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The Dreyfus affair ((フランス語:l'affaire Dreyfus), ) was a political scandal that from its beginning in 1894 divided France until it was finally resolved in 1906. The affair is often seen as a modern and universal symbol of injustice,〔Guy Canivet, first President of the Supreme Court, ''Justice from the Dreyfus Affair'', p. 15.〕 and remains one of the most striking examples of a complex miscarriage of justice, where a major role was played by the press and public opinion. The scandal began in December 1894, with the treason conviction of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a young French artillery officer of Alsatian and Jewish descent. Sentenced to life imprisonment for allegedly communicating French military secrets to the German Embassy in Paris, Dreyfus was imprisoned on Devil's Island in French Guiana, where he spent nearly five years. Evidence came to light in 1896—primarily through an investigation instigated by Georges Picquart, head of counter-espionage—identifying a French Army major named Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy as the real culprit. After high-ranking military officials suppressed the new evidence, a military court unanimously acquitted Esterhazy after a trial lasting only two days. The Army then accused Dreyfus of additional charges based on falsified documents. Word of the military court's framing of Dreyfus and of an attempted cover-up began to spread, chiefly owing to ''J'accuse'', a vehement open letter published in a Paris newspaper in January 1898 by famed writer Émile Zola. Activists put pressure on the government to reopen the case. In 1899, Dreyfus was returned to France for another trial. The intense political and judicial scandal that ensued divided French society between those who supported Dreyfus (now called "Dreyfusards"), such as Sarah Bernhardt, Anatole France, Henri Poincaré and Georges Clemenceau, and those who condemned him (the anti-Dreyfusards), such as Édouard Drumont, the director and publisher of the antisemitic newspaper ''La Libre Parole''. The new trial resulted in another conviction and a 10-year sentence but Dreyfus was given a pardon and set free. Eventually all the accusations against Alfred Dreyfus were demonstrated to be baseless. In 1906 Dreyfus was exonerated and reinstated as a major in the French Army. He served during the whole of World War I ending his service with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. He died in 1935. The Affair from 1894 to 1906 divided France deeply and lastingly into two opposing camps: the pro-Army, mostly Catholic "anti-Dreyfusards" and the anticlerical, pro-republican Dreyfusards. It embittered French politics and encouraged radicalization. The conviction was a miscarriage of justice〔Or even a "judicial crime" according to Bredin, ''The Affair'', Fayard, 1984 and Vincent Duclert, ''Biography of Alfred Dreyfus'', Fayard, 2006. 〕〔See also the (speech ) (in French) of the French Minister of Justice Pascal Clement, 12 June 2006.〕 based upon faulty espionage and blatant antisemitism, as well as a hatred of the German Empire following its annexation of Alsace and part of Lorraine in 1871. ==Summary== At the end of 1894, the French army captain Alfred Dreyfus, a graduate of the Ecole Polytechnique and a Jew of Alsatian origin, was accused of handing secret documents to the Imperial German military, sentenced to prison for life for treason by a secret and closed trial, and deported to Devil's Island. At that time, the opinion of the French political class was unanimously unfavourable towards Dreyfus. Certain of the injustice of the sentence, the family of the Captain, through his brother Mathieu, tried to prove his innocence, engaging at this time with the journalist Bernard Lazare. Meanwhile, Colonel Georges Picquart, head of counter-espionage, found evidence in March 1896 indicating that the real traitor was Major Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy. The General Staff, however, refused to reconsider its judgment and transferred Picquart to North Africa. In July 1897, to draw attention to the fragility of the evidence against Dreyfus, his family contacted the President of the Senate Auguste Scheurer-Kestner, who reported three months later that he was convinced of the innocence of Dreyfus and also persuaded Georges Clemenceau, a former MP and then a newspaper reporter. In the same month, Mathieu Dreyfus complained to the Ministry of War against Walsin-Esterhazy. While the circle of Dreyfusards widened, two almost simultaneous events gave, in January 1898, a national dimension to the case: Esterhazy was acquitted to the cheers of nationalists, afterwards shaving his mustache and fleeing France, and Émile Zola published his "''J'Accuse'' ...!," his Dreyfusard declaration leading to the rallying of many intellectuals. A process of division of France began, which continued until the end of the century. Antisemitic riots erupted in more than twenty French cities. There were several deaths in Algiers. The Republic was shaken, with some even seeing it in peril, thus prompting a need to finish with the Dreyfus Affair to restore calm. Despite the intrigues of the army to quell this case, the first judgment against Dreyfus was annulled by the Supreme Court after a thorough investigation and a new Court Martial was held at Rennes in 1899. Against all the odds Dreyfus was convicted again with ten years at hard labour with extenuating circumstances. Exhausted by his deportation for four long years Dreyfus accepted the presidential pardon granted by President Émile Loubet. It was only in 1906 that his innocence was officially recognized through a decision without recourse by the Supreme Court. Rehabilitated, Captain Dreyfus was reinstated in the army with the rank of Major and participated in the First World War. He died in 1935. The implications of this case were numerous and affected all aspects of French public life: in politics, the affair established the triumph of the Third Republic and became a founding myth);〔Michel Winock, "The Dreyfus Affair as a founding myth," in ''La France politique'', Éditions du Seuil, coll. ''Points History'', 2003, pp. 151–165. 〕 in the renewal of nationalism, in the military; in religion, it slowed the reform of French Catholicism and republican integration of Catholics; and in social, legal, press, diplomatic and cultural life. It was during the affair that the term intellectual was coined. The affair engendered numerous antisemitic demonstrations, which in turn affected the emotions within the Jewish communities of Central and Western Europe. These demonstrations had an impact on the international movement of Zionism by persuading one of its founding fathers, Theodor Herzl, that the Jews must remove themselves and found their own state. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Dreyfus affair」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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