The Dreyfus Affair was a defining moment for French politics as well as a social representation that occurred in the nineteenth century. Dreyfus Affair was a challenge that entailed criticizing people based on presumptions and concealing a situation. The early nineteenth century to the Dreyfus Affair, the Franco Prussian conflict began with the France government losing, and Paris was under a siege, as the Prussians captured Alsace and Lorraine. With such a defeat, politics and the community changed for the worst. Politically, France experienced internal fights involving a republic (Third Republic) against a communist rebellion (Paris Commune). In social aspects, France was beginning to possess the immigrants from Lorraine and Alsace, Captain Dreyfus being among them. In 1850, France was flooded with settlers from Central and Western Europe as well as Russia (Datta, 2017). By 1880, France started to intermingle with several immigrants, various religions, and diverse political ideologies. It is, therefore, critical to examine how politics, societal variations, and religious standings contributed to a French identity crisis within the context of Dreyfus Affair, particularly with religious minorities.
The Dreyfus Affair transformed France as well as the picture that the world perceived about anti-Semitism and political disorders. Dreyfus Affair played a significant role in uncovering the political and social tensions within France. In the entire century preceding the Dreyfus Affair, France moved between various revolts and French identity. As a matter of fact, the media and presentation of crude politics within a dissatisfied community caused by the defeat in the Franco-Prussian battle, the fall of the Second Empire, and the formation of a communist mission, amounted to the French society (Achinger & Fine, 2017) . The French society constituted political and social differences during the time of the Dreyfus Affair and the war that occurred before World War I.
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For a good understanding of why the political shifts influenced the Dreyfus Affair, it is significant to examine the background of politics in France. The First French Republic after the revolutions took place between 1792 and 1804, which occurred until Napoleon announced himself to be the Emperor of the First Empire of France in 1804 (Achinger & Fine, 2017) . In 1792, the monarchial government declined and the Reign of terror and National Convention was created. The National Convention had the intention of ending the monarchial government, coming up with a new constitution and depriving the king all the powers that he was exercising before (Maunder, 2017) . The Committee of Public Safety took over and upon the creation of the Reign of Terror under Maximillian Robespierre, where they had an obligation of restraining the radical revolutions of the Enrages, eliminating the food deficiencies and rebellions as well as the challenges of the army.
In 1795, the Directory was created, then about a decade later; Napoleon established a revolution and pronounced himself as the Emperor (Orain, 2018) . Between 1815 and 1830, the Bourbons recovered the power, under Louis XVIII, after which Charles X took over. Charles X reaffirms Catholic authority within France and the media was greatly suppressed. Until the time of revolutions of 1848, Louis Philippe took over the throne under the July Monarchy (Murrell, 2017). Again, after these revolutions, the Second Republic was formed under Louis Napoleon, who was a nephew to Napoleon. In 1851, Louis Napoleon pronounced himself as Napoleon III of the Second Empire (Datta, 2017). The Second Empire dominated until the Franco-Prussian battle, which Napoleon III was detained and he was left with no option but to give up. At the close of the year 1870, the Third Republic was formed, and the subsequent year March, the Paris Commune became in charge for two entire months (Murrell, 2017).
Considering this context of French political history, the political variations could have influenced France. The extreme political and judicial outrages that followed separated French society between the people that stood beside Dreyfus like Georges Clemenceau and Henri Poincare as well as those that criticized him like Edouard Drumont. As the year 1894 was ending, the perspective of the French political group was collectively opposed towards Dreyfus (Murrell, 2017). This includes the resistance of the Radicals and Socialists that amounted to a moderate government that had its political decisions focused on economic protection, a positive disagreement to the social issue, a readiness to disrupt global segregation, the Russian union, and the establishment of the Empire.
The Dreyfus Affair steered a distinct restructuring of the French political view, a way of reinforcing parliamentary democratic system and a fall of monarchist and medieval groups. The extreme oppression of the nationalist groups united Republicans to become a combined front, which then frustrated efforts to go back to the older practice (Maunder, 2017) . The shocking persecutions of Esterhazy and Zola formed a dyefusian type of politics that was intended to create a Republican awareness and to counter authoritarian nationalism, which demonstrated itself at this time of the affair.
Nationalism had its own challenges, but it sustained its political force with the tag Action Francoise (1898) and among others. The victory was maintained until the conquest of 1940 when after five decades of battles; it assumed power and adopted the old vision of Drumont, “to cleanse” the condition had well recognized repercussions (Achinger & Fine, 2017) . In 1901, France witnessed the naissance of the Republican radical socialist group, the initial modern political group, created as an electoral system of the Republican Party. It possessed an enduring framework and depended on connections and associations of Dreyfusards. The formation of the French Union for Human Rights was concurrent with the Dreyfus Affair. It was the center of the academic left and exceedingly active as the century began, the morality of the humanist left (Orain, 2018) . The ultimate impact on the political situation as the century began was an intense rebirth of political figures with the fading away of renowned republican personalities such as Auguste Scheurer-Kestner.
There was an almost similar scandal prior to the Dreyfus Affair called the Panama Scandal. The challenge with the Panama Scandal was that it amounted to tendencies of animosity and disregard towards the Jews. Augustin Solomon first spearheaded the scandal. Augustin Solomon is a French Jew that missed his enterprise from the government of Colombia, partly because of what a French representative elaborated, “The fundamentals of the world are here, but the label of Señor Solomon is not appearing to be evidently Christian so that he is accorded the role of being a guardian of Saint Peter (Achinger & Fine, 2017) .” The building started in 1890, but the scandal-comprised collusion to bribe French government representatives that led to 1.8 billion francs being lost to about 800,000 French shareholders (Datta, 2017). The scandal also concerned two Jewish financiers who had their roots in German, Baron Jacques and Cornelious Herz that were masterminds of disbursing this corrupted money. Edouard Drumont’s anti-Semitic magazine called La Libre Parole, portrayed the story to despise the Jews, creating a platform for Dreyfus Affair to push for what he did not agree with.
The Influence of Anti-Semitism and Religious Beliefs on the Third Republic
The process of French being divided started and insisted until the end of the century. Anti-Sematic unrests exploded in more than 20 French metropolises (Maunder, 2017) . The Dreyfus Affair generated several anti-Semitic revolutions, which as a result influenced the sensations with the Jewish societies of Central and Western Europe. These unrests had an influence on the global revolution of Zionism by encouraging one of its patriarchs, Theodor Herzl. He formed a platform for Jews to be aggressive about these unrests and form their own city. The expansion of anti-Semitism, active from the publication of Jewish France by Edouard in 1886, was consistent with the upsurge of clericalism (Murrell, 2017). Unrests had increased in all regions of the communities, stimulated by a manipulated media, which was literally free to express any information to the public not minding whether they were insulting or defamatory.
Anti-Semitism also dealt with the military that supported segregation privately. This section of the military among other people discriminated against people with the famed “Cote d’ amour” routine of unreasonable grading that Dreyfus experienced himself while he was applying to the Bourges School. During this time of Dreyfus Affair, there were approximately 300 Jewish military officers, ten of them being generals, who privately practiced discrimination (Orain, 2018) . The anti-Semitism propagated by La Libre Parole, L’éclair, Le Petit Journal, La Patrie, L’Intransigeant, as well as La Croix was based on anti-Semitic backgrounds in some Catholic regions. Anti-Semitism was also spread in the offices, and it increasingly took the attention of the affair by completing the credibility disparities in the initial investigation of Dreyfus qualifying to be a cold and uncaring, arrogant and curious individual (Murrell, 2017). These attributes of Dreyfus worked intensely against him.
In September 1894, the Dreyfus Affair was exposed in a newspaper in La Libre Parole, the anti-Semitic article spearheaded by Edouard Drumont (Orain, 2018) . Evidently, this was the start of an extremely violent press crusade until the trial. This occasion is what amounted to the affair in the framework of anti-Semitism where it continued until the end. The crusade for the review spread little by little into the leftist anti-military media prompting a reoccurrence of harsh yet equivocal anti-Semitism. France became exceedingly anti-Dreyfusard. The militarist press was triggered to help the traitor with an unparalleled anti-Semitic crusade. The Dreyfusard press responded to this situation with a new stream of evidence. From that time, anti-Semitism became an official campaign and it was exercised in various environments including the workplaces. Murrell (2017) emphasizes that the anti-Semitism was strengthened by the problem of the split-up of the church and state that occurred in 1905, leading to its height in France.
How the Nationalist Views Influenced French Political Schemes
The Germans witnessed Dreyfus Affair within the invasion of Alsace and Lorraine, an occasion that triggered the most severe racism. The social framework was evidenced by the emergence of nationalism and anti-Semitism. The uncontrollable expansion of populist nationals was also another serious outcome of the event in French politics, although it did not come from the Dreyfus Affair. According to Datta (2017), it was founded by the Boulanger Affair between 1886 and 1889, shaping coherent theory that Maurice Barres instituted in 1892.
The media, not being limited by most censorship, stimulated the Dreyfus Affair. In fact, the media was not only biased, but also, did not care about what they posted, to win the attention of readers and influenced them negatively. Sandherr, the Minister of War was unforgivingly criticized in the press because of how he acted, which was considered unprofessional and selfish, as he was only concerned with protecting his image. Within the two months before the trial, the press intensified their influence. La Libre Parole, Le Journal, L’Autorite, and Le Temps depicted the life of Dreyfus through pretense and painted a bad picture about him. It was a chance that La Libre Parole and La Croix utilized to greatly excuse their former campaigns against the existence of the Jews in the military team using the theme, “You have been told (Achinger & Fine, 2017) .” This extended suspension or delay caused the General Staff to form public opinion and coerce the judges with a lot of boldness.
The fighting of the writers occurred within a broader discussion concerning the fact that a closed court was the lowest operation to facilitate the release of Dreyfus, “since the minister was fearful.” Meanwhile, in the anti-Semitic papers, they all advocated for a closed court. Anti-Semitism was propagated in the media and was practiced even in the regions that had not experienced it for a long time (Murrell, 2017). Jean Jaures was surprised and could not understand why the soldier would still be left alive after he threw a button in front of his corporal, even though he had a death sentence.
A new problem came up in December 1898, while dealing with a serious matter in the Supreme Court, the president of the Civil Chamber blamed the Criminal Unit of Dreyfusism in the media (Maunder, 2017) . Datta (2017) explains that he surrendered his job at the beginning of 1899 as an iconic figure of the nationalist course. General Mercier, a defender of the anti-Dreyfusards, interceded continuously in the media to support the precision of the initial judgment that stated that Dreyfus is certainly guilty. Anti-French unrests occurred in twenty external capitals and the media was annoyed. Feedbacks were two-way. The British concentrated on surveillance and rejected an opinion lacking positive arguments in its formation.
The media was viewed to have a social impact, it had a significant role, and this was the first time it relevantly influenced the French’s political life. It was likely to explore the aspect of a fourth estate as it could represent all state organs, particularly as the high editorial quality of the press was majorly a combination of the inputs of writers and novelists that capitalized on the articles as a revolutionary method of communication. The influence of the press evidently causes politicians to be active, an instance that favored Mercier, who seemed to have supported Dreyfus’ trial in 1894 to make La Libre Parole happy (Orain, 2018) .
In France, the population was divided into three groups on their perspective concerning the Dreyfus Affair namely Dreyfusards, Dreyfusists, and Dreyfusiens. Dreyfusards were the initial supporters of Dreyfus, right from the beginning (Orain, 2018) . Dreyfusists are those that examined things critically by going beyond the case and see the need to put society, politics and the operations of the government to scrutiny. Dreyfusiens were only felt in December 1898, when the conflict between the anti-Dreyfusards and Dreyfusards was so intense and when the Dreyfus Affair put the stability of the region in jeopardy (Murrell, 2017). They were motivated to end the affair by silencing everything so that the Republican parliamentary system would be shielded.
The Dreyfus Affair influenced France in several ways, both politically and socially. This influence was propagated through the media and the loose regimes as well as religious perspectives to the religious subgroups like Jews, Protestants, and Muslims. The republic-attained maturity after the protests resulted into the exoneration of Dreyfus, and the region was apparently recognized by most of the citizens as the only government that was workable for France (Achinger & Fine, 2017) . It guaranteed supremacy over the military and frustrated all the efforts of the monarchists and militarists that desired the reinstitution of the monarchy.
In conclusion, the Dreyfus Affair strengthened the democratic parliament and suggested the values of democracy, but more significantly, it proclaimed the triumph of the reactionary army, and the victory of the republic was sealed in 1905 by the separation of church and state, thereby losing religion in politics (Orain, 2018) . It widened the gap between the anti-republic and pro-republic movement, then it untied the right-winged parties together to bring down the republic. Dreyfus Affair endeavored to fulfill this by bringing together groups with completely varying perspectives and by bringing back hope of collapsing the republic by shifting the public opinion as well as calling for a referendum to alter the constitution and restore the authoritarian government. Leftwing groups had to resist the confrontations levied upon them by the rightwing media. Leftwing parties had to provide evidence that Dreyfus was blameless and the army was compromised. The impact of the Dreyfus affairs can be witnessed in Vichy France and their coalition with Nazi Germany. The Vichy government countered the nationalists and rightwing tendencies that were unsuccessful to defeat the republic during the Dreyfus affair.
References
Achinger, C., & Fine, R. (2017). Antisemitism in France: Historical Context. In Antisemitism and Racism (pp. 50-50). Routledge.
Datta, V. (2017). Patrick McGuinness, Poetry and Radical Politics in Fin de Siècle France: From Anarchism to Action Française.
Maunder, A. (2017). The Novelization of the Dreyfus Affair: Femininity and Sensation in Fin- de-Siècle France. In Victorian Crime, Madness and Sensation (pp. 177-192). Routledge.
Murrell, D. (2017). An Affair on Every Continent: French Reaction to the Foreign Press during the Dreyfus Affair. Penn History Review , 24 (1), 5.
Orain, M. (2018). Changing modes of intervention of the French intellectual from the Dreyfus affair to today: Sartre, Lévy, Hessel (Doctoral dissertation, Birkbeck, University of London).
