Alfred Dreyfus at the Time of His Arrest

It is hard to exaggerate the international interest in the Dreyfus Affair. Papers across Europe and North America reported in great detail about every turn and twist, more often than not on page one. Then as now, other people’s antisemitism always seems so much more self-evident than one’s own, and the self-righteousness with which the miscarriage of justice suffered by Dreyfus was pilloried can only be described as gobsmacking. Among those who lamented with great pathos that of all the nations it should be France with her proud revolutionary legacy who had become mired in this injustice there were more than a few who in truth had been wary of that legacy all along.

“The nation is shaken to pieces and in positive danger of revolution or civil war from the Dreyfus case, which ought to be an ordinary trial for treason, but which has revealed so many faults in military administration, has stirred up so many and such fierce prejudices, and has so excited the mass of Frenchmen, that reason can no longer be heard ... No nation in modern times has ever been so sunk in perplexity as the French now is.” The Economist, 2 September 1899.

Alfred Dreyfus at the Time of His Arrest, in 1894. Pierre Dreyfus, Dreyfus: His Life and Letters. London: Hutchinson & Co., 1937.

Print from the book: Jews in Old Postcards and Prints