The French Republic

The Dreyfus affair involved the false accusation, trial, and imprisonment of Alfred Dreyfus for having supposedly revealed certain military secrets to Germany. One of the most troubling aspects of the Dreyfus affair was the possibility that it involved anti-Semitism, for Dreyfus was Jewish. The degree of anti-Semitism involved has been argued for some time. The affair began with an error on the part of a military court when it condemned Captain dreyfus to life imprisonment for an act of treason he had not committed; this was in 1894:

Antisemitism played but a minor part in this miscarriage of justice; the chief apostle of that barbaric creed, Edouard Drumont, was admired as a journalist but even the people who relished the virulence of his Libre Parole shrugged away his fanatical bias.

The real problem in the affair after the original conviction was the attitude on the part of the general staff that any decision made by a military court was final. The family of Dreyfus and some jurists and patriots called for a new trial, but the general staff only stiffened its resolve

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the election in 1924, and some of the important elements in this election involved the issue of reparations from Germany for World War I. Germany had been expected to pay a certain amount after 1919, but the payments were far below expectations. It was becoming apparent that the French people were weary of the war and its aftermath, and the 1924 elections gave the people the chance to express their views about the current regime. The election revived and strengthened the dominant political tradition of the French political system, a tradition which had been evident even in the hysterical atmosphere of the 1919 election: It was not only the superior tactics and superior discipline of the Radicals that made them so formidable. The elections of 1924 in France revealed the same desire to return to the easy ways of life of the good old days before the war. . . A genuine horror of war, a revival of the old optimistic dreams of international understanding, a natural revulsion against the extravagant nationalism that had been preached and to some extent practiced in recent years, revived the enthusiasm of the parties of the old Left. The Cartel was also calling for payment of the reparations by Germany. The voters elected 266 Car
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Popular Front, Libre Parole, War Germany, Emile Zola, Communists Socialists, Socialists SFIO, Catholics Dreyfusians, Dreyfus Jewish, French Fascism, Socialists Communists, popular front, dreyfus affair, des gauches, radical element, military court, cartel des gauches, cartel des, des gauches 1920s, gauches 1920s, harper row, socialist government, produced socialist, york harper row,
Approximate Word count = 1725
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)

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