An angry crowd hurled abuse and antisemitic slurs at Captain Alfred Dreyfus on 5th January, 1895, as he stood in the courtyard of the École Militaire in Paris to have his insignia torn away and his sword ceremonially snapped. He had been falsely convicted of treason.

The case against him rested almost entirely on a memorandum - the bordereau - found torn up in a German embassy waste-paper basket. Investigators claimed the handwriting resembled Dreyfus’s, and his trial was held behind closed doors, shielding the weakness of their case. 

Dreyfus was sent to Devil’s Island in French Guiana, where he was kept in near-total isolation, confined to a small hut, shackled at night, poorly fed, and forbidden meaningful human contact. 

In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly explain how evidence quietly emerged pointing to the real author of the bordereau: Major Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy; discover how public outrage finally broke through after Émile Zola’s famous open letter, “J’Accuse…!”; and consider how smears about Dreyfus’s sexuality were also used against him… 

Further Reading:

• ‘The Dreyfus affair: 100 years on’ (BBC News, 2006): https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/5166904.stm

• ‘The Dreyfus Affair: The Scandal And Anti-Semitism That Divided France’ (HistoryExtra, 2022): https://www.historyextra.com/period/modern/dreyfus-affair-what-happened-france-scandal-anti-semitism/

• ‘J'ACCUSE - Trailer’ (Gaumont, 2019): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iwqFo1B7nM

#Scandal #France #Jewish #Racism #1800s

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The Retrospectors are Olly Mann, Rebecca Messina & Arion McNicoll, with Matt Hill.

Theme Music: Pass The Peas. Announcer: Bob Ravelli. Graphic Design: Terry Saunders. Edit Producer: Ollie Peart

Copyright: Rethink Audio / Olly Mann 2026

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