had first been brought into politics by the Dreyfus A air. Zola died suddenly in 1902 of carbon monoxide poisoning. When his remains were transferred to the Pantheon in 1908, Dreyfus attended and was shot in an assassination attempt, but not seriously injured. In 1906, Dreyfus was finally completely rehabilitated. He and Picquart both rejoined the army, but Dreyfus soon retired as his career had been damaged by the long absence. Also in 1906, Dreyfus was made a member of the Legion of Honor in the very same courtyard where had suffered the ceremony of degradation. That same year, Clemenceau, a prominent politician who had supported Dreyfus and published "J'accuse" in his newspaper, became Prime Minister, with Picquart as Minister of War. In World War I, the ever-patriotic Dreyfus came out of retirement to rejoin the army and fight in the war, which took back his home province of Alsace. He died in 1935. During World War II, Dreyfus's widow, Lucie was hidden by nuns, something of a surprise given the role of the Church in the campaign against Dreyfus, and survived. Four of their grandchildren joined the Resistance, one of whom, Madeleine Dreyfus Levy, died in Auschwitz.
