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The Dreyfus Affair: The Scandal That Tore France in Two
A compelling account of one of the most high-profile and influential miscarriages of justice in French history - the Dreyfus affair.
416 pages, Hardcover
First published February 1, 2012
About the author
Piers Paul Read
63 books130 followersBritish novelist and non-fiction writer. Educated at the Benedictines' Ampleforth College, and subsequently entered St John's College, University of Cambridge where he received his BA and MA (history). Artist-in-Residence at the Ford Foundation in Berlin (1963-4), Harkness Fellow, Commonwealth Fund, New York (1967-8), member of the Council of the Institute of Contemporary Arts (1971-5), member of the Literature Panel at the Arts Council, (1975-7), and Adjunct Professor of Writing, Columbia University, New York (1980). From 1992-7 he was Chairman of the Catholic Writers' Guild. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (FRSL).
His most well-known work is the non-fiction Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors (1974), an account of the aftermath of a plane crash in the Andes, later adapted as a film.
His most well-known work is the non-fiction Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors (1974), an account of the aftermath of a plane crash in the Andes, later adapted as a film.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 49 reviews
November 26, 2014
Marcel Proust introduced me to the Dreyfus Affair. While reading his masterpiece À la recherche du temps perdu, I grew interested on this political scandal who seemed to have divided France in two opposing sides - the Dreyfusards and the anti-Dreyfusards - because, for being such an important part of French history, it was largely present throughout Proust’s story and characters.
The Dreyfus Affair, by Piers Paul Read, depicts the sad but unfortunately true story of French captain Alfred Dreyfus, Jewish descent and military involved in a trial and conviction for treason for having sold Army secrets to a member of the German Embassy in Paris. Only he was innocent.
Before jumping into Dreyfus’s trial in 1894, the author rightly gives us a political and religious context of France some years before it all happened, going back to the French Revolution that took place from 1789 to 1799. This context helps us to understand, among other key aspects, how the Jewish community stood on the society and how the Frenchmen held their Army really high in prestige.
As a result of his wrongful conviction, Dreyfus was sentenced for life imprisonment and deported to the Devil’s Island, which is located off the coast of the French Guiana, in South America. There, he had to live under inhumane conditions (isolation, bad diet, later he had to sleep shackled to his bed...) Throughout all of this, his wife Lucie kept corresponding with him through letters - although she was not permitted to write about the case itself -, and this communication helped Alfred get through, in hope to prove his innocence and to once again return to the arms of his wife and children.
Two years later of his conviction, in 1896, there was some evidence showing that the real culprit was indeed someone else. It was fascinating yet immensely exasperating to find out how the High Command of the Army and members of the Government, once aware of the wrongful conviction of Dreyfus and knowing the identity of the true ‘spy’, major Esterhazy, fought to keep the unlucky captain in the Devil’s Island while protecting the vile major, trying to save the honor of the institution by not admitting their horrid mistake.
The press also played a big part in the affair, not so much by describing the events taking place at the time, but ultimately by being used through leaks and made-up stories to divide the public's opinion and influence the case towards whatever their objectives were. Émile Zola, the famous French novelist, also entered the game in the Dreyfusard side by writing an open letter titled J’accuse…! to President Faure in a newspaper L'Aurore, for he was tired and outraged after major Esterhazy was acquitted on his court martial. He would end up being tried and convicted for criminal libel in 1898.
Piers Paul Read also succeeds in not making his account of events a mere dispute of Semitism vs. anti-Semitism. He takes time to give us profiles on everyone involved and tries to explain why each person took the decisions they did and what were their agendas. Also, being impartial, he goes through the book without creating vilans and never placing Dreyfus up in a pedestal. Although I couldn't help but loathe most of the people involved in this “miscarriage of justice”, as the Dreyfus Affair became known.
Rating: aside the unfortunate subject (or maybe because of it), this is a great read. The ‘plot’ is so intricate I felt sometimes I was reading a great novel which was impossible to put down. 4 stars.
The Dreyfus Affair, by Piers Paul Read, depicts the sad but unfortunately true story of French captain Alfred Dreyfus, Jewish descent and military involved in a trial and conviction for treason for having sold Army secrets to a member of the German Embassy in Paris. Only he was innocent.
Before jumping into Dreyfus’s trial in 1894, the author rightly gives us a political and religious context of France some years before it all happened, going back to the French Revolution that took place from 1789 to 1799. This context helps us to understand, among other key aspects, how the Jewish community stood on the society and how the Frenchmen held their Army really high in prestige.
As a result of his wrongful conviction, Dreyfus was sentenced for life imprisonment and deported to the Devil’s Island, which is located off the coast of the French Guiana, in South America. There, he had to live under inhumane conditions (isolation, bad diet, later he had to sleep shackled to his bed...) Throughout all of this, his wife Lucie kept corresponding with him through letters - although she was not permitted to write about the case itself -, and this communication helped Alfred get through, in hope to prove his innocence and to once again return to the arms of his wife and children.
Two years later of his conviction, in 1896, there was some evidence showing that the real culprit was indeed someone else. It was fascinating yet immensely exasperating to find out how the High Command of the Army and members of the Government, once aware of the wrongful conviction of Dreyfus and knowing the identity of the true ‘spy’, major Esterhazy, fought to keep the unlucky captain in the Devil’s Island while protecting the vile major, trying to save the honor of the institution by not admitting their horrid mistake.
The press also played a big part in the affair, not so much by describing the events taking place at the time, but ultimately by being used through leaks and made-up stories to divide the public's opinion and influence the case towards whatever their objectives were. Émile Zola, the famous French novelist, also entered the game in the Dreyfusard side by writing an open letter titled J’accuse…! to President Faure in a newspaper L'Aurore, for he was tired and outraged after major Esterhazy was acquitted on his court martial. He would end up being tried and convicted for criminal libel in 1898.
Piers Paul Read also succeeds in not making his account of events a mere dispute of Semitism vs. anti-Semitism. He takes time to give us profiles on everyone involved and tries to explain why each person took the decisions they did and what were their agendas. Also, being impartial, he goes through the book without creating vilans and never placing Dreyfus up in a pedestal. Although I couldn't help but loathe most of the people involved in this “miscarriage of justice”, as the Dreyfus Affair became known.
Rating: aside the unfortunate subject (or maybe because of it), this is a great read. The ‘plot’ is so intricate I felt sometimes I was reading a great novel which was impossible to put down. 4 stars.
December 18, 2022
A decade ago I attempted a tandem read of Proust's In Search of Lost Time with a reading friend; he made it through all of the books, I hit the wall in Guermantes Way and fell out. My issues began with the Dreyfus Affair - I just had no idea what the fuss was about, and in the days before Wikipedia, any of the online resources about the Affair were thin, at best. Not able to wrap my mind around the Affair, I soon lost my way amongst Proust's description of Parisian society and ultimately slogged my way through to the end of the book.
I promised myself when I joined Proustitute's reading of ISoLT that I wouldn't start GW until I felt I adequately understood why the Dreyfus Affair was such a big deal. Thanks to Kris, I picked up this well researched and incredibly readable account of the Affair.
First: the author has an amazing capacity to tell a story. Piers Paul Read brought the characters (both major and minor) to vivid life. Twenty or so pages of photographs helped to put faces to people I didn't know prior to this read. I can't wait to read his bio on Alec Guinness.
The Dreyfus Affair was the touchstone for so much of what was wrong with French society. Anti-semitism, bitter fractional politics, and plenty of examples of the worst parts of humanity were on display for the world to witness. Families (including Proust's) were divided. A civil war almost occurred. The seeds of what made the Affair so terrible were sown in the French Revolution; the blooms of iniquity flowered all the way through the Vichy French rule of the country during WWII. The Affair wasn't a one-off issue. It was the culmination of a society that was rife with injustice.
So now I'm ready to give Guermantes Way another go. On Wednesday I board a ship to the Arctic Circle; no Internet, no phones - just polar bears, ice, me and Marcel.
I promised myself when I joined Proustitute's reading of ISoLT that I wouldn't start GW until I felt I adequately understood why the Dreyfus Affair was such a big deal. Thanks to Kris, I picked up this well researched and incredibly readable account of the Affair.
First: the author has an amazing capacity to tell a story. Piers Paul Read brought the characters (both major and minor) to vivid life. Twenty or so pages of photographs helped to put faces to people I didn't know prior to this read. I can't wait to read his bio on Alec Guinness.
The Dreyfus Affair was the touchstone for so much of what was wrong with French society. Anti-semitism, bitter fractional politics, and plenty of examples of the worst parts of humanity were on display for the world to witness. Families (including Proust's) were divided. A civil war almost occurred. The seeds of what made the Affair so terrible were sown in the French Revolution; the blooms of iniquity flowered all the way through the Vichy French rule of the country during WWII. The Affair wasn't a one-off issue. It was the culmination of a society that was rife with injustice.
So now I'm ready to give Guermantes Way another go. On Wednesday I board a ship to the Arctic Circle; no Internet, no phones - just polar bears, ice, me and Marcel.
June 14, 2012
Where I got the book: my local library. Yay for the local library, because this one might be thought of as a bit of an obscure subject in America.
You can't do any reading about late nineteenth-century France without stumbling across the Dreyfus Affair. So I knew the basics: a Jewish army captain was wrongly accused of passing military secrets to the Germans (Enemy #1 at the time, not that long after the Franco-Prussian War), interned on Devil's Island, and subsequently released and repatriated when the real culprit was found. Huge, HUGE ruckus involving lots of nasty antisemitism. French author Emile Zola wrote a famous newspaper article entitled J'ACCUSE! in which he lambasted the powers-that-be about the whole business, and the rumor ran that Zola's untimely death (of carbon monoxide poisoning when a chimney became blocked; his wife survived) was linked to the Affair (did anti-Dreyfusards get up on the roof and block that chimney?)
OK the Zola death bit was an aside, following my own interests, but Read covers the actual Affair in meticulous detail. The book is clearly aimed at the general reader with little background knowledge (the footnote informing the reader that the French surname Henry is pronounced "Onrri" was priceless) and Read does a pretty good job of bringing the reader up to speed with the way life worked in France at the time. Among the upper-middle to upper classes honor was paramount, duels were fought to defend it, and lines were clearly drawn on the basis of religion, profession, politics and education. You were this, or you were that. As the Affair became the most talked-about news item in France, you were either Dreyfusard or anti-Dreyfusard depending on your tribal affiliations. Passions were inflated by the newspapers, which were a power on the scale of today's TV networks; the rate of literacy was high in France, and everyone read the news. Antisemitism, unhampered by today's historical hindsight and politically correct taboos, was an acceptable stance, if decried by many, and blatantly antisemitic newspapers fanned the flames. The Catholic church was also under attack from intellectuals whose loss of faith had less to do with God than with the church hierarchy, Jesuit schools, and attitudes towards both a hundred years after the Revolution had (temporarily) ripped out their staunchest supporters, the conservative aristocracy.
Naturally all this hoo-ha involved a huge cast of characters, and Read efficiently keeps them in line in the reader's mind without resorting to too many reminders of who they are. The main players: Dreyfus, Esterhazy, du Paty de Clam, Henry and so on, are sketched in with pleasing economy, and the chapters are arranged logically without too much departure from strict chronological order. Dreyfus' suffering is vividly portrayed in the one chapter that covers his living conditions on Devil's Island.
The Affair led to the separation of church and state in France, to the dissolution of religious orders, possibly (I'd have to check this) to Zionism, and to vast changes in the Army. It went a long way to shaping 20th-century France. So if you're interested in things French you've really got to tackle the Dreyfus Affair in detail at some time or the other, and this very readable account would be an excellent place to start. Recommended.
You can't do any reading about late nineteenth-century France without stumbling across the Dreyfus Affair. So I knew the basics: a Jewish army captain was wrongly accused of passing military secrets to the Germans (Enemy #1 at the time, not that long after the Franco-Prussian War), interned on Devil's Island, and subsequently released and repatriated when the real culprit was found. Huge, HUGE ruckus involving lots of nasty antisemitism. French author Emile Zola wrote a famous newspaper article entitled J'ACCUSE! in which he lambasted the powers-that-be about the whole business, and the rumor ran that Zola's untimely death (of carbon monoxide poisoning when a chimney became blocked; his wife survived) was linked to the Affair (did anti-Dreyfusards get up on the roof and block that chimney?)
OK the Zola death bit was an aside, following my own interests, but Read covers the actual Affair in meticulous detail. The book is clearly aimed at the general reader with little background knowledge (the footnote informing the reader that the French surname Henry is pronounced "Onrri" was priceless) and Read does a pretty good job of bringing the reader up to speed with the way life worked in France at the time. Among the upper-middle to upper classes honor was paramount, duels were fought to defend it, and lines were clearly drawn on the basis of religion, profession, politics and education. You were this, or you were that. As the Affair became the most talked-about news item in France, you were either Dreyfusard or anti-Dreyfusard depending on your tribal affiliations. Passions were inflated by the newspapers, which were a power on the scale of today's TV networks; the rate of literacy was high in France, and everyone read the news. Antisemitism, unhampered by today's historical hindsight and politically correct taboos, was an acceptable stance, if decried by many, and blatantly antisemitic newspapers fanned the flames. The Catholic church was also under attack from intellectuals whose loss of faith had less to do with God than with the church hierarchy, Jesuit schools, and attitudes towards both a hundred years after the Revolution had (temporarily) ripped out their staunchest supporters, the conservative aristocracy.
Naturally all this hoo-ha involved a huge cast of characters, and Read efficiently keeps them in line in the reader's mind without resorting to too many reminders of who they are. The main players: Dreyfus, Esterhazy, du Paty de Clam, Henry and so on, are sketched in with pleasing economy, and the chapters are arranged logically without too much departure from strict chronological order. Dreyfus' suffering is vividly portrayed in the one chapter that covers his living conditions on Devil's Island.
The Affair led to the separation of church and state in France, to the dissolution of religious orders, possibly (I'd have to check this) to Zionism, and to vast changes in the Army. It went a long way to shaping 20th-century France. So if you're interested in things French you've really got to tackle the Dreyfus Affair in detail at some time or the other, and this very readable account would be an excellent place to start. Recommended.
April 29, 2015
An excellent telling of one of the strangest, most influential, and least remembered judicial-political scandals of the 19th century. Read deftly navigates the twists and turns of "The Affair", as it became known, with its cast of shady characters, officers, politicians, forgers, and spies.
It's an anti-Semitism that comes across most shockingly, letters-to-the-editor type abuses of Jews that would be unsurprising in a history of Nazi Germany but are unexpectedly vehement in a history of France. It serves as a reminder that anti-Semitism was a force across the continent in the early years of the 20th century, and Read traces many of the effects that it had on the conduct of both World Wars. Altogether a fascinating read.
It's an anti-Semitism that comes across most shockingly, letters-to-the-editor type abuses of Jews that would be unsurprising in a history of Nazi Germany but are unexpectedly vehement in a history of France. It serves as a reminder that anti-Semitism was a force across the continent in the early years of the 20th century, and Read traces many of the effects that it had on the conduct of both World Wars. Altogether a fascinating read.
May 9, 2015
The Dreyfus Affair pops up time and again when reading French books from the end of the nineteenth century. I've recently been reading Proust's In Search of Lost Time in which the characters keep discussing the Affair and anyone who has read anything about Zola will realise that Zola played a significant part in the Affair. Up to now I've just read around the Dreyfus Affair and have only been aware of the bare bones of the story; but the topic is a fascinating story in its own right and I thought it was time to read more on the subject.
'The Dreyfus Affair' by Piers Paul Read, I feel, is directed towards the general reader and Read gives as much background information as possible; he starts off by taking us back to the French Revolution. This seems a bit excessive at first but it's useful because Read shows how during the revolutionary period full civil rights were extended to Jewish people, how the Catholic church came under attack and how the aristocracy were treated, er, harshly. He then proceeds to sketch out the Franco-Prussian war and the effect that this French defeat had on the French psyche. Although a lot of this may be already known by the reader it is useful because with these early chapters Read is mainly attempting to explain how and why the anti-Dreyfusards were so aggressively opposed to Dreyfus and the Dreyfusards; they saw the conservative, Catholic-centred French society under attack from Jews, protestants, money-men, Germans, intellectuals, deviants and the like.
Throughout the narrative the Dreyfusards have to battle against an extremely anti-Semitic press led by Édouard Drumont and his paper La Libre Parole. The paper does not just attack the Dreyfusards but also the army if it is seen to be too lenient towards the Jewish people. Drumont believes that Jews are all part of a 'syndicate' which includes Protestants, Free Masons, bankers etc. and which is out to take control of France and enslave Catholics. Anyone who is lenient towards Jews are soon accused of being on the syndicate's payroll.
I don't intend to describe every detail of the Dreyfus Affair as it gets very complicated, but it starts out quite simply: a note is retrieved from a wastepaper basket in the German embassy that suggests that a French officer is passing military secrets to the Germans; they soon narrow the list of likely officers down until they get to Dreyfus and when they compare his handwriting to the note it looks similar enough for them to arrest Dreyfus. Du Paty, who ends up being one of the main villains in the whole story, is an amateur handwriting expert and it is his persistance that drives the case against Dreyfus. When more experienced handwriting experts look at the evidence they don't quite agree. With so little evidence it is uncertain why General Mercier decided to continue with the prosecution of Dreyfus. Read suggests that he may have been frightened of La Libre Parole finding out that he'd dropped a treason case against a Jew, or it may have been that he wanted to appear as a strong leader. Read doesn't believe that at this stage the prime motive for advancing the case was anti-Semitic, as such.
On 15th October 1894 Dreyfus was officially arrested. Dreyfus declares his innocence throughout and those hoping to prosecute him have nothing more to go on than the comparison of his handwriting with that on the note. This is, for me, the first time where the military missed an opportunity to exit from the debacle. At this stage even du Paty suggests that if the evidence is too weak then they must let him go. So what do they do? Well, General Mercier basically fabricates a 'secret dossier' on Dreyfus. But why? Read suggests that it was Mercier's fear of the anti-Semitic press and of losing prestige amongst his colleagues that drove him to do this:
So Dreyfus was convicted of treason after the dodgy handwriting 'experts' had declared that the difference in styles was due to Dreyfus deliberatly disguising his style. Major Henry had stated that a 'respectable person' had accused Dreyfus and when this was still not enough to convict him they brought out the secret dossier which was viewed in private. Dreyfus was shipped off to Devil's Island where he would live virtually in solitary confinement for five years.
We now enter the next stage of the Affair. Dreyfus's brother Mathieu now spends all his time to try to prove his brother's innocence but with little success. Meanwhile another officer, Picquart comes across a new piece of evidence, a petit bleu telegram, again from the German embassy, that has the exact handwriting as the original note and Picquart can prove that the real culprit was Major Esterhazy. So, this is another chance for the military to put things straight. Do they? No, they ship Picquart off to Tunisia to get him out of the way and fake some more documents.
Luckily enough the information is leaked and Mathieu gets to know the name of the real culprit and kick up a fuss. The military protect Esterhazy, even though they now know that he's the traitor, and Esterhazy has to attend a court martial - he's found to be not guilty of course! And Picquart is arrested and sent to prison for passing on military documents. So we now have two innocent men incarcerated and the guilty man protected by the military and shipped off to England. Read states:
This was on 10th January 1898 and on 13th January Émile Zola entered the fray with his open letter to the French President, called J'accuse..! Read says that 'given that much of what he wrote was inevitably conjecture, Zola's pamphlet was a remarkably accurate summary of the Dreyfus Affair.' Accurate and explosive; it sparked anti-Semitic riots across France and resulted in Zola going to trial for defamation. He was found guilty, of course, though he was allowed to appeal the decision. He lost the second trial and left for England - this period is covered in Ernest Vizetelly's With Zola in England: A Story of Exile.
From hereon events proceed at a blistering pace and it's quite confusing, so in summary: Cavaignac the new War Minister tried to put an end to the Dreyfusard cause but Henry's forgeries were uncovered and Henry committed suicide; the President Faure died and Loubet was elected; the secret dossier was dismissed as a fake.
In the end Dreyfus was recalled to attend a second court martial in Rennes on 7th August 1899. This was surely the military's last chance to redeem itself. But no luck, Dreyfus was re-convicted of treason but with 'extenuating circumstances'. His sentence was for ten years. The prime-minister, exasperated at the military's decision, ended up offering Dreyfus a pardon which he reluctantly accepts as he's still technically guilty of the crime. This compromise that basically satisfies no-one appears, with hindsight, to be just what is needed to defuse the situation; it's a bodge but it allows things to settle down for a while.
It was not until 1906 that Dreyfus was declared 'not guilty' by the Supreme Court. He died in 1935.
In trying to write a review of a book on the Dreyfus Affair I've found it difficult not to just recount the actual story. But the book is very readable and well-researched and although the author states in the introduction that there has been little new evidence since the 1970s on the subject there is something to be said for a new book for the general reader and this is a brilliant introduction.
'The Dreyfus Affair' by Piers Paul Read, I feel, is directed towards the general reader and Read gives as much background information as possible; he starts off by taking us back to the French Revolution. This seems a bit excessive at first but it's useful because Read shows how during the revolutionary period full civil rights were extended to Jewish people, how the Catholic church came under attack and how the aristocracy were treated, er, harshly. He then proceeds to sketch out the Franco-Prussian war and the effect that this French defeat had on the French psyche. Although a lot of this may be already known by the reader it is useful because with these early chapters Read is mainly attempting to explain how and why the anti-Dreyfusards were so aggressively opposed to Dreyfus and the Dreyfusards; they saw the conservative, Catholic-centred French society under attack from Jews, protestants, money-men, Germans, intellectuals, deviants and the like.
Throughout the narrative the Dreyfusards have to battle against an extremely anti-Semitic press led by Édouard Drumont and his paper La Libre Parole. The paper does not just attack the Dreyfusards but also the army if it is seen to be too lenient towards the Jewish people. Drumont believes that Jews are all part of a 'syndicate' which includes Protestants, Free Masons, bankers etc. and which is out to take control of France and enslave Catholics. Anyone who is lenient towards Jews are soon accused of being on the syndicate's payroll.
I don't intend to describe every detail of the Dreyfus Affair as it gets very complicated, but it starts out quite simply: a note is retrieved from a wastepaper basket in the German embassy that suggests that a French officer is passing military secrets to the Germans; they soon narrow the list of likely officers down until they get to Dreyfus and when they compare his handwriting to the note it looks similar enough for them to arrest Dreyfus. Du Paty, who ends up being one of the main villains in the whole story, is an amateur handwriting expert and it is his persistance that drives the case against Dreyfus. When more experienced handwriting experts look at the evidence they don't quite agree. With so little evidence it is uncertain why General Mercier decided to continue with the prosecution of Dreyfus. Read suggests that he may have been frightened of La Libre Parole finding out that he'd dropped a treason case against a Jew, or it may have been that he wanted to appear as a strong leader. Read doesn't believe that at this stage the prime motive for advancing the case was anti-Semitic, as such.
On 15th October 1894 Dreyfus was officially arrested. Dreyfus declares his innocence throughout and those hoping to prosecute him have nothing more to go on than the comparison of his handwriting with that on the note. This is, for me, the first time where the military missed an opportunity to exit from the debacle. At this stage even du Paty suggests that if the evidence is too weak then they must let him go. So what do they do? Well, General Mercier basically fabricates a 'secret dossier' on Dreyfus. But why? Read suggests that it was Mercier's fear of the anti-Semitic press and of losing prestige amongst his colleagues that drove him to do this:
The die was cast. If Mercier were now to free Dreyfus, he would be accused, as in the case of Schulmann, of being in the pay of the Jews. He would also lose face with his cabinet colleagues, particularly the Foreign Minister Hanotaux, who had advised him to drop the case against Dreyfus.
So Dreyfus was convicted of treason after the dodgy handwriting 'experts' had declared that the difference in styles was due to Dreyfus deliberatly disguising his style. Major Henry had stated that a 'respectable person' had accused Dreyfus and when this was still not enough to convict him they brought out the secret dossier which was viewed in private. Dreyfus was shipped off to Devil's Island where he would live virtually in solitary confinement for five years.
We now enter the next stage of the Affair. Dreyfus's brother Mathieu now spends all his time to try to prove his brother's innocence but with little success. Meanwhile another officer, Picquart comes across a new piece of evidence, a petit bleu telegram, again from the German embassy, that has the exact handwriting as the original note and Picquart can prove that the real culprit was Major Esterhazy. So, this is another chance for the military to put things straight. Do they? No, they ship Picquart off to Tunisia to get him out of the way and fake some more documents.
Luckily enough the information is leaked and Mathieu gets to know the name of the real culprit and kick up a fuss. The military protect Esterhazy, even though they now know that he's the traitor, and Esterhazy has to attend a court martial - he's found to be not guilty of course! And Picquart is arrested and sent to prison for passing on military documents. So we now have two innocent men incarcerated and the guilty man protected by the military and shipped off to England. Read states:
It was clear that, whatever the evidence and however the clear the reasoning, the French were unwilling to accept that they were being deceived by the leaders of the one institution that retained their respect - the army.
This was on 10th January 1898 and on 13th January Émile Zola entered the fray with his open letter to the French President, called J'accuse..! Read says that 'given that much of what he wrote was inevitably conjecture, Zola's pamphlet was a remarkably accurate summary of the Dreyfus Affair.' Accurate and explosive; it sparked anti-Semitic riots across France and resulted in Zola going to trial for defamation. He was found guilty, of course, though he was allowed to appeal the decision. He lost the second trial and left for England - this period is covered in Ernest Vizetelly's With Zola in England: A Story of Exile.
From hereon events proceed at a blistering pace and it's quite confusing, so in summary: Cavaignac the new War Minister tried to put an end to the Dreyfusard cause but Henry's forgeries were uncovered and Henry committed suicide; the President Faure died and Loubet was elected; the secret dossier was dismissed as a fake.
In the end Dreyfus was recalled to attend a second court martial in Rennes on 7th August 1899. This was surely the military's last chance to redeem itself. But no luck, Dreyfus was re-convicted of treason but with 'extenuating circumstances'. His sentence was for ten years. The prime-minister, exasperated at the military's decision, ended up offering Dreyfus a pardon which he reluctantly accepts as he's still technically guilty of the crime. This compromise that basically satisfies no-one appears, with hindsight, to be just what is needed to defuse the situation; it's a bodge but it allows things to settle down for a while.
It was not until 1906 that Dreyfus was declared 'not guilty' by the Supreme Court. He died in 1935.
In trying to write a review of a book on the Dreyfus Affair I've found it difficult not to just recount the actual story. But the book is very readable and well-researched and although the author states in the introduction that there has been little new evidence since the 1970s on the subject there is something to be said for a new book for the general reader and this is a brilliant introduction.
January 23, 2013
So, as I read it, there are at least three levels on which to understand the Dreyfus Affair, a complex series of events that convulsed France at the end of the nineteenth century. The first is as a story of a wrongful conviction, of a man accused, convicted of, and punished horribly for a crime he didn't commit. On that level, it reminds me of other, more recent stories of investigations gone horribly wrong. Investigators fix too quickly on a single suspect, get tunnel vision, start reading all the evidence, even selecting and manipulating the evidence, based on how it fits a predetermined narrative of guilt. Then, having locked themselves into this narrative, they start distorting and lying to maintain it. They do so not so much because they actively wish to convince others of something they know to be untrue but because they have convinced themselves so absolutely that something is true and made themselves victims of cognitive dissonance when faced with evidence that doesn't fit that they are compelled to reconstruct reality to suit what they believe and to avoid admitting, to themselves more than to anyone else, that they are disastrously mistaken. Later, facesaving and other less creditable motives kick in, too, but that's not usually where such stories of wrongful convictions start. The story of Alfred Dreyfus, convicted in 1894 of treason, fits this storyline very well. The fact that he was Jewish and personally unappealing to many (stiff, awkward, socially clumsy) made it easier to attach the story of guilt to him; investigators often fasten on suspects they consider wrong or odd or marginal for some reason, as they did here.
On the second level, it reveals fault lines in French history. The French Revolution had let loose all sorts of forces and, more than a century after the Revolution, many of them had not been reharnessed or stabilised. At the heart of the French state and of French society were a number of unresolved tensions: between the Catholic Church and the structure and meaning of the state, about secularism and anti-clericalism, about the purpose of education, about the meaning of true Frenchness, about the relationship between true Frenchness and those designated "other" (immigrants, Protestants, Jews, people of other ethnicities). What does it mean to be French? Who is a true Frenchman? How should true Frenchmen deal with threats to their Frenchness or with those who are not true Frenchmen? It is on this level that the opening chapters of Piers Paul Read's book make perfect sense and contribute to understanding the meaning of the story. Unfortunately, Read leaves readers to make these connections themselves; if you know the outlines of Dreyfus's story, these are pretty easy to make, but if you don't (and are reading the book to find them out), then you will have trouble seeing what these opening chapters, skimming over more than a century of history with no mention whatsoever of Alfred Dreyfus, are doing here. But so many threads of modern French history come together in the tangled knot of the Dreyfus Affair that an understanding of it is crucial to understanding the country. For example, the otherwise perplexing French insistence on a kind of radical secularism in public spaces and institutions, such as schools, makes so much sense against this background.
On the third level, the story is about the conflict between two fundamentally different world views, views we might label conservative and progressive,or right and left, or Republican and Democrat (if you're American). The former values religion and religious community as a force for social stability and health; distrusts change, innovation, or the notion of progress; looks to the past for strength, worth, and goodness; regards tradition as a source of strength and as an inherent good; values hierarchy, order, and stability; distrusts or resents the "other" and sees "others" as a threat to order, stability, and social coherence. The latter values the public sphere and wishes to keep it free of private matters, especially of private matters that could become coercive (such as religion); values progress, advancement, and change; looks to the future with hope rather than fear; regards the past as potentially burdensome, holding society and individuals back from pursuing the new and the improved; sees hierarchy as stifling, dangerous, and immoral; welcomes the other as bringing vitality and novelty to a potentially stifling or stagnating social environment. In the context of the Dreyfus Affair, the former describes the anti-Dreyfusards and the latter the Dreyfusards. This is why it makes sense to refer to people as anti-Dreyfusards or Dreyfusards even after Dreyfus's pardon. Their conflict actually had little to do with the man himself and everything to do with a struggle over how to make sense of the world and think about power and society; Alfred Dreyfus, poor man, became for many a convenient peg on which to hang these larger and largely incommensurable values. On this level, the story of the Dreyfus Affair remains enormously relevant to the world we live in today, because the powderkeg of tension that his conviction set off is still with us and we're still fighting the same basic battles.
On the second level, it reveals fault lines in French history. The French Revolution had let loose all sorts of forces and, more than a century after the Revolution, many of them had not been reharnessed or stabilised. At the heart of the French state and of French society were a number of unresolved tensions: between the Catholic Church and the structure and meaning of the state, about secularism and anti-clericalism, about the purpose of education, about the meaning of true Frenchness, about the relationship between true Frenchness and those designated "other" (immigrants, Protestants, Jews, people of other ethnicities). What does it mean to be French? Who is a true Frenchman? How should true Frenchmen deal with threats to their Frenchness or with those who are not true Frenchmen? It is on this level that the opening chapters of Piers Paul Read's book make perfect sense and contribute to understanding the meaning of the story. Unfortunately, Read leaves readers to make these connections themselves; if you know the outlines of Dreyfus's story, these are pretty easy to make, but if you don't (and are reading the book to find them out), then you will have trouble seeing what these opening chapters, skimming over more than a century of history with no mention whatsoever of Alfred Dreyfus, are doing here. But so many threads of modern French history come together in the tangled knot of the Dreyfus Affair that an understanding of it is crucial to understanding the country. For example, the otherwise perplexing French insistence on a kind of radical secularism in public spaces and institutions, such as schools, makes so much sense against this background.
On the third level, the story is about the conflict between two fundamentally different world views, views we might label conservative and progressive,or right and left, or Republican and Democrat (if you're American). The former values religion and religious community as a force for social stability and health; distrusts change, innovation, or the notion of progress; looks to the past for strength, worth, and goodness; regards tradition as a source of strength and as an inherent good; values hierarchy, order, and stability; distrusts or resents the "other" and sees "others" as a threat to order, stability, and social coherence. The latter values the public sphere and wishes to keep it free of private matters, especially of private matters that could become coercive (such as religion); values progress, advancement, and change; looks to the future with hope rather than fear; regards the past as potentially burdensome, holding society and individuals back from pursuing the new and the improved; sees hierarchy as stifling, dangerous, and immoral; welcomes the other as bringing vitality and novelty to a potentially stifling or stagnating social environment. In the context of the Dreyfus Affair, the former describes the anti-Dreyfusards and the latter the Dreyfusards. This is why it makes sense to refer to people as anti-Dreyfusards or Dreyfusards even after Dreyfus's pardon. Their conflict actually had little to do with the man himself and everything to do with a struggle over how to make sense of the world and think about power and society; Alfred Dreyfus, poor man, became for many a convenient peg on which to hang these larger and largely incommensurable values. On this level, the story of the Dreyfus Affair remains enormously relevant to the world we live in today, because the powderkeg of tension that his conviction set off is still with us and we're still fighting the same basic battles.
December 27, 2012
Having only heard shortened versions in history class, my original understanding of the affair was that Dreyfus was wrongly convicted of espionage because someone had planted evidence against him in a trashcan. I knew he was in jail for about 10 years but was finally declared innocent but I did not know anything else.
What actually happened was so much worse that is almost seems unreal. Although no one originally set Dreyfus up, he was named as a possible suspect early on and those who were convinced of his guilt would not change their minds no matter how much evidence they were given to the contrary. They were so concerned that he might not be convicted that they started forging documents to prove his guilt. Not only that but when others tried to uncover the truth, documents were forged to make them look guilty of espionage as well. The General Staff of the Army was involved and they thought that it was better for Dreyfus to suffer than for the people to lose faith in the Army. Anti-Semitism played a heavy role as well and when Emile Zola wrote an article to name names in the scandal, riots and acts of violence against Jews occurred all over the country. Not even the discovery of the real spy, nor proof that documents had been forged seemed to stop the madness of the Army to continue to cover-up.
I was particularly impressed with Dreyfus's brother Mathieu who since his brother's conviction stopped at nothing to have him freed. He spend all of his time, energy and money at a time when very few outside of family believed Dreyfus was innocent. He is very inspiring and so is Dreyfus' wife Lucie who remained faithful and wrote him countless letters to try and sustain him through his horrible incarceration.
When I read the portion of the book title which said "The Scandal That Tore France in Two" I was a bit skeptical and thought that it was just a dramatic saying to sell the book. It was actually very painfully accurate. Governments rose and fell, long term alliances and enmities in high officials were created, and the international community was also involved. It was an incredible book and I am definitely the better for having read it.
My only critique is that the author in his efforts to fit the story into its historical setting seemed to feverishly cram names, facts, and so on, that were not very well explained especially in the beginning of the book. This information could have been pared down quite a bit. Also, to assume the ready speaks French and can understand sayings from the late 1800s is assuming a lot. It would have been extremely helpful to have the translations included in the book.
**This is the same author who wrote "Alive" which I read many years ago as well.
What actually happened was so much worse that is almost seems unreal. Although no one originally set Dreyfus up, he was named as a possible suspect early on and those who were convinced of his guilt would not change their minds no matter how much evidence they were given to the contrary. They were so concerned that he might not be convicted that they started forging documents to prove his guilt. Not only that but when others tried to uncover the truth, documents were forged to make them look guilty of espionage as well. The General Staff of the Army was involved and they thought that it was better for Dreyfus to suffer than for the people to lose faith in the Army. Anti-Semitism played a heavy role as well and when Emile Zola wrote an article to name names in the scandal, riots and acts of violence against Jews occurred all over the country. Not even the discovery of the real spy, nor proof that documents had been forged seemed to stop the madness of the Army to continue to cover-up.
I was particularly impressed with Dreyfus's brother Mathieu who since his brother's conviction stopped at nothing to have him freed. He spend all of his time, energy and money at a time when very few outside of family believed Dreyfus was innocent. He is very inspiring and so is Dreyfus' wife Lucie who remained faithful and wrote him countless letters to try and sustain him through his horrible incarceration.
When I read the portion of the book title which said "The Scandal That Tore France in Two" I was a bit skeptical and thought that it was just a dramatic saying to sell the book. It was actually very painfully accurate. Governments rose and fell, long term alliances and enmities in high officials were created, and the international community was also involved. It was an incredible book and I am definitely the better for having read it.
My only critique is that the author in his efforts to fit the story into its historical setting seemed to feverishly cram names, facts, and so on, that were not very well explained especially in the beginning of the book. This information could have been pared down quite a bit. Also, to assume the ready speaks French and can understand sayings from the late 1800s is assuming a lot. It would have been extremely helpful to have the translations included in the book.
**This is the same author who wrote "Alive" which I read many years ago as well.
January 23, 2018
If I remember correctly, even though I've known of the Dreyfus Affair since school days and have definitely went on Wikipedia to educate myself about it, this is the first book I've read that is wholly dedicated to the subject. And it is a good one. It tracks the pre-Dreyfus situation, up through all of the individuals responsible for the affair, then discusses some of the fallout. For anyone interested in history, and specifically historical moments of a certain magnitude and importance to certain peoples, this is a very good read.
November 6, 2023
I wanted to understand the cause celebre of the Dreyfus Affair ever since I read about the rise of Nazism and Anti-Semitism when I was a teenager and I finally got to it through this in-depth biographic study of the central character at the epicentre. The fall of Dreyfus had all the makings of a drama that snowballed into something far far bigger than the awkward military Jewish Captain, Alfred Dreyfus accused of treason at the middle of this cause celebre. The book goes into endless detail about all the characters involved in the trials and numerous re-trials yet it serves as a disappointing and painful reminder of the rampant and ubiquitous anti-semitism that has forever existed and is forever resuscitated by the most imagined or re-invented of perceived offences throughout the centuries.
April 19, 2013
I hadn't read a book on the Dreyfus affair before, and if you're in a similar position and would be interested in reading about the scandal which caused a political crisis in France in the closing decade of the 19th century (and whose reverberations were still being felt at least through the Great War and perhaps as late as WW2 and the Vichy government) this is a highly readable introduction. Read is a journalist and novelist, not an academic, and he writes in an enjoyable, novelistic style. Particularly helpful is that he situates the scandal (in which a Jewish artillery officer was wrongly accused of selling military secrets to Germany -- at first, arguably, by mistake but later kept in prison on Devils Island long after the military knew he was innocent because they were ashamed to lose face by admitting they were wrong) in the wider context of the French cultural and religious conflicts from the French Revolution through the Great War.
May 29, 2020
It's astonishing how dishonourably some people are prepared to act in the name of honour. The lies and the cheating of the anti-Dreyfusards, their fabrication of evidence, their perjury and their willingness to let an innocent man suffer what must've been unimaginable hell, undermine totally this image they had of themselves as honourable, decent, moral beings. When he keeps to the subject at hand, Read tells the unedifying story very well. The Before the Affair chapters at the beginning and the concluding chapter are less good. A bit too discursive. My only other criticism is that the narrative is much more from the anti-Dreyfusard side than the Dreyfusard. The latter is not ignored, but it is the antagonists who get the most space. Nevertheless, an excellent (and easy) read.
September 29, 2012
It's hard to say you liked a book that was so frustrating to read. But the frustration was in the subject, not the writer -- he did a great job at not only telling the story but putting it all in context (as if this much stupidity and stubbornness could be put into a proper context -- "Yes, everyone acted like a bunch of jackasses, but here's why they did!")
September 5, 2022
A pop history that rates a weak four stars, unfortunately tainted by the author's bias.
This is a weird book to review. At its best, it's a very readable, conventional, concise (if somewhat superficial) book about an interesting subject that is perhaps known mostly for references in literature (a lot of reviewers mention Proust, who I haven't read; I've encountered references to the Affair in all sorts of non-fiction sources and a couple of novels, particularly from Eco).
Now, it feels reasonably complete and I don't have much inclination to read another book on the subject on the off-chance this book missed some important points.
The book does have a (not necessarily fatal) flaw in that the author is heavily biased in favor of the Clericalist Catholic Conservatives (check out that alliteration) who persecuted Dreyfus. Apparently that did not cloud his mind to the degree of insinuating Dreyfus was guilty or that his prosecution was somehow justified, however he presents a remarkably wrongheaded view of the clericalist/anticlericalist conflict that shaped much of French history from the Revolution onwards. For three instances off the top of my head, he uncritically quotes a fringe reactionary historian on the Royalist uprisings in the Vendee who holds that the counterinsurgency there amounted to genocide; glosses over the Thiers government's collaboration with the Prussian occupiers in the murderous campaign against the Paris Commune, heavily criticizes the selfsame Third Republic's campaign for universal and secular education (one of the few things that particular government got right) and finally leverages all these and fin-de-siecle hedonism into a thin narrative of justified aristocratic Catholic fears leading to paranoid fantasies of a Judeo-Masonic-Protestant plot against core "French" (Catholic/aristocratic) values. I don't think it's unfair to say that any reasonable observer of the 21st C Culture Wars will recognize that the paranoid style of politics has more to do with ruling minorities fearful of losing their privileges than any real danger of being oppressed by some secretive internal "other."
tl;dr strong chronology, extremely weak thesis. I'll leave it at the four stars because the bias is so obvious, and doesn't seem to taint the book for the purpose most readers seem to have, which is learning wtf that whole Dreyfus affair was about.
This is a weird book to review. At its best, it's a very readable, conventional, concise (if somewhat superficial) book about an interesting subject that is perhaps known mostly for references in literature (a lot of reviewers mention Proust, who I haven't read; I've encountered references to the Affair in all sorts of non-fiction sources and a couple of novels, particularly from Eco).
Now, it feels reasonably complete and I don't have much inclination to read another book on the subject on the off-chance this book missed some important points.
The book does have a (not necessarily fatal) flaw in that the author is heavily biased in favor of the Clericalist Catholic Conservatives (check out that alliteration) who persecuted Dreyfus. Apparently that did not cloud his mind to the degree of insinuating Dreyfus was guilty or that his prosecution was somehow justified, however he presents a remarkably wrongheaded view of the clericalist/anticlericalist conflict that shaped much of French history from the Revolution onwards. For three instances off the top of my head, he uncritically quotes a fringe reactionary historian on the Royalist uprisings in the Vendee who holds that the counterinsurgency there amounted to genocide; glosses over the Thiers government's collaboration with the Prussian occupiers in the murderous campaign against the Paris Commune, heavily criticizes the selfsame Third Republic's campaign for universal and secular education (one of the few things that particular government got right) and finally leverages all these and fin-de-siecle hedonism into a thin narrative of justified aristocratic Catholic fears leading to paranoid fantasies of a Judeo-Masonic-Protestant plot against core "French" (Catholic/aristocratic) values. I don't think it's unfair to say that any reasonable observer of the 21st C Culture Wars will recognize that the paranoid style of politics has more to do with ruling minorities fearful of losing their privileges than any real danger of being oppressed by some secretive internal "other."
tl;dr strong chronology, extremely weak thesis. I'll leave it at the four stars because the bias is so obvious, and doesn't seem to taint the book for the purpose most readers seem to have, which is learning wtf that whole Dreyfus affair was about.
May 6, 2021
This is a wonderful book if you want to read about all the little things that contributed to the Dreyfus Affair but little about what it actually meant for the man in question: Alfred Dreyfus. The reason I say this is because the book focused a lot on the people involved in it, it really went in-depth about people such as Lucie Dreyfus or Lazare - wife of Alfred Dreyfus and lawyer, respectively - but I didn't really get to know what it meant for Dreyfus himself. Part one is the best part about this book because it goes really in-depth about who Dreyfus was and how everything happened. It keeps you hooked on the book and you really want to read the next page. However, part two focuses on things that are really not that important enough to commit chapters to. For example, there was one whole part of a chapter dedicated to the Catholic reforms implemented by French prime ministers following the end of the Affair; and while that is really important, it is not important enough to constitute an entire subchapter. Another problem I found was the organization of this book, I feel as though dedicating Part 1 entirely to Dreyfus and showing his prison conditions were a great addition...only if part two didn't go in this weird reverse-chronological order when it described things we already knew but only in the purpose of other people. Why not just make it all chronological instead?
All things considered, I came out of this book learning a lot and that's what should matter most at the end of the day. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to read about the Dreyfus Affair, but I believe that there has to be a more accessible and better-written book. I think this book would be terrible for someone just starting to read historical books. As someone who is used to reading dry books, it was a little too boring at certain times, especially when Read was ranting about irrelevant matters such as the fidelity of certain Generals or the childhood occurrences that might have contributed to their personalities.
All things considered, I came out of this book learning a lot and that's what should matter most at the end of the day. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to read about the Dreyfus Affair, but I believe that there has to be a more accessible and better-written book. I think this book would be terrible for someone just starting to read historical books. As someone who is used to reading dry books, it was a little too boring at certain times, especially when Read was ranting about irrelevant matters such as the fidelity of certain Generals or the childhood occurrences that might have contributed to their personalities.
July 14, 2023
My copy has a different subtitle: The story of the Most Infamous Miscarriage of Justice in French History. This account of the infamous affair is written in a vivid style. I was very taken with the historical viewpoint of Catholicism, returning on key moments in the story: Read (R.C) condems of course antisemitism, but he contextualizes this virulent bigotry in the late XIXth century in a very agile way, taking into account all the frustrations of the anti-Dreyfusards. They consisted of revanchist anti-German reactionaries, Royalists who wanted to return to an Ancien Regime, and Republicans who wanted to take revenge on the Communards, Catholics who longed for the restauration of La France as a pure and clean power, etc. The structure of the book makes the complex history accessible: sometimes a chapter drives the history forward, sometimes an important person is carved out, in such a way, a reader understands his importance without pausing the 'plot' drive. The incredible injustice is described very clearly, but we also understand the reasons why Dreyfus was condemned. Part of the fear of all those involved was the triggering of a new war with Germany, and part of the antisemitism is also related to this then very awkward relationship between France and Germany. After three big wars, The Franco-German, WWI and WWII, thank God they tried to repair things with the EU. Beautifully written history, very melancholical.
June 13, 2024
Extremely detailed...too many characters to keep track of. A bit hard to follow. I'm guessing that the author is trying to cover all the events and actors to make it an authorized historical account, and history is convoluted and messy.
To any readers trying to understand the roots of antisemitism, I recommend this book. France and Germany had territorial disputes for centuries, and the Jews of those regions were considered suspect demographic by both sides. And these societies were attempting to bring in their Jewish populations and fight bigotry, but there was much backlash, for many reasons. The book also depicts the virulent anti-Catholic hatred that rose up in pockets during that period. These nations were not yet fully established nations with stable borders, and the attempts to consolidate and protect their citizens also prompted a rise in nationalistic fervor, which further exacerbated religious tensions (will French Jews be secretly loyal to Germany? Will the Catholics betray France in favor of Rome?). Coming out of this book, I may have been more confused about the roots and remedies of anti-semitism, but that's probably for the better, because the truth is very messy, and I consider it a good thing to collect as many facts as possible.
To any readers trying to understand the roots of antisemitism, I recommend this book. France and Germany had territorial disputes for centuries, and the Jews of those regions were considered suspect demographic by both sides. And these societies were attempting to bring in their Jewish populations and fight bigotry, but there was much backlash, for many reasons. The book also depicts the virulent anti-Catholic hatred that rose up in pockets during that period. These nations were not yet fully established nations with stable borders, and the attempts to consolidate and protect their citizens also prompted a rise in nationalistic fervor, which further exacerbated religious tensions (will French Jews be secretly loyal to Germany? Will the Catholics betray France in favor of Rome?). Coming out of this book, I may have been more confused about the roots and remedies of anti-semitism, but that's probably for the better, because the truth is very messy, and I consider it a good thing to collect as many facts as possible.
May 11, 2024
A good book, providing a holistic assessment of France’s late 19th century crises that began with the unjustified imprisonment of a Jewish Army officer on charges of espionage. The author, noted British writer and historian Piers Paul Read, places “The Affair” into the broader political, cultural, and economic trends of France during the Fin de Siecle. As such, this is more than just a simple chronological narrative of the arrest, prosecution, imprisonment, appeal, and exoneration of Alfred Dreyfus. It gets to the broader question of why smart, well meaning, and not (always) antisemitic political and military leaders made the conscience choice to trust limited evidence and the increasingly nefarious proponents of Dreyfus’ guilt. By acknowledging but moving past the simple narratives of antisemitism and bureaucratic cover up, Read shows how democracies must rely on leaders who can separate themselves from their institutions. A great book for understanding how political, cultural, and economic trends influence leaders, giving insight into the creeping of biases into our individual decisions. Highly recommended for any person in a high government or military position.
June 18, 2024
An in depth account of an epsiode that rocked France and played an important part in the development of the zionist movement as well as 20th century antisemitism. There are also substantial parallels with contemporary America in the thickets of misinformation, bias, conspiracy and lies through which the truth had to battle in order to finally surface.
This account is well researched and thorough (to the extent I can evaluate) and I'm not sure there is a better one to turn to. However, I did not find it terribly engaging to be honest, which was a bit disappointing considering what must have been the extreme drama of the events themselves. Also I would have liked to see more discussion of the ultimate consequences of the affair, but the author is instead really focussed on digging through the details of the endless charges, countercharges and lies which created and perpetuated the travesty of justice.
This account is well researched and thorough (to the extent I can evaluate) and I'm not sure there is a better one to turn to. However, I did not find it terribly engaging to be honest, which was a bit disappointing considering what must have been the extreme drama of the events themselves. Also I would have liked to see more discussion of the ultimate consequences of the affair, but the author is instead really focussed on digging through the details of the endless charges, countercharges and lies which created and perpetuated the travesty of justice.
February 2, 2023
The Dreyfus affair was explained to me when I was a boy as a story based solely in the antisemitism of fin de siècle France. This book dispels that distortion and lays out the history of the division in France dating back to the time of the 1789 revolution. Dreyfus was one manifestation of it, but hardly the full story of the country that vacillated for a century between empire and republic. The author makes this larger context, clear and understandable.
However, the story gets bog down in a proliferation of characters from various parts of French bureaucracy, and the author lets them pile up to the point where they are confusing. The book would benefit from a rewrite and better editing to see that the narrative is never sacrificed to the details.
It is an admirable undertaking to write so thorough a treatment of this complex subject.
However, the story gets bog down in a proliferation of characters from various parts of French bureaucracy, and the author lets them pile up to the point where they are confusing. The book would benefit from a rewrite and better editing to see that the narrative is never sacrificed to the details.
It is an admirable undertaking to write so thorough a treatment of this complex subject.
February 19, 2024
A very helpful overview of a period in French history that I was not very well acquainted with. I particularly appreciated the connections made with the religious situation in France at the turn of the century. A helpful book for understanding modern France, particularly in regards to laïcité. Also a tragic chronicle of France shameful treatment of Jews. The storytelling is vivid and engaging with characters that are well fleshed out. More thoughts as to the significance and impact of this event on contemporary though and society would have been a nice addition, but the book is not want to complain about.
December 14, 2018
Extremely detailed interesting account. I knew about the Dreyfus Affair on a very high level, but this gave me a completely new look at the events, as well as a general view on anti-Semitism. I started finding it hard to follow 3/4 way through, I couldn't keep track of the huge number of characters and details.
March 4, 2019
This book took a bit of re-reading but I very much found it informative. My mind keeps going back to the narrative as described in this book, the implications and resonances of the Dreyfus affair have echoes to the present day.
April 7, 2020
3.5 stars. A useful introduction to the Dreyfus Affair. There are a lot of characters, so the guide in the back of the book is useful. Where this book seems to work best is how it acquaints the reader with the social currents of post-1870 France and the famous writers that commented on the Affair.
January 11, 2024
A brilliant work of history. A fascinating narrative with plenty of political/social history to keep the reader engaged. You finish it with a vastly more rounded view of France during the so-called Belle Époque.
March 6, 2023
Good.
Context is everything here and Read does a good job of providing it.
Context is everything here and Read does a good job of providing it.
Read
June 23, 2023Wheeeeeew those folks went to all that trouble to prove an innocent man guilty for NOTHING.
November 21, 2023
very comprehensive history of the Affair. took a while to gnaw my way thru, but very informative. i found the writer's style took several chapters to get used to, but worth the effort.
February 3, 2024
Pretty good. Sometimes says stuff without giving context, but is mostly good while read in a vacuum. Pretty entertaining read.
February 18, 2015
What a prolonged agonizing cause célèbre! This dismal tragic biography is placed in the aftermath of the 1870-1871 Franco-Prussian War. The Affair years of the 1890s are set in a sociological, moral, religious, humanistic era of French history.
There was no ostensible motive for Dreyfus' alleged treason, and no incriminating evidence. His military chief officers framed him against a backdrop of nationalist, anti-Semitic sentiment. High-ranking military personnel conspired to frame an innocent man. Not an entertaining read!
This is dense reading, a hundred persons to keep in place, but the book needed editing - there is some duplication, a few errors, and an uneven presentation. Of its 4 Parts, the first of 50 pages drags and sets the historical stage, the second of 95 pages covers the first conviction and confinement on Devil's Island, the third of 200 pages is good reporting, especially in chapters 12 ('The Pen versus the Sword') and 13.
Overall, this 2002 history displays a novelist's synthesizing of previous books, leaning heavily on Bredin, Burns, Conybeare, Doise, Duclert, Harris, Hoffman, Johnson, Leps, Lindemann, Miquel, Paleologue, Reinach (in 7 volumes), Schwertfeger, Thomas, and books of 1901 and 1937 by Dreyfus. I do not fault the author for this recycling; original research would be near impossible after 100 years of intense documentary mining. It has a good bibliography and an excellent index. I deem it a fairly good secondary work of historical biography.
Here and there, Read takes pains to absolve conservative Catholics for their roll, and Read gives credence to "the growing influence of Jews (even, remarkably, in the army), their role in prominent scandals, and the resentment they encountered." He includes extensive quotes from "Anti-Semitism: Its History and Causes" by the Jewish journalist Bernard Lazare.
As French political and religious history of the 1890s it deserves an A+, as a fine smooth-flowing comprehensive biography it warrants a B+ at best, for its expression of passionate human empathy it deserves B+, and as a social history it warrants an A. Apparently a better biography (which won the [Harry] Wolfson History Prize) is "The Man on Devil's Island: Alfred Dreyfus and the Affair That Divided France" by Ruth Harris, 2011 -- in 560 pages.
Born in 1941, Read wrote 16 works of fiction, and three biographical works. I appreciate reading this biography since I'd read (in 2000) and thought very highly of his excellent non-fiction biographical work "Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors" - the story of the 1972 crash of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 in the Andes mountains. 'Alive' won the Thomas More Medal, sold five million copies worldwide, and was adapted into film.
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The British "Guardian" reviewed this book- "Read's 'The Dreyfus Affair' feels somewhat poorly timed and redundant, and all the more so since it is based on a very thin job of research. The first two parts of the book, taking the story up through Dreyfus's condemnation and imprisonment, rely almost entirely on published histories, and cite fewer than 10 original sources at first hand. Read's lack of expertise in French history comes through in the first pages of the book, in which he confuses the old regime's first and second estates, and the French Revolution's cult of reason and cult of the supreme being."
This review also posits this critique:- "Read makes the Dreyfusards out to be almost as rigid and intolerant as their opponents. He stresses that Zola offended devout Catholics with his anti-clerical novels." And in a section entitled 'Retribution', on the passage of secularist legislation in the wake of the Affair (including restrictions on Catholic schools), Read writes of "a determined effort by a government of atheists and Freemasons to prevent the education of French children in a faith that had flourished in France since the baptism of Clovis, 1,400 years before."
There was no ostensible motive for Dreyfus' alleged treason, and no incriminating evidence. His military chief officers framed him against a backdrop of nationalist, anti-Semitic sentiment. High-ranking military personnel conspired to frame an innocent man. Not an entertaining read!
This is dense reading, a hundred persons to keep in place, but the book needed editing - there is some duplication, a few errors, and an uneven presentation. Of its 4 Parts, the first of 50 pages drags and sets the historical stage, the second of 95 pages covers the first conviction and confinement on Devil's Island, the third of 200 pages is good reporting, especially in chapters 12 ('The Pen versus the Sword') and 13.
Overall, this 2002 history displays a novelist's synthesizing of previous books, leaning heavily on Bredin, Burns, Conybeare, Doise, Duclert, Harris, Hoffman, Johnson, Leps, Lindemann, Miquel, Paleologue, Reinach (in 7 volumes), Schwertfeger, Thomas, and books of 1901 and 1937 by Dreyfus. I do not fault the author for this recycling; original research would be near impossible after 100 years of intense documentary mining. It has a good bibliography and an excellent index. I deem it a fairly good secondary work of historical biography.
Here and there, Read takes pains to absolve conservative Catholics for their roll, and Read gives credence to "the growing influence of Jews (even, remarkably, in the army), their role in prominent scandals, and the resentment they encountered." He includes extensive quotes from "Anti-Semitism: Its History and Causes" by the Jewish journalist Bernard Lazare.
As French political and religious history of the 1890s it deserves an A+, as a fine smooth-flowing comprehensive biography it warrants a B+ at best, for its expression of passionate human empathy it deserves B+, and as a social history it warrants an A. Apparently a better biography (which won the [Harry] Wolfson History Prize) is "The Man on Devil's Island: Alfred Dreyfus and the Affair That Divided France" by Ruth Harris, 2011 -- in 560 pages.
Born in 1941, Read wrote 16 works of fiction, and three biographical works. I appreciate reading this biography since I'd read (in 2000) and thought very highly of his excellent non-fiction biographical work "Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors" - the story of the 1972 crash of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 in the Andes mountains. 'Alive' won the Thomas More Medal, sold five million copies worldwide, and was adapted into film.
__________________________
The British "Guardian" reviewed this book- "Read's 'The Dreyfus Affair' feels somewhat poorly timed and redundant, and all the more so since it is based on a very thin job of research. The first two parts of the book, taking the story up through Dreyfus's condemnation and imprisonment, rely almost entirely on published histories, and cite fewer than 10 original sources at first hand. Read's lack of expertise in French history comes through in the first pages of the book, in which he confuses the old regime's first and second estates, and the French Revolution's cult of reason and cult of the supreme being."
This review also posits this critique:- "Read makes the Dreyfusards out to be almost as rigid and intolerant as their opponents. He stresses that Zola offended devout Catholics with his anti-clerical novels." And in a section entitled 'Retribution', on the passage of secularist legislation in the wake of the Affair (including restrictions on Catholic schools), Read writes of "a determined effort by a government of atheists and Freemasons to prevent the education of French children in a faith that had flourished in France since the baptism of Clovis, 1,400 years before."
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