in december, 1894, captain dreyfus, a member of the general staff, was found guilty of treason by a court martial. the court was unanimous. he was condemned to be sent to the ile du diable, there to expiate his offence by the prolonged torture of imprisonment and solitary confinement, in a tropical climate. it was a terrible punishment. but the offence of betraying france to germany, committed by an officer entrusted with the military secrets of the republic, was a terrible one too. it seemed so incredible, especially as captain dreyfus was a man of considerable means, that up to the last moment the gravest doubt as to the possibility of his having committed such a crime prevailed. when, however, the court declared against him as one man, and without the slightest hesitation, there could no longer be any question of the correctness of the decision. for the trial had lasted four whole days, and dreyfus had been defended by one of the ablest advocates at the paris bar. “what need have we of further witness?”

that was the universal feeling. nearly a quarter of a century before, marshal bazaine had betrayed france to her mortal enemy, and had escaped the penalty which was his due. common soldiers were frequently condemned to death and executed for impulsive actions against their superiors. high time an example should be made of a man of higher rank. dreyfus was lucky not to be shot out of hand. that an alsatian, a rich man, a soldier sworn to defend his country, an officer employed in a confidential post, should thus sell his[152] nation to germany was frightful. the thing was more than infamous. no punishment could be too bad for him. permanent solitary confinement under a blazing sun is worse than immediate death. all the better. his fate will encourage the others.

and captain dreyfus was a jew. that made the matter worse. powerful as they are in politics and finance, jews are not popular in france. by catholics and sworn anti-semites they are believed to be capable of anything. even by men of open mind they are regarded with distrust as citizens of no country, a set of asiatic marauders encamped for the time being in the west, whose god is a queer compound of jahveh, moloch and mammon. there was thus the bitterest race and religious prejudice eager to confirm the judgment of the court martial. the case was decided. dreyfus was sent off to the island of the devil.

clemenceau shared the general opinion. he accepted the statement of the president of the court martial that “there are interests superior to all personal interests.” and these were the interests which forbade that the court martial should be held in public, or that the secret evidence of treason should be disclosed. given the honour, good faith, capacity and freedom from prejudice of the judges, this was a reasonable contention on the part of the chief officer of the court. but there was that to come out, in this very dreyfus case, which should throw grave doubt upon the advisability of any sittings behind closed doors of any court that deals with matters into which professional, personal or political considerations may be imported. secrecy is invariably harmful to democracy and injurious to fair play.

three years later clemenceau began to understand what lay behind this veil of obscurity which he then allowed to be thrown over the whole of the dreyfus proceedings. he took upon himself the full burden of his own mistake. when he had distinguished his fine career by the vigorous and sustained effort in favour of justice to the victim, he reprinted at full[153] length his articles denouncing the man about whom he had been misled. “i cannot claim,” he writes, “credit for having from the first instinctively felt the iniquity. i believed dreyfus to be guilty, and i said so in scathing terms. it seemed to me impossible that officers should lightly inflict such a sentence on one of themselves. i imagined there had been some desperate imprudence. i considered the punishment terrible, but i excused it on the ground of devotion to patriotism.” nothing was farther from clemenceau’s thoughts, even at the close of 1897, than that dreyfus should after all be not guilty. he laughed at bernard lazare when he said so. meeting m. ranc by accident, this politician and journalist confirmed the opinion of lazare and declared that dreyfus was innocent. again clemenceau smiled incredulously, and was recommended to go at once and see m. scheurer-kestner, vice-president of the senate, the famous alsatian whose high qualities he many years afterwards proclaimed in a funeral oration.

the editor of l’aurore called upon that courageous and indefatigable champion of dreyfus; and comparison of the handwriting of esterhazy, the chief witness against the captain, with that of the bordereau attributed to dreyfus and decisive of his guilt, convinced clemenceau, not that dreyfus was innocent, but that the judgment had been quite irregular. therefore he resolved to begin a campaign for a revision of the case. he did not share scheurer-kestner’s view as to the enormous difficulty and danger of such an undertaking. trouble and misrepresentation he anticipated. bitter opposition from the members of the court and of the general staff—yes. virulent misrepresentation due to priestly hatred—yes. unceasing malignity of anti-semites—yes. strong political objection to any reopening of a “chose jugée,” on public grounds—yes. but, in spite of all, the truth in modern france would easily and triumphantly prevail! “events showed me how very far out i was in my calculations.”

as on more than one occasion in his stormy life, therefore,[154] clemenceau underrated the strength of the enemy. he had to contend against a combination of some of the strongest interests and passions that can affect human life and sentiment. there had been from the very commencement a bitter feeling among some of the most powerful sections of french society against the republic. as was shown in the rise of boulanger, clemenceau, by exposing the drawbacks of successive republican governments, had done much to strengthen this feeling among its opponents and to weaken the loyalty of its supporters. there was, in fact, nothing in the republic itself to be enthusiastic about. it was essentially a bourgeois republic, living on in a welter of bourgeois scandals, unbalanced by any great policy at home, any great military successes abroad, or any great personalities at the head of affairs. the glories of france were dimmed: the financiers of france—especially the jew financiers—were more influential than ever. all this helped the party of reaction.

religion, too, had come in to fortify finance and build up the anti-semite group. the catholics, to whom jews and free-masons are the red flags of the political and social bull ring, had not very long before challenged the former to deadly combat in that field of the cloth of gold on which, to use the phrase of one of their less enlightened competitors, they “do seem a sort of inspired.” it is possible that had the catholic union générale listened to the advice of their ablest and coolest brain, who was, be it said, neither a frenchman nor a catholic, the great financial combination of the church, with all its sanctified funds of the faithful behind it, might have won. even as it was, it drove a rothschild to commit suicide, which was regarded as a great feat at the time.

but m. bontoux was too ambitious, he did not possess the real financial faculty, his first successes turned such head as he possessed. the jews, therefore, were able to work their will upon the whole of his projects and groups, and the devout catholic investors of paris, vienna and other places had the intolerable mortification of seeing their savings swept into the[155] coffers of the infidel. this had happened some years before the dreyfus case. but losers have long memories, and here was a sore monetary grievance superadded to the previous religious hatred of the hebrew.

dreyfus was a jew. nay, more, he came of financial jews who had had their pickings out of the collapse of the union générale as well as out of the guano and other concessions malignantly obtained in the catholic republic of peru. monstrous that a man of that race and name should be an officer in the french army at all! still more outrageous that he should be placed by his ability and family influence in a position of military importance, and entrusted with serious military secrets! something must be done.

now the persons forming the most powerful coterie in the higher circles of the french army at this time were not only men who had been educated at the famous military academy of st. cyr and imbued with an esprit de corps cultivated from their school-days upwards, but they were officers who believed heartily, if not in the religion, at any rate in the beneficent secular persuasion of the catholic church. they were, as was clearly shown, greatly influenced by the jesuits, who saw the enormous advantage of keeping in close touch with the chiefs of the army.

then there were the monarchists and buonapartists, male and female, of every light and shade, who were eagerly on the look-out for any stroke that might discredit the new studious but scientific and unbelieving class of officers, whom the exigencies of modern warfare were making more and more essential to military efficiency. their interest was to keep as far as possible the main higher organisation and patronage of the army and the general staff a close borough and out of the hands of these new men.

all this formed a formidable phalanx of organised enmity against any officer who might not suit the prejudices or, at a critical moment, might be dangerous to the plans of people who, differ as they might in other matters, were at one in[156] disliking capable soldiers who were not of their particular set. and here was dreyfus, who embodied in his own person all their most cherished hatreds, who could be made the means of striking a blow at all similar intruders upon their preserve, in such wise as greatly to injure all their enemies at once. unfortunately for him, dreyfus was at the same time an able officer—so much the more dangerous, therefore—and personally not an agreeable man. not even their best friends would deny to clever jews the virtue of arrogance. dreyfus was arrogant. he was not a grateful person to his superiors or to his equals. they all wanted to get rid of him on their own account, and their friends outside were ready enough to embitter them against him because he was a jew.

this is not to say that there was an elaborate plot afoot among all who were brought in contact with dreyfus, or that, when the charge against him was formulated, there was a deliberate intention, on the part of the members of the court martial, to find him guilty, no matter what happened. but it is now quite certain that, from the first, the idea that he was a spy was agreeable to his fellow-officers in the ministry of war; and, being satisfied as to his responsibility for the crime that they wished to believe him guilty of, they did not stick at trifles, in the matter of procedure and testimony, which might relieve their consciences and justify their judgment. knowing, then, the powerful combination which would oppose to the death any revision of dreyfus’s trial, scheurer-kestner, resolute and self-sacrificing as he was, might well take a less sanguine view than clemenceau of the probabilities of certain victory as soon as the truth was made known.

but when once he began to doubt whether dreyfus had had fair play, clemenceau immediately showed those qualities of personal and political courage, persistence, disregard of popularity, and power of concentrating all his forces upon the immediate matter in hand, indifferent to the numbers and strength of his opponents, which had gained him so high a place in the estimation of all democrats and lovers of fair play[157] long before. “if there are manifest probabilities of error, the case must be revised.” that was his view. but the national army and the national religion, as bitter opponents of justice put it, were one and indivisible on this matter. militarism and jesuitism together, backed by the high society of reaction and a large section of the bourgeoisie, constituted a stalwart array in favour of the perpetuation of injustice. there was literally scarce a crime of which this combination was not capable rather than admit that by any possibility a court martial on a jew captain could go wrong.

the minister of war, general billot, the prime ministers méline and brisson, generals of high standing such as mercier, boisdeffre, gonse, zurlinden and others, officers of lower rank and persons connected with them, were gradually mixed up with and defended such a series of attempted murders, ordered suicides, wholesale forgeries, defence and decoration of exposed spies, perjury, misrepresentation and false imprisonment that the marvel is how france survived such a tornado of turpitude. clemenceau little knew what it would all lead to when, by no means claiming that dreyfus was innocent, he and scheurer-kestner and zola and jaurès, and all honest radicals and socialists, demanded that, even if dreyfus were guilty, he could not have been legally condemned on false evidence and forged documents: the latter never having been communicated to his counsel. it was on this ground that clemenceau demanded a revision of the trial.

but quite early in the fray the defenders of the court martial became desperate in their determination that the matter should never be thoroughly investigated. the honour of the army was at stake. colonel picquart, a man of the highest credit and capacity, comes to the conclusion in the course of his official inspection of documents at headquarters that the incriminating paper on which dreyfus was condemned, but which he was never allowed to see, was not in his handwriting at all, but in that of major esterhazy, an officer disliked and distrusted by all fellow-officers with whom he had served.[158] picquart, in fact, suspected that esterhazy was a prussian spy and that he forged the bordereau which convinced the court martial of dreyfus’s guilt. but before this, in 1894 when the story leaked out that an officer having relations with the general staff was suspected of treachery, it was not dreyfus whose name was first mentioned. his old comrades said with one accord, “it must be esterhazy: we thought so.” esterhazy, however, soon made himself necessary to the army chiefs and their catholics. if his character was blasted publicly, down these gentry would come, and with them the whole of the proceedings against dreyfus. they therefore suggested to picquart that he should simply hold his tongue. “you are not at l’ile du diable,” they said. but picquart would persist, so they sent him off to tunis. however, thanks to scheurer-kestner and others, the truth began to come out, and picquart still refused to be silenced. so instead of dealing with esterhazy, they arrested his accuser and gave the major a certificate of the very highest character.

as it began, so it went on. clemenceau’s daily articles and attacks drove the militarists, the catholics, the anti-semites, and the reactionaries generally, into a fury. colonel henry, colonel paty du clam, the jesuit father du lac, the editors and contributors of the figaro, the echo de paris (the special organ of the staff), the gaulois were in a permanent conspiracy with the generals named above, and the general staff itself, to prevent the truth from being known. it was all of no use. picquart under lock and key was more effective than picquart at large. slowly but surely men of open mind became convinced that, little as they wished to believe it, something was wrong. but these were always the minority. few could grasp the fact that an innocent man was being put in chains on the ile du diable, virtually because there was an agitation in favour of his re-trial in paris.

then came zola’s terrible letter in the aurore, which clemenceau had suggested, and gave up his daily article in order to give place to. he also supplied the title “j’accuse.” zola[159] summed up the whole evidence relentlessly against the general staff and its tools and forgers, esterhazy, henry, paty du clam and the rest of them.

such an indictment, formulated by a novelist who was universally recognised as one of the leading men of letters in europe, quite outside of the political arena, would have attracted attention at any time. in the midst of a period when all feelings and minds were wrought up to the highest point of tension, it came as a direct and heavy blow at the whole of the military party. it is difficult to realise to-day the sensation produced. it had all the effect of a combined attack of horse, foot and artillery for which preparation had been made long before by a successful bombardment. there was no effective answer possible in words. this the military cliques and their friends at once saw and acted upon. they abandoned discussion and forced zola and l’aurore into court on a charge of treason and libel. the action stirred all europe and riveted attention throughout the civilised world. this was due not merely to zola’s great reputation and popularity, to the political position held by clemenceau, to the enthralling interest of the dreyfus affair itself, to the excitement of the life-and-death struggle between freedom and reaction, but to the fact that behind all this lay the never-dying hostility of germany to france.

all this was too much for the criminal champions of “the honour of the army.” l’aurore and zola must be prosecuted. they were. and clemenceau conducted his own defence. it was a crucial case, and the famous advocate labori had previously done his best for zola, pointing out that the whole drama turned on the prisoner then suffering at the ile du diable: perhaps the most infamous criminal, perhaps a martyr, the victim of human fallibility. he had shown, however, that “all the powers for justice are combined against justice,” and had called for the revision of a great case.

“after the jury have adjudicated, public opinion and france herself will judge you,” said clemenceau himself. “you[160] have been told that a document was privately communicated to the court. do you understand what that means? it means that a man is tried, is condemned, is covered with ignominy, his own name, that of his wife, of his children, of his father, of all his connections eternally blasted, on the faith of a document he had never been shown. gentlemen, who among you would not revolt at the very idea of being condemned under such conditions? who among you would not adjure us to demand justice for you if, brought before a tribunal, after a mockery of investigation, after a purely formal discussion, the judges, meeting out of your presence, decided on your honour and your life, condemning you, without appeal, on a document of whose very existence you were kept in ignorance? who among you would quietly submit to such a decision? if this has been done, i tell you your one duty above all others is that such a case should be re-tried.”

that was the main point, as clemenceau saw even more clearly than m. labori. no man, guilty or innocent, could be justly condemned and sentenced on the strength of a written document the purport and even the existence of which had been deliberately concealed from the prisoner and his counsel. it scarcely needed further argument, not even the direct proof which was forthcoming that colonel sandherr, the president of the court martial, had a bitter and unreasoning prejudice against jews. if the validity of the document had been beyond all possibility of question; if witnesses whose good faith had been unquestionable had seen dreyfus write it with their own eyes: even then the trial was legally vitiated by the fact that it had not been shown to the accused. but if the document was forged——? all the other points, serious as some of them were, counted little by the side of this.

that, therefore, clemenceau dealt with most persistently. that, therefore, the general staff, with its coterie of jesuits, anti-semites and spies, was determined to cover up. the generals who bore witness in the case against zola and l’aurore showed by their threats and their admissions they knew that it[161] was they themselves and the members of the secret court martial who were really on their trial at the bar of public opinion.

it was in this sense that clemenceau closed his memorable defence. he declared against the forger of the bordereau, the prussian spy, esterhazy, who was sheltered and honoured by the chiefs of the french army. “yes, it is we,” he cried, amid derisive shouts and howls in court, “it is we who are the defenders of the army, when we call upon you to drive esterhazy out of it. the conscious or unconscious enemies of the army are those who propose to cashier picquart and retain esterhazy. gentlemen of the jury, a general has come here to talk to you about your children. tell me now which of them would like to find himself in esterhazy’s battalion? tell me, would you hand over your sons to this officer to lead against the enemy? the very question is enough. who does not know the answer before it is given?

“gentlemen of the jury, i have done. we have passed through terrible experiences in this century. we have known glory and disaster in every form, we are even at this moment face to face with the unknown. fears and hopes encompass us around. grasp the opportunity as we ourselves have grasped it. be masters of your own destinies. a people sitting in judgment on itself is a noble thing. a stirring scene also is a people deciding on its own future. your task, gentlemen of the jury, is to pronounce a verdict less upon us than upon yourselves. we are appearing before you. you will appear before history.”