This document is a blatantly anti-Semitic article from the time of Dreyfus’s condemnation. It was published in an edition of a popular family newspaper, “La Veillée des Chaumières”.
The “Dreyfus Affair” is an event that took place in France at the end of the 19th century. Its main character is Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jew of Alsatian origin, accused of treason.
At the end of 1894, Captain Dreyfus was convicted of spying and delivering secret French documents to the enemy, in a context of anti-Semitism fanned by the nationalist press and hatred of Germany following the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine in 1871.
This major political and social crisis of the Third Republic deeply divided French society into two opposing camps: the “Dreyfusards”, convinced of Dreyfus’s innocence, and the “Anti-Dreyfusards”, certain of his guilt. Captain Dreyfus was finally exonerated after twelve long years.
This affair remains one of the most striking examples of a major miscarriage of justice committed in the name of raison d’État, in which the press and public opinion played a predominant role.
In 2025, July 12 was officially declared a day to commemorate the rehabilitation of Captain Alfred Dreyfus by the French Republic.