Dreyfus Affair Facts for Kids

Emile Zola wrote a famous letter called J'Accuse to say that the French government was very unfair to Alfred Dreyfus.

The Dreyfus Affair was a huge problem and a big controversy in the history of France. It happened around the end of the 19th century. It was all about Alfred Dreyfus, who was a Jewish officer in the French army.

In 1894, Dreyfus was accused of being a spy. People thought he was giving secret information about the French army to the Germans.

The Start of the Problem
Doubts Begin to Grow
The Truth Comes Out
Dreyfus Is Cleared
How France Was Divided
Images for kids
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The Start of the Problem

Dreyfus was found guilty of these serious crimes against France. His punishment was very harsh. He was sent to a prison island far away in South America. He was meant to stay there for the rest of his life.

Doubts Begin to Grow

While Dreyfus was in prison, some people started to believe he was innocent. His brother, Mathieu Dreyfus, and a high-ranking officer named Picquart, worked hard to find the truth. They found proof that another soldier, Major Esterhazy, was actually the one who was guilty.

But the army did not want to admit they had made a mistake. They refused to let Dreyfus go free.

The Truth Comes Out

Eventually, the evidence showing Dreyfus was innocent became too strong to ignore. The French government had to ask for a new trial. However, even at this new trial, the army again said he was guilty.

The President of France did not want an innocent person to suffer anymore. So, in 1899, he pardoned Dreyfus, which meant he was officially forgiven and released from prison.

Dreyfus Is Cleared

Dreyfus was finally free. Seven years later, he was officially declared innocent. He was even allowed to join the army again.

How France Was Divided

The Dreyfus Affair caused a huge split in France. People were divided into two main groups. One group believed Dreyfus was truly a spy. Many in this group disliked Jewish people, a belief called anti-Semitism. They thought Dreyfus was a criminal because he was Jewish and believed a Jewish person could not be a good Frenchman. Others in this group simply felt that the army should not be questioned.

The other group believed that an innocent man should never be imprisoned. They worried that Dreyfus's enemies were also enemies of France itself.

Images for kids

Alfred Dreyfus
Dreyfus affair board game, 1898, Poster, 65 x 48 cm, Musée d'Art et d'Histoire du Judaisme
General Raoul Le Mouton de Boisdeffre, architect of the military alliance with Russia
Photograph of the bordereau dated 13 October 1894. The original disappeared in 1940
General Auguste Mercier, Minister of War in 1894
Major du Paty de Clam, head of investigation, arrested Captain Dreyfus
Alphonse Bertillon was not a handwriting expert, but he invented the theory of "autoforgery"
Cover of Le Petit Journal, 20 January 1895 (illustration by Fortuné Méaulle after Lionel Royer).
From Le Petit Journal (23 December 1894).
Max von Schwartzkoppen always claimed never to have known Dreyfus
Dreyfus's officer stripes, ripped off as a symbol of treason – Museum of Jewish Art and History
Dreyfus's Hut on Devil's Island in French Guiana
Le Petit Journal (27 September 1896)
Lieutenant Colonel Georges Picquart dressed in the uniform of the 4th Algerian Tirailleurs
Émile Zola in 1898
Portrait of Georges Clemenceau by the painter Édouard Manet
Newspaper showing Esterhazy
Henry de Groux, Zola faces the mob, oil on canvas, 1898
Antisemitic riots in a print from Le Petit Parisien
Photograph of the "faux Henry". The header ("my dear friend") and signature ("Alexandrine") are from Panizzardi. The rest is from the hand of Henry.
Portrait of Godefroy Cavaignac, Minister of War
Drawing by Caran d'Ache in Le Figaro on 14 February 1898.
Alfred Dreyfus (standing, right of centre) at the opening session of his trial in Rennes, photographed by Valerian Griboedov
Alfred Dreyfus's trial at the Rennes Court Martial
Dreyfus's defense in Rennes: Edgar Demange and Fernand Labori
Dreyfus's reconviction
Colonel Albert Jouaust, Chairman of the Court Martial, reads the verdict of conviction, in one of the weekly Le Monde illustré.
The funeral of Zola, where Anatole France paid homage to his friend
Manuel Baudoin, attorney general at the heart of the rehabilitation of Dreyfus
At right, Captain Alfred Dreyfus rehabilitated at Les Invalides, talks with General Gillain. In the centre, Targe, investigator and discoverer of many falsehoods.
Alfred Dreyfus in 1935, the year of his death.
Family of Félix Vallotton in Le Cri de Paris. The Dreyfus Affair lastingly cut France in two, even within families.
Theodor Herzl created the Zionist Congress after the Dreyfus affair.
The statue of Captain Dreyfus in the courtyard of the Hôtel de Saint-Aignan, home of the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire du Judaïsme
List of documents in the French National Archives related to the Dreyfus affair and given by the ministry of Justice.
First brochure of A Miscarriage of Justice, Bernard Lazare published in 1896 in Brussels

Dreyfus Affair facts for kids

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