Abstract
In the late 19th century, France was affected by an affair which changed its history: the Dreyfus affair. Dreyfus was a captain in French army who was suspected of betraying military secrets. From an Alsatian Jewish background, he was accused of being a traitor and was jailed without real proof. Captain Dreyfus was not actually guilty, but many reasons led authorities not to free him: firstly, he was Jewish and secondly, it would mean that the army had made a mistake. Despite evidences to show his innocence and suggesting that another officer (Esterhazy) was the culprit, his case was not reopened. After four years, in 1898, an event had a fundamental impact: the French writer Emile Zola wrote “J'accuse” in the French newspapers L'Aurore.
This was the beginning of a ‘war' which divided France into two for many years: those who defended Dreyfus and those who stood against him… This affair had huge impacts on French society and politics because this affair transcended the fate of a man and split the entire society. It is important to put this case back in its context, that is a rise of nationalism due to the Boulanger crisis a few years before. At the same time, on a political level, the extreme left was also rising and this generated fear among the bourgeois who felt threatened.
