this post was submitted on 06 Jan 2025
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History

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"The traitor: Degradation of Alfred Dreyfus, degradation in the Morland Court of the military school in Paris"

The Dreyfus affair (French: affaire Dreyfus) was a political scandal that divided the Third French Republic from 1894 until its resolution in 1906. The scandal began in December 1894 when Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a 35-year-old Alsatian French artillery officer of Jewish descent, was wrongfully convicted of treason for communicating French military secrets to the German Embassy in Paris. He was sentenced to life imprisonment and sent overseas to the penal colony on Devil's Island in French Guiana, where he spent the following five years imprisoned in very harsh conditions.

In 1896, evidence came to light—primarily through the investigations of Lieutenant Colonel Georges Picquart, head of counter-espionage—which identified the real culprit as a French Army Major named Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy. High-ranking military officials suppressed the new evidence, and a military court unanimously acquitted Esterhazy after a trial lasting only two days. The Army laid additional charges against Dreyfus, based on forged documents. Subsequently, writer Émile Zola's open letter J'Accuse...! in the newspaper L'Aurore stoked a growing movement of political support for Dreyfus, putting pressure on the government to reopen the case.

In 1899, Dreyfus was returned to France for another trial. The intense political and judicial scandal that ensued divided French society between those who supported Dreyfus, the "Dreyfusards" such as Sarah Bernhardt, Anatole France, Charles Péguy, Henri Poincaré and Georges Clemenceau; and those who condemned him, the "anti-Dreyfusards" such as Édouard Drumont, the director and publisher of the antisemitic newspaper La Libre Parole. The new trial resulted in another conviction and a 10-year sentence, but Dreyfus was pardoned and released. In 1906, Dreyfus was exonerated. After being reinstated as a major in the French Army, he served during the whole of World War I, ending his service with the rank of lieutenant colonel. He died in 1935.

The Dreyfus affair came to symbolise modern injustice in the Francophone world; it remains one of the most notable examples of a miscarriage of justice and of antisemitism. The affair divided France into pro-republican, anticlerical Dreyfusards and pro-Army, mostly Catholic anti-Dreyfusards, embittering French politics and encouraging radicalisation. The press played a crucial role in exposing information and in shaping and expressing public opinion on both sides of the conflict.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 days ago

The idea of national unity was reinforced by the attitude of U.S. imperialism. Once they had entered the war, the U.S. government had the intention of becoming the dominant power in the world. They became the dominant partner in an alliance with the British empire in exchange for their economic aid in the dark days following the fall of France and the massive defeat at Dunkirk. A cheaply purchased servility that survives to this day.

The demand for the unconditional surrender of Germany, which was the official position of the Allies, was also born out of the U.S. government's desire for global hegemony. One reason for the interminable delay in organising the second front in Normandy was the possibility of exhausting the USSR so that it would not be a competitor in the post-war world. In the event, when the Normandy landings took place, the Soviet advance into Germany made the U.S. government fearful that the Russians could win by themselves and that this would give Stalin too much influence in Europe.

In these circumstances, the last thing that the U.S. government wanted was a re-emergent French imperialism. Of course, de Gaulle and Roosevelt mutually detested each other, but this feeling was largely based in their imperialist rivalry. So, de Gaulle needed the resistance to give him a place at the table among the victorious allies, but at the same time had to make sure that the national rebellion did not flow over into a social revolution. This explains the reluctance to send arms drops to the FTP while endeavouring to maintain friendly relations.

The intention of the U.S. government to impose a military administration on France proved not to be possible in the face of the reality of the resistance. One can imagine the reaction in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais, after four years of [Axis] occupation, if they had been confronted with an attempt to assert U.S. control.

(Source.)