In 1894, a Jewish artillery officer in the French army named Captain Alfred Dreyfus was arrested and charged with supplying the German Embassy in Paris with military secrets. After a private trial in which only the military were involved Dreyfus was convicted of treason and was consequently imprisoned on Devil’s Island off the coast of French Guyana.

From the outset the case was full of ambiguities and unanswered questions. The evidence used to convict Dreyfus was dubious and the lack of concrete evidence provoked his brother Mathieu to start a campaign to prove Alfred’s innocence. The army had wanted to keep the trial out of the public sphere and deal with it as swiftly as possible but Mathieu Dreyfus ensured that people were made aware of his brother’s plight, even though the public were not always on his side. With the start of Mathieu’s campaign came the involvement of the daily press, and this meant that the Dreyfus case could no longer be kept behind closed doors.

Articles informing of the arrest of an army officer charged with treason appeared in the press soon after the court case, but information was incomplete and the newspapers did not know who or what exactly was involved. The matter properly came to the public’s attention on the 31st of October in an evening issue of Le Soir, which identified the perpetrator as Alfred Dreyfus and the following day the press was saturated with articles on the affair. Most notably, on the 1st November 1984 the main headline in La Libre Parole read "High treason! Jewish officer arrested! Captain Dreyfus!" This was to be the beginning of a virulent campaign against the Jewish officer by a popular nationalist and anti-Semitic newspaper founded by Edouard Drumont, who used the affair to propagate anti-Jewish ideas and consequently helped contribute to a rise in anti-Semitism.

As soon as the first article appeared in the press, public opinion polarized into two camps: the Dreyfusards and the anti-Dreyfusards (this is not to say that the whole of France became concerned with the matter at this stage, it was mainly certain groups of people holding strong beliefs who involved themselves in the affair). The extreme opposition of the two camps was so significant at this time due to that fact that this was a very turbulent period in the history of France in which public opinion was dramatically divided. In general, the Dreyfusards had strong republican values and believed that Dreyfus was entitled to a fair and public trial. The anti-Dreyfusards however were anti-republican and often strict Catholics. They tended to have notions of an exclusivity of the French people, meaning that Jews were seen as intruders and unwelcome in society. The anti-Dreyfusards believed that the honour of the French army was more important than an individual’s liberty. Until the end of the affair in 1906, opinions would remain bitterly opposed with both camps fighting an ideological battle.

The disparity in public opinion was reflected in, but also promoted and provoked by the daily press. The press was essential in the Dreyfus Affair to stir up public opinion and to encourage people to act, and newspapers from all positions on the political spectrum used the media to convey their various messages. People coming from all levels of society read the daily newspapers in France and they were so important to the transmission of information as it was the only medium available at that time which had the ability to reach such a large proportion of the population. In the first few years after the start of the ‘affair’ there was a general lack of support for Dreyfus in the press, with the majority of newspapers publishing anti-Semitic articles in reaction to what they thought was treason committed by a French Jew. To support their arguments, the newspapers would use cartoons to convey ideas and attract readers. A notorious anti-Semitic cartoonist called Caran d’Ache was one of the most prominent ‘dessinateurs’ of the time and many of his cartoons implied the guilt of Dreyfus and promoted anti-Jewish sentiment. It would take time and support from prominent figures in society before the press would start showing much support for the Dreyfus case.

It was not only the press that played an important role in the Dreyfus Affair, but also the involvement of a number of high profile figures in French society. One of the most well-known Dreyfusards was Bernard Lazare, a writer and journalist who had carried out work on anti-Semitism. In an attempt to prove the innocence of Dreyfus, Lazare completed a brochure examining the anti-Semitic undertone to the affair and detailing the obvious injustices and faults of the Dreyfus trial. In 1896 the work was published under the title "A Miscarriage of Justice - The truth about the Dreyfus Affair." The publication of the work triggered a wave of anti-Semitism across France as people reacted angrily to Lazare’s accusations. The impact of Lazare’s work seems to suggest that the participation of the press had great significance during the affair in involving people and provoking the public to react. Lazare continually worked to gain the support of press circles, as he knew that this was the most effective way to win the support of the general public and inform people of the great miscarriage of justice that had taken place. In spite of his efforts, the press was generally hesitant to join the Dreyfusard camp and this meant that there was a lack of support for Dreyfus amongst the general public. However, increasing numbers of prominent French citizens were joining Lazare in the fight for justice, including Georges Clemenceau, Jean Jaurès and Joseph Reinach, which helped the cause immensely.

The single most important event during the affair was to take place on January 13th 1898, an event that has been described as “an essential date in the history of journalism” by historian Jean-Denis Bredin. This crucial happening was the publication of ‘J’accuse’, an open letter written to the French President, Félix Faure, by Émile Zola in the newspaper L’Aurore. Zola had been disturbed by the whole affair and decided to use his powerful position, and the power of the press to voice his disgust at the French authorities and help prove Alfred Dreyfus innocent. The impact of ‘J’accuse’ was immense: 300,000 copies of L’Aurore were printed that day, a number that represented ten percent of the population of Paris (and once second-hand readers are taken into consideration, the number of readers increases dramatically.) Although the public was aware of the issue prior to this occasion, the Dreyfus case only fully became an ‘affaire’ with the publication of Zola’s ‘J’accuse.’ More support for Dreyfus was gained following the publication, therefore intensifying the discord of public opinion and transforming the affair into a national political debate.

‘J’accuse’ was so successful in persuading many French citizens of the innocence of Dreyfus due to the influential writing style employed by Zola to convey his message. Zola effectively used rhetoric to make his audience question what they thought they already knew about the affair in the hope that they would come around to his way of thinking. A striking example of one of the rhetorical devices used by Zola is that of repetition: he uses repetition to ensure that the ideas he wishes to convey are absorbed by the readers. An illustration of this is the repetition of the word ‘crime’ which Zola uses to convince readers that it is the army and the authorities who have committed a crime, not Dreyfus “C’est un crime d’empoisonner les petits et les humbles, d’exaspérer les passions de reaction et d’intolérence, en s’abritant derrière l’odieux antisémitisme, dont la grande France libérale des droits de l’homme mourra, si elle n’en est pas guérie.”

The quote above also shows how Zola was appealing to French republican political views in order to convince the public that the whole affair was a great threat to the freedom of France and to her future as a republican nation. Zola emphasizes the idea of the greatness of France to evoke powerful patriotic emotions within French citizens in the hope that they would be convinced that there had been a huge miscarriage of justice “C’est un crime d’avoir accusé de troubler la France ceux qui la veulent généreuse, à la tête des nations libres et justes” The personification of France, used many times by Zola, is an abstract concept which would have helped give credibility to ‘J’accuse’ as readers would have been more likely to have been persuaded by someone who they considered intelligent (although Zola already had a high status as an intellectual in France, which would have given ‘J’accuse’ a high level of credibility from the outset). In spite of this, Zola also used popular phrases such as “coup de balai” and “lâcher le paquet” to help the audience relate to him and to the text.

Zola did not just want readers to relate to the text, but wanted them to act, and he does this by creating a sense of urgency that reflects his strong feelings towards finding the truth and helping Dreyfus. One instance where Zola manages to create a sense of impending doom is the phrase “quand on enferme la vérité sous terre, elle s’y amasse, elle y prend une force telle d’explosion…” Such dramatic imagery and personification of the truth would have had a significant, yet possibly subconscious effect on the readers of ‘J’accuse’ and may have provoked the public to act, or at least begin to question the events which had taken place.

Before the publication of ‘J’accuse’ the French public knew about the Dreyfus case yet their information was incomplete and flawed. Furthermore, many people were convinced of his guilt and there was somewhat of a lack of public support for Dreyfus reflected in a rise in anti-Semitism, especially in the press. This all changed when Zola’s ‘J’accuse’ was published in l’Aurore. The eloquence and persuasiveness of Zola’s writing ensured that the whole of France began to question the affair and started believing in the innocence of Dreyfus. The fact that a successful and world-renowned writer had accused the French military of cover-ups and wrongdoing caused the ‘Dreyfus Affair’ to draw worldwide attention. It can therefore be concluded that, although the French daily press and prominent French figures played significant parts in publicizing the matter, it was ‘J’accuse’ which truly turned the Dreyfus case into an “affaire” involving not only France, but also the rest of the world and transformed the ‘Dreyfus Affair’ into one of the most important events of the Third Republic.
Bibliography

Baltz, M. (1999). The Dreyfus Affair – its causes and implications. Retrieved December 22nd 2006 from www.harwich.edu/depts/history/HHJ/drey.html.

Cobban, A. (1965). A History of Modern France: Volume 3:1871-1962. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd

Guillaumin, D. (2003). J’accuse, Émile Zola Paris: La bibliothèque Gallimard.

The Department for Jewish Zionist Education. (2000). Dreyfusgate. Retrieved December 22nd 2006 from www.jafi.org.