A Not So Distant Mirror

THE Dreyfus Affair was peculiarly French, but its implications are much wider. A modern state, an advanced democracy, evidently could fall prey to the superstitions of the Middle Ages, and lapse into moral chaos. Here was something exemplary, a warning of what the 20th century held in store for many states.

One day in 1894, senior officers in the French army sent for Alfred Dreyfus, an artillery captain, and accused him of selling military secrets to the Germans. Dreyfus was innocent. He was also Jewish, and this was why the officers suspected him. To make their case, they had to falsify or forge evidence. Confronted with the truth, they went in for further fabrications and lying. Their defense was based on nationalism. The honor of the army was at stake, they told themselves and the public, at a time when they were preparing to revenge their recent humiliating defeat at Germany’s hands in the war of 1870, and the loss of Alsace and Lorraine. The political establishment, including the judiciary, came to collude with the military in an immense miscarriage of justice.

About the Author

David Pryce-Jones

David Pryce-Jones (1936–2025) was a British author and commentator and served as a senior editor of National Review.

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THE Dreyfus Affair was peculiarly French, but its implications are much wider. A modern state, an advanced democracy, evidently could fall prey to the superstitions of the Middle Ages, and lapse into moral chaos. Here was something exemplary, a warning of what the 20th century held in store for many states.

One day in 1894, senior officers in the French army sent for Alfred Dreyfus, an artillery captain, and accused him of selling military secrets to the Germans. Dreyfus was innocent. He was also Jewish, and this was why the officers suspected him. To make their case, they had to falsify or forge evidence. Confronted with the truth, they went in for further fabrications and lying. Their defense was based on nationalism. The honor of the army was at stake, they told themselves and the public, at a time when they were preparing to revenge their recent humiliating defeat at Germany’s hands in the war of 1870, and the loss of Alsace and Lorraine. The political establishment, including the judiciary, came to collude with the military in an immense miscarriage of justice.