The Dreyfus Affair
From Dreyfus To PÉtain.
by Wilhelm Herzog.
New York, Creative Age Press, 1947. 313 pp. $3.50.

It Is just fifty years since Emile Zola was convicted by an intimidated French jury of “defaming” the court martial which had railroaded Captain Alfred Dreyfus to Devil’s Island on a trumped-up charge of having sold military secrets to the enemy. For the good citizens of that jury the convincing evidence was not the documents about which lawyers argued in the courtroom but the frightening insinuations of the anti-Semitic press that Zola’s acquittal and Dreyfus’ exoneration would lead to the resignation of the military chiefs and the disintegration of the army. To the rest of the world, however, it was already clear (as the London Times remarked) that “M. Zola’s offense is that he has dared to stand up for truth and civil liberty.” French conscience, too, was soon aroused, the Dreyfusard campaign gained momentum, and Dreyfus was rehabilitated by an officially repentant republic. The most famous of modern causes célèbres was over. But was it? A generation later political passions could still be aroused by the presentation of a pro-Dreyfus play in Paris; and even today it would be rash to suggest that the ghosts of Drumont and Rochefort and Déroulède have been finally laid.

The Dreyfus affair is thus far from “over” and the most remarkable thing about this remarkable case is that half a century later it still seeks a historian. Reinach’s seven-volume Histoire de l’Affaire Dreyfus, completed some forty years ago, is more of a documented brief than a history. Aside from scattered pages in the better histories of the Third Republic (such as that of D. W. Brogan), our knowledge is still derived to an overwhelming extent from contemporary pamphleteers, diarists, polemicists, and apologists. Even the lively and popular account by Jacques Kayser is marred by the diffuseness and the strained air of vindication and bathos which seems to seize literary Dreyfusards.

It Is therefore with regret that I report another miss. Although he has made a noteworthy contribution to a general understanding of the affair and has illumined some of its dark corners with scholarly insight, Mr. Herzog has largely failed in his stated effort to give us “a scientific representation of the entire complexity of the Affair.” Dreyfus to Pétain can by no means be dismissed. It represents four years of research and writing and exhibits a wide acquaintance with the social and political context from which the case emerged; documentary material, particularly that from German sources, is well handled; and some of the interpretations reflect shrewd understanding of character and motives. Notable are the portrayals of Dreyfus and Esterhazy and the account of Zola’s awakening to the moral significance of the affair. Nor is Mr. Herzog unaware of the part played by political anti-Semitism in the clerical-military plot to capture the government and soul of France through the anti-Dreyfus propaganda and of the continuing influence of this conspiracy of reaction in French politics. The road from Drumont to Laval is well defined.

Yet all the virtues of this book are not enough to overcome its faults, most of which can be traced to an essential lack of cohesiveness. Dreyfus to Pétain is confusing and disjointed. Its central theme—the revival of an anti-republican, anti-Semitic movement in France as an integral part of the Dreyfus case—is often stated but never developed; instead the author worries it to shreds. Trying hard to present all the facets of a complex story, Mr. Herzog spreads himself thin and gives the impression—his account is that splotchy and out of proportion—of an amateur hand painting too difficult a theme on too large a canvas. Observing events through the eyes of the principals is, of course, a perfectly valid method in writing history, but with few exceptions the profiles do not come off and are further marred by an awkward style and stray teutonisms.

There are many reasons why the Dreyfus case has been neglected by historians and why those who do try to deal with it so often stumble. The affair remains complex and many of its material facts are still shrouded in mystery. Some of the principal conspirators—Colonel Henry for example—died without leaving a record of their part in the affair. There was a concerted effort to shield the villainies of Esterhazy, the real betrayer of France, for whose crimes Dreyfus was made the scapegoat. Dreyfus himself is the supreme example of the hero malgré lui and neither he nor his relatives were concerned with the broader issues once his amnesty had been gained. Even more important is the lack of basic materials: the dossier in the case remains sealed (if it still exists) and the ministry of war has not welcomed the researches of historians. But the major obstacle is of a different order.

All attempts to reconstruct the affair have centered on the Dreyfus “case” and have been concerned with the task of bolstering the innocence of Dreyfus and establishing the villainy of Sandherr and Henry and Esterhazy and Boisdeffre, a matter of small significance. The Dreyfus affair was never simply the story of the ordeal of one man. Nor, in a larger sense, did the correction of injustice close the case. From the very first, when the honest Colonel Picquart noted discrepancies in the dossier and it became clear that a judicial error was being deliberately perpetuated, all France divided not upon a question of individual justice but on that of the survival of the republic. From that time on Dreyfus himself was the most irrelevant of factors. For the Dreyfusards it was clear that they were defending the principles of 1789 against the attacks of the clericals and anti-Semites and professional “patriots.” What made the Dreyfus case historically important was that the military chiefs, because of their implication in the conspiracy to shield one of their own by making a scapegoat of the Jewish officer, were forced to line up with the Drumonts and Déroulédes in order to protect themselves. Having become captives of the clericals and anti-Semites, the generals had no choice but to become the champions of reaction. On this issue there were no intermediates and on this issue France has fought a suppressed civil war to this day. And it is only in this context that the authentic history of the Dreyfus affair will some day be written.

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