Dreyfus Affair, Dreyfus Affair

After the formal inception of the French Third Republic in 1871, in the 1880s nationalist politicians such as Georges Boulanger, Edouard Drumont (founder of the Antisemitic League of France) and Paul Droulde (founder of Ligue des Patriotes ) sought to capitalize on the new fervor for a unified Catholic France. Since 1892, the anti-Semitic publication "La Libre Parole" had published highly defamatory contributions called "Les Juifs dans l'Arme" or "Jews in the Army". Consequently and in response, Jewish officers in the French Army such as Andr Crmieu-Foa and Armand Mayer had reacted by challenging to a duel the authors of these defamations. Captain Mayer lost his life in a duel against Marquis de Mores in June 1892, thus creating a major scandal that anticipated that of the Dreyfus Affair. War Minister Freycinet had intervened in the Chambre des Dputs (the French lower house) in these terms: " Gentlemen, in the Army, we do not recognize Jews, Protestants or Catholics, we only recognize French officers ." However, French Jews, in general, were later described by the historian George L. Mosse as often being perceived as a "nation within a nation". George L. Mosse, Toward the Final Solution: A History of European Racism , (New York: Harper and Row, 1978), 150.

All French Jews had been fully integrated into the nation by law since the French Revolution of 1789 and Napoleon's First Empire. As a result they generally held higher positions in the government and the military than in most other European countries. Later on in France, the political changes resulting from the Dreyfus Affair brought about the 1905 Law on the Separation of Church and State. It put an end to the favored status of the Catholic Church dating from Emperor Napoleon I's Concordat with the Vatican. This placed French Protestants and French Jews on the same level as Roman Catholics, with regards to the law and to public financing of places of worship.

Moreover, as a lieutenant, Esterhazy had served in 1881 and 1882 as a German translator on the staff of the "Section de Statistique" , at the same time and in the same office as Major Joseph Hubert Henry, the officer later to be caught forging evidence against Dreyfus. These career overlaps are well documented and took place during the early part of Esterhazy's career, long before the Dreyfus Affair. Bach, 2004, Duclert, 2006 This underlines that the two officers worked in the same French military counter-espionage group twelve years before the Dreyfus Affair and knew each other well.

He was a captain at the time of the Dreyfus Affair but his own career continued to progress normally. He became a highly decorated general and divisional commander in the field during World War I. General Mordacq was then chosen by Prime Minister Clemenceau, in early 1918, to become his principal military liaison with the High Command. The General remained in this important cabinet position with Clemenceau until the end of the war, in November 1918. He also assisted Clemenceau during the Paris Peace Conference in 1919.

The event took place in the same cobblestone courtyard of Paris's cole Militaire, where Capitaine Dreyfus had been officially stripped of his officer's rank. Chirac stated that " the combat against the dark forces of intolerance and hate is never definitively won, " and called Dreyfus " an exemplary officer " and a " patriot who passionately loved France. " The French National Assembly also held a memorial ceremony of the centennial marking the end of the Affair. This was held in remembrance of the 1906 laws that had reintegrated and promoted both Dreyfus and Picquart at the end of the Dreyfus Affair.

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