Dan Snow's History Hit - The Dreyfus Affair: The Spy Scandal that Shook France

Episode Date: April 27, 2025

It started with an inconsequential piece of military intelligence, scrawled on a piece of paper and left in a waste paper basket. But over the next decade, the infamous Dreyfus affair would mutate into a scandal that shook nineteenth-century France and stunned the world.Ruth Harris is a Professor of History at the University of Oxford and author of 'The Man on Devil's Island'. She joins us to explain what a Jewish artillery officer's wrongful conviction tells us about the deep divisions within French society, and explains its long-lasting implications for modern nationalism and even the Zionist movement.Produced by James Hickmann and edited by Dougal Patmore.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.We'd love to hear your feedback - you can take part in our podcast survey here: https://insights.historyhit.com/history-hit-podcast-always-on.You can also email the podcast directly at [e-mail].

Hi everyone, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. It didn't look like something that would rip the French nation apart. The offending item was a list written on such thin notepaper that it was almost transparent. It had been snatched from the German embassy in Paris. It had been sent there by a traitor. It was military intelligence drawn from within France's army, destined for France's most hated enemy, the Germans. What was weird about this piece of paper that plunged France into a decades-long crisis was that the list of intelligence on it wasn't really that interesting or important. It was a bunch of things that this spy thought his German chiefs might be interested in.

He had news of a hydraulic brake on a prototype 120mm gun. Ironically, this gun was not a flop. The French army wouldn't even put it into production. He also promised that he had intel about a new artillery manual, and he had some gossip about an upcoming military expedition to Madagascar. There was nothing promised by the French spy in this list that would really threaten French national security. But the reaction to the discovery that this spy existed, well that shook the French Republic to its root. It was signed simply with the letter D. French counterintelligence searched for this spy. They searched for D. And in the end,

they found a scapegoat, an artillery officer named Alfred Dreyfus. He was a bit unpopular with those in higher command. He was not very clubbable, you might say, so not very sociable. He was independently wealthy. He was sort of personally awkward. He was very, very smart, so he was very able. And he was Jewish. He was put on trial. He was exiled to a tiny island off the coast of South America, where he had an almost complete breakdown of his mental health and almost lost his life. He was brought back for retrial. There was a cover-up. There was a conspiracy. It all exposed terrible divisions within France. It sucked much of Europe into the drama. It asked the very biggest questions about how we should all live together in modern states.

It asked big questions about truth itself and about how the public engaged with politics. As a result, the so-called Dreyfus Affair became one of the, well, infamous, one of the most remembered talked talked about events in late 19th century European history. And here to talk all about it, we've got Ruth Harris. She's a professor of modern history at the University of Oxford. She focuses on the history of modern Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries. And she wrote the remarkable prize-winning book, The Man on Devil's Island, Alfred Dreyfus and the Affair that Divided France. So let's get into it. Dreyfus, miscarriage of justice, conspiracies, the event

that severed church from state in France, the event that shocked the world and inspired Zionism. Enjoy. T-minus 10. Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima. God save the king. No black-white unity till there is first and black unity. Never to go to war with one another again. And lift off, and the shuttle has cleared the tower. Ruth, thank you very much for coming on the podcast. Tell me, what is the starting gun for this legendary Dreyfus affair? It's a very interesting story because France evolves a counterintelligence agency within a reformed army. They've been defeated in 1870-71.

They've experienced a civil war. And now we're in the 1890s. And they are very keen to operate a surveillance system on Germany. They call this little agency the statistical section, and they've caught several spies. And their most important person in this operation is a charwoman named Madame Bastien, who works in the German embassy and in the apartments of the German diplomat in Paris. And they tear up their documents and drop the scraps into wastebaskets. She's been there since 1889. She's retrieved all kinds of intelligence.

And in 1894, she picks up a torn note. And it shows very poor intelligence, but it shows clearly that there's a spy at loose inside France. and this thing is called the Baudereau. And immediately, almost immediately, suspicion falls on a Jewish artillery officer from a wealthy Alsatian family. In fact, a fabulously wealthy Alsatian family. His family is in textiles. His wife's family is in diamonds. His name is Alfred Dreyfus. And he's a very interesting man because he's a super patriot. He's one of the people that there are a lot of

them in France who are Alsatians, and they've left Alsace to come to France and take an over French patriality. And Ruth, people might not know the reason they've all left Alsace is because it's no longer in France. Exactly. It's no longer in France. And they've dedicated their future lives to taking over and getting back and reincorporating these lost territories that they lost in 1870-71. Because Alsace and Lorraine, these two territories next to the Rhine in France, they were taken by the Germans. And lots of people are swearing that France one day will get them back. And indeed, they do get them back. They get them back in 1918. And they are still part of France. And in 1945. Exactly. But what's so interesting about this part of France is that many people there don't

speak French. And what's so interesting is that Alfred Dreyfus is seen as foreign on two counts. He speaks French with a German accent, and of course he's Jewish. And the military is full of these Alsatians, and they're going to be on both sides of the affair. They're going to be people who are on the pro-Dreyfusard camp, and they're going to be on the right Dreyfusard camp. And they're Catholics, Protestants, and Jews. And it's not surprising that they're all there. They're all there because they want very much to get an efficient army that will reincorporate these lost provinces and their homeland. So what happens next is that there's evidence, and it's very poor evidence, but he's brought up before a court-martial. Why do they think it's him? What's he done?

Well, they think it's him because they make him write his handwriting, and there's a slight resemblance between his handwriting and this thing called a bodoho. writing and this thing called the Bodoho. And also they immediately suspect him because he's one of those people that is seen as somehow not part of the gang. And it's a very interesting thing. He's very reserved. He comes in ninth in the competitive examinations, even though one of the examiners has completely failed him. He's seen as, in that regard, the ultimate Jew who is making a case for himself through the new meritocratic system. And so the people who are suspicious of him are also often aristocrats, men who've come up from the ranks, and they're convinced that it's him. And this is where the original anti-Semitism is hard not to acknowledge. And he's not allowed to see anyone. And it just goes on and on. And in fact,

he's brought up before the court martial. There's evidence that he's not allowed to see because it's seen as national security. His lawyer is not used to working inside a military tribunal and in the end he is degraded in front of a massive crowd in the Ecole Militaire in Paris and they chop off his epaulettes and they break his sword in fact they break the sword in advance and then re-solder it so it can be broken more dramatically which is an extraordinary aspect of the whole ritualized dimension of this. And they're screaming, down with the Jews, down with the Judas. So there's a reenactment of an almost primordial biblical scene that goes on. And what's so extraordinary is that he's meant to be going to New Caledonia for life imprisonment. And in

that case, his wife would be able to join him. But they come up with a special punishment for him. And that is that he will be taken to this place, Devil's Island, and placed in solitary confinement. There's fears that he will escape. So after a few months, they build a palisade around him. He's not allowed to see anything but the sky. And at night, he's manacled to the bed. So what's interesting, again, is this idea of the Enlightenment France, but he almost becomes the man with the iron mask. It's as if we go back to the Anselm regime and the guards are not allowed to speak to him. So he almost goes mad. You mentioned this sort of outburst of anti-Semitism in France. Now that you're saying it, there are similarities, aren't there, with Germany after the First World

War. This 1870-71, France has been humiliated. It's lost territory. It's been utterly defeated by its traditional enemies, the Germans. Were there voices saying it's because, you know, somehow it was the fault of the Jews or these other groups within France who were insufficiently patriotic? Do you see similar currents there? to intensify that current. There's always aspects of anti-Semitism that float around. But in the years leading up to the affair, there's a growing amount of both wounded patriotism and disaffection from the Republic. And it's very interesting. You have first the Boulanger Affair, where there's a populist general who almost has a coup d'etat because he's seen as somehow the man of the hour who's going to restore France to its glory. And in the end, the Republic undermines him and says, look, you can't. We're going to arrest you for conspiracy. And he runs away to Belgium and shoots himself. Then there's the Panama scandal.

And this is really important because right before Dreyfus is a Panama scandal. It comes out in 1892, 93, and over 800,000 small investors, almost all of them Catholic, lose their money in the scam surrounding the Panama Canal Company. And the people involved in that, Baron Reinach, he's a Jew. And we all know from the losses of our own financial 2007, 2008, that this loss is so shattering to people. And it's seen as both Jews and Republicans who have taken rag called La Libre Parole, The Free Word. And what he does is the whole paper is designated for anti-Semitism. And that's what it writes about. It talks about conspiracy. It talks about Jewish magic. And he himself wears a mandrake root around his neck to ward off the effusions from Jews, to prevent himself from being affected by Jews. And although people on the Catholic right who have more integrity worry about him, they nonetheless know him and deal with him. So that includes the Jesuits who are running the schools that feed the army

and people who are very opposed to the Republic. So anti-Semitism becomes a very important ingredient here, and with it, an obsession with conspiracy. And again, that's very important, I think, about the past and present relationship of the Dreyfus Affair. You mentioned people that are the Republicans, the Jews, these are the sort of liberal elites, they're multi-confessional, they might be secular, they are running this Republican experiment, you know, they don't want aristocrats, kings, popes, that kind of thing. And then again, lined up against them the forces of sort of conservatism, Catholics, claiming they speak for the overlooked man in the provinces, the kind of people that are losing their money in these schemes run by these kind of big city

slickers. Exactly. It does all sound a little bit familiar. But it's also very interesting because one of the problems is like all these kinds of debates where people are so divided, there's elements of truth. It's true that these people are small investors and many of them are Catholic and they lose their money. And on the other side, what's going on is that the republic has taken over primary education. They've secularized the schools. They have secularized the hospitals. They've secularized the schools. They have secularized the hospitals. And so those people on the other side feel that all kinds of institutions that were central to traditional

society are being eaten away by this elite. It's not many of whom, it's only a few, but they see them as Protestants and Jews because they are the ones who are seen as benefiting the most from these new meritocratic standards. As you're describing this, I'm suddenly understanding why this, you know, on paper, people are thinking, well, this is a slightly obscure case of espionage or rightly or wrongly accused in the 19th century. Why have we all heard of the Dreyfus affair? Why is it the most famous event in 19th century France post-Napoleon? Is it because actually it just encapsulates this really gigantic struggle at the heart of French life in the late 19th century France, post-Napoleon. Is it because actually it just encapsulates this really gigantic struggle at the heart of French life in the late 19th century?

I think it does encapsulate this tremendous struggle. But I also think that one of the reasons that it's figured so prominently is, is it a harbinger for fascism in the 20th century? is it a harbinger for fascism in the 20th century? Is the kind of anti-Semitism that's unleashed a harbinger? Do we trace it back to here? Now, I've argued in my books and elsewhere that we can't read history backwards in that way, though it's tempting because the level of anti-Semitism is so extreme and so violent, we tend to associate it with Germany. But I think at this juncture, you really see a tremendous amount of it in France. And given that France is supposedly the home of the Enlightenment, it's even more jarring. But I think you're right. It does encapsulate, but it also makes people believe that there are only two sides. And that's what's very interesting. Two monolithic blocks. When in fact, at the beginning of the affair, you'll find amongst the intellectuals, many people who didn't know which side to go on.

And that's fascinating as well, because that raises the whole question about where people's loyalties lie. And of course, what happens is the intellectuals say, we are the purveyors of truth and justice, and you are tradition, and you're willing to stoop to anything in the name of your patriotism. It's a false loyalty. So again, it's about universalism versus the nation, and the nation conceived as something not French, and hence the emphasis on anti-Semitism. You're listening to Dan Snow's History. We're talking about the Dreyfus Affair. More coming up. into the greatest mysteries, the gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research from the greatest millennium in human history. We're talking Vikings,

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So this affair becomes the lens through which everyone starts to engage in a debate about the nature of Frenchness, the nature of modernity. I mean, the biggest possible questions about how we live together in a society. I agree. And I think that for those who participated in it, remember, Dreyfus is condemned in 1894. He's condemned again in 1899 in the split verdict. So whilst he's in this terrible confinement off the coast of South America, off the coast of Guyana in South America, there's huge debates out there and attempts to get retrials and it's all rumbling on. Exactly. Yes, but he's not exonerated until 1906. This goes on forever, over 20 years. But yes, what you're saying is really true. I mean, it's only through Zola's intervention,

the famous novelist, Émile Zola, who writes an open letter in a newspaper, L'Aurore, called Jacuzzi, I accuse you. And until this time, in the end of 1897, 1898, people keep on trying to fix it behind the scenes. They keep on saying, we have all this evidence to prove that he's not the man. There's already been somebody who's come up and said, look, the handwriting, I know because I'm a stockbroker and the real culprit's handwriting on the Boudreaux, because it's been published in the press, was one of my clients. His name is Walson Esterhazy. They know for a long time who this guy is. So that's extraordinary. But it's Zola who comes out, and he writes this extraordinary letter. He's a magnificent wordsmith. He writes with such a verb,

it comes off almost like a song. They employ all these children on the street to market, say, jacuzz, jacuzz, jacuzz. 300,000 people buy the paper that day. There's a paper shortage. They have to find extra paper. So it's an extraordinary thing. Zola gets a lot of things wrong, too. He exaggerates this and that. But it's after that that the affair blows and it becomes a public affair. And that's why people take up

these positions that seem almost existential, and they demonize each other. And one of the problems is Zola is a very, very controversial figure. I mean, he's often portrayed as a pig. His literature is seen as a kind of violent naturalism, opposed to Catholicism, very, very dirty in every sense, sexualized. And so it only increases the right in their detestation of the Dreyfusard. And that's something that people don't realize because people think, oh, Zola was a great champion, but of course it was very ambivalent for them. And in the end, he has to lead to England. So in the same way that on social media, either side get very excited when, quote unquote, you dunk on the other side, you produce the absolute killer post or video or tweet. But in fact, that only enrages the other side even more.

It gives heart to your fans, but only enrages the other side even more. It gives heart to your fans, but it enrages the other side. It's exactly what happened. And we have to remember that we're in an age of mass circulation papers, and we're finally in an age of almost complete literacy because of the Republic making sure that everybody goes to school. So everyone has access to this stuff, and that's why it's so important. And I think, again, that's a past and present parallel that's very important in thinking about why people were so riled. And what's so interesting is that, again, despite all this evidence, the army rejects and rejects and rejects Dreyfus's innocence.

The first person to discover it isn't Dreyfus, Colonel Picard. He's imprisoned. He's imprisoned. Wow. He's imprisoned. Yes. Yes, he's imprisoned. They try to send him away and he's imprisoned, yes. Yes, he's imprisoned. They try to send him away, and he's in prison for a time.

And all this time, Dreyfus knows nothing about it. He keeps on writing to his superiors, asking them to exonerate him and to reopen the investigation. And one of them is his chiefs. He doesn't realize that one of the people involved that he's writing to to get help is, in fact, one of the conspirators. It's an ugly story. And what happens to Esterhazy? The stockbroker goes, this is one of my clients. I know that handwriting.

Does Esterhazy get dragged in front of a tribunal? Well, he does, but he never gets convicted and he ends up living in England. So, you see, it's an extraordinary story. I think that what is so interesting, again, is that we have the final coup de grâce, and that is the forgery that is done by a man named Henri. And they discover it. It's two pieces of paper that are put together very badly

to incriminate Dreyfus. And they bring him in and they recognize that he's forged this. Wow. So the army now, they've gone from wrongly convicting to actively trying to cover up and create a case against Dreyfus. Okay. Yes, and now what's going on is, again, this notion of loyalty. He is doing it out of loyalty. But, of course, he's engaged in criminal activity. He's brought before his superiors, and after an hour, he admits that he's done it. They put him in prison, and then he kills himself. Now, you'd think that after that, that would have been the end.

But it's not. That's the moment when Charles Morrois, who becomes a very important supporter of Vichy in the 1940s, comes out with this extraordinary, in his newspaper, defense of Henri as the true patriot and creates a martyrology around him. He also solicits what they call the Monument Henri, and what that is is all these denunciations of Dreyfus and Jews, and these are all published. And so we get, this is why the hideous discussions of the fantasies of Jew hatred, some of which are really unspeakable. And in the end, it still doesn't mean that Dreyfus comes back, but he does finally in 1899. And this is something that if you go to a provincial French town square, you'd have been involved in this discussion. Would this have reached every kind of corner of France? Well, that's what's so interesting.

Because of the ups and downs and the lulls, I think there are times when everybody's talking about it. There are riots and demonstrations around Zola's trial for defamation. But then there are times when it's just, oh, and what I think is interesting is it's almost as we have today, the commentariat are involved in their wars in the press and online, and many people don't know what's going on. So I think that's also really interesting because many people care, and then there are periods where they don't care. And I think that's actually much more honest

appraisal. I think people who write about the Dreyfus Affair don't acknowledge this. There are riots in Algeria over this. So it's also that part of France that is in North Africa or perceived as being French in North Africa. There are riots or some people even call them pogroms in 1898 in various parts of France. But then there are other places where people don't seem to be that riled about it. They see it as a Parisian affair. So it depends where you are, what time is going on, and the level of engagement. And that is what they use that term in French, engagement. This idea that even if you're an intellectual or a professor or a writer, you must engage. Because without it, these standards of truth and justice fall to nothing. of truth and justice fall to nothing. So you mentioned that he was tried again in 1899 and found guilty.

Yes. And it's a very interesting story because you can imagine he comes back and people don't like him. I mean, this is what is so extraordinary. He comes back and he's extremely reserved man. He's lost much of his teeth because of the malnutrition and what he's gone through. He's like a stick figure. He's so thin. He's so unexercised. And he has to stuff his old uniform as he walks into the court. And it comes across as very mechanical. And he's got a monotone voice. He's doing everything he can to keep himself upright. You know, the French, like, they want verve. They want eloquence. They want a hero who's been victimized. And he gives them none of that. He hates melodrama. He hates excess. He's a very

reserved man. And the Dreyfusards, who are expecting exoneration, then realize that things are going against them, and they can't believe it. Picard, the person who has defended him, And they can't believe it. Picard, the person who has defended him, is not even allowed to appear in uniform because he's been imprisoned and he's seen as a conspirator by the army. So the effect that they are searching for does not happen. And he is convicted a second time, which is just extraordinary. And nobody writes about this. Nobody wants to talk about how this could happen. But it's almost a split decision. He's for 10 years in prison. And then

it says extenuating circumstances. It's a verdict like no other in French history. And it's terrible. Listen to Dan Snow's history hit more Dreyfus affair after this. Rob-smacking details and latest groundbreaking research from the greatest millennium in human history. We're talking Vikings, Normans, Kings and Popes, who were rarely the best of friends, murder, rebellions, and crusades. Find out who we really were by subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit,

wherever you get your podcasts. and in that second trial the army know without a doubt that they have found their spy and it was Esther Halsey it's not clear because we don't know what those military judges were thinking. There's so many stories, so many tales about how he could have done it still that it's not clear. But there is obviously a profound uncertainty because of the split decision. And I think what's so interesting is that in the end, the brothers, Dreyfus has a brother named Mathieu, they work for a pardon. And a pardon is not exoneration. So many of the most extreme Dreyfusards are upset that he wants a pardon.

They want him to go back to prison because they feel that they have to prove that he's not guilty. But of course, the brothers and many of his closest, especially Jewish associates, know that he will die if he goes to prison. It's very interesting. This is not a story of everyone realizing about a miscarriage of justice, apologising and moving on together. This is a story of a bitterly divided, split contest in the end with the presidential pardon.

It doesn't sound to me like any of the people who had spent all those years harassing and declaiming Dreyfus, none of them sort of said, oh, look, I've just reviewed the evidence. It turns out I don't think he's guilty. I mean, this is not a heartwarming story from that point of view. What I find most disturbing about the affair is that it's sordid. People try to make it heroic, but the second condemnation is a really disturbing story. I mean, there is so much evidence. And I think, again, this is a past and present story that we tend to think that rational demonstration shifts people's views. But what the case demonstrates is how that is just not true. That in fact, the Dreyfusards are often seen as censorious, school marmy, using their status as teachers, professors, intellectuals to lecture people on

the other side who keep on insisting, I know what I know. I think that's, again, really important to think about today, because that whole idea of constantly producing evidence has not shifted our own political climate, like some of us think it should. So it suggests something very different. And the other aspect of the case, after the second court-martial, is that everyone in the affair, even those who had committed all these crimes, are equally amnestied. So the Dreyfusards are just horrified that the men who participated in the conspiracy against Dreyfus are not going to be going to prison. So it's a very disturbing case. And those who want on the other side to get Dreyfus back in prison because they have to fight to the end, his family, and especially his brother, are convinced that he will die if he goes back to prison. And so they do everything to save him. And it takes years for him to recover. He has terrible nightmares and he's broken. He seems broken. He isn't broken.

He actually is a service officer. He works in the army during World War I, finally. Extraordinary. Yeah. But he feels broken. Yeah. He serves during World War I. His son fights all the way through World War I. Exactly. For a family that was said to be traitorous and remarkable. There isn't anything but. Does the Dreyfus affair have serious constitutional or just political implications for the French state? I think it has endless implications in ways that are still reverberating and that often are not intuitive. First of all, in the aftermath, when the Republicans do get back into power,

they're so angry at what they see as the Catholic conspiracy that they start to purge the army of Catholic officers. It's called the Affaire des Fiches. So they take revenge. And even if these are people who just are part of Vincent de Paul's society, these are people who visit the sick in Catholic hospitals. They're Catholics who visit the sick. They are now being watched, and their promotions slowed. So there's a revenge tactic. Of course, it sets up the dynamic for the separation of church and state in 1905. And it's, as I said, only in 1906 that they decide they will be able to break the military judgment in the Cour de Cassation, the highest court, they break the judgment, and he is finally exonerated. But of course, when Zola is brought into the Pantheon, Dreyfus is one of the pole

bearers, and somebody shoots him. It's just a little nothing, but it just goes to show that it's just very hard for people to let this go. And that it has to do with profound passions on both sides. And I think that the whole idea of the engagement of the intellectuals, it's very important, for example, to Leon Blum during the popular front government in the 1930s. He's a young man during the affair, but just as he's about to take power in the 1930s, he writes a memoir called Souvenirs sur l'Affaire, and he's trying to get people again to engage in the Popular Front by bringing back the glory days of the Dreyfus Affair.

And then again, during the Algerian War, it's the intellectuals who were trying to save France from these post-colonial horrors in North Africa. So these things are very important in the left, but it's also really important in the right. Even 20 years ago, there were still families who thought Dreyfus was guilty. So it's part also, it has a dynastic dimension in the political psyche. It goes down, it's transferred from one generation to the other. And I think it's very important to realize how rigid these typologies were and how it affects people in especially moments of crisis.

Should we finish by looking at one other legacy? A young journalist, an Austrian journalist, Theodor Herzl, was watching the affair closely, and he came away with a very profound conclusion. Well, he believes what's important is that Jews will never be able to properly assimilate in France and in Europe in general. And he argues for a Zionist solution. He doesn't seem quite aware that in promoting a Jewish form of nationalism and self-determination, he's adding to the nationalisms that are part of the kind of blind emotional passion of the affair itself. The persecution and the consolidation of the right terrifies him. And when he meets Jews, French Jews, he thinks they're not willing to stand up for themselves. And instead, he argues for the establishment of a state of Israel.

It's very interesting. He's just one amongst many. It's one of the people we know. But what's interesting, it's not just him. It's one of the earliest Dreyfusards, goes into muted memory. And of course, by the 1930s, anti-Semitism roars up to the center of political culture again, all pretty much across the continent. Well, Ruth Harris, thank you very much for coming on the podcast, telling us all about this remarkable episode, your brilliant book, The Man on Devil's Island, Alfred Dreyfus and the Affair that Divided France, won all sorts of prizes, rightly so. Thank you very much for

coming on the podcast. Thank you so much. you