Dreyfus Affair facts for kids

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J accuse
Emile Zola published a famous letter J'Accuse to complain that the government of France had been very unfair to Alfred Dreyfus.

The Dreyfus Affair was one of the biggest scandals in the history of France. It happened at the end of the 19th century. It was about Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer in the French army.

In 1894, Dreyfus was accused of being a spy, and accused of crimes against France. People thought he wrote letters to the Germans telling them about secrets of the French army.

His punishment was to be sent to a prison island in South America for the rest of his life.

When he was in prison, people (mostly his brother Mathieu and a high-ranking officer called Picquart) thought he was innocent. They proved that another soldier, Major Esterhazy, was guilty. But the army did not want to admit that it had been wrong. They refused to free him. Finally, the evidence that Dreyfus was innocent became so strong that the government had to demand a new trial. At the new trial, the army again found him guilty. The President of France, who did not want an innocent man to suffer any more, pardoned Dreyfus in 1899.

Dreyfus was released. Seven years later, he was officially declared innocent, and allowed back into the army.

The affair divided France into people who thought Dreyfus really was a spy and people who thought he was innocent. Many of those who thought Dreyfus was a spy hated Jews and believed that he was a criminal because he was a Jew, and that a Jew could not be a good Frenchman; this belief is called anti-Semitism. Others thought that the army could not be questioned. The other side believed that an innocent man should not be imprisoned, and feared that Dreyfus's enemies were also enemies of France.

Images for kids

  • Jeu de l’affaire Dreyfus et de la vérité

    Dreyfus affair board game, 1898, Poster, 65 x 48 cm, Musée d'Art et d'Histoire du Judaisme

  • Général de Boisdeffre

    General Raoul Le Mouton de Boisdeffre, architect of the military alliance with Russia

  • 003 Bordereau recto

    Photograph of the bordereau dated 13 October 1894. The original disappeared in 1940

  • Auguste Mercier

    General Auguste Mercier, Minister of War in 1894

  • Du Paty de Clam

    Major du Paty de Clam, head of investigation, arrested Captain Dreyfus

  • Alphonse Bertillon

    Alphonse Bertillon was not a handwriting expert, but he invented the theory of "autoforgery"

  • Dreyfus-in-Prison-1895

    Cover of Le Petit Journal, 20 January 1895 (illustration by Lionel Royer and Fortuné Méaulle)

  • Dreyfus Petit Journal 1894

    From Le Petit Journal (23 December 1894).

  • Schwartzkoppen3

    Max von Schwartzkoppen always claimed never to have known Dreyfus

  • Degradation alfred dreyfus

    Alfred Dreyfus' degradation, 5 January 1895. Picture by Henri Meyer on the cover of Le Petit Journal (13 January 1895), captioned "The Traitor".

  • Galons arrachés à Alfred Dreyfus le jour de sa dégradation

    Dreyfus’ officer stripes that were ripped off as a symbol of treason - Museum of Jewish Art and History

  • Hutte von Dreyfus

    Dreyfus's Hut on Devil's Island in French Guiana

  • Dreyfus Ile du diable 96

    Le Petit Journal (27 September 1896)

  • Picquart 2

    Lieutenant Colonel Georges Picquart dressed in the uniform of the 4th Algerian Tirailleurs.

  • Emile Zola

    Émile Zola in 1898

  • Clemenceau - Manet

    Portrait of Georges Clemenceau by the painter Édouard Manet.

  • Le Sifflet, February 17, 1898

    Newspaper showing Esterházy

  • L Agitation-Antisemite

    Antisemitic riots in an engraving of Le Petit Parisien.

  • Zola sortie

    Henry de Groux, Zola faces the mob, oil on canvas, 1898

  • Zola Anthropo

    Anthropometric photography of Émile Zola at his trial

  • Faux Henry 1896

    Photograph of the "faux Henry". The header ("my dear friend") and signature ("Alexandrine") are from Panizzardi. The rest is from the hand of Henry.

  • G Cavaignac

    Portrait of Godefroy Cavaignac, Minister of War

  • Caran-d-ache-dreyfus-supper

    Drawing by Caran d'Ache in Le Figaro on 14 February 1898.

  • Demange Labori

    Dreyfus' defense in Rennes: Edgar Demange and Fernand Labori

  • Dreyfus-rennes2

    Alfred Dreyfus' trial at the Rennes Court Martial

  • Dreyfus proteste

    Dreyfus' reconviction

  • Monde Illustré

    Colonel Albert Jouaust, Chairman of the Court Martial, reads the verdict of conviction, in one of the weekly Le Monde illustré.

  • Anatole France Oseques Zola

    The funeral of Zola where Anatole France paid homage to his friend.

  • Manuel Baudoin

    Manuel Baudoin, attorney general at the heart of the rehabilitation of Dreyfus

  • DREYFUS réhab

    At right, Captain Alfred Dreyfus rehabilitated at Les Invalides, talks with General Gillain. In the centre, Targe, investigator and discoverer of many falsehoods.

  • Bilan fin de siècle

    "Bilan fin de siècle" (Assessment at the end of the century), anti-Republican caricature published in Le Pèlerin in 1900

  • Vallotton En Famille

    Family of Félix Vallotton in Le Cri de Paris. The Dreyfus Affair lastingly cut France in two, even within families.

  • Herzl

    Theodor Herzl created the Zionist Congress after the Dreyfus affair.

  • Listes des versements aux Archives, par le ministère de la Justice, des scellés de l’affaire Dreyfus - Archives Nationales - AB-V-d-9 - (1)

    List of documents in the French National Archives related to the Dreyfus affair and given by the ministry of Justice.

  • Brochure Lazare

    First brochure of A Miscarriage of Justice, Bernard Lazare published in 1896 in Brussels


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