Event

Dreyfus Affair

1894–1906 · 19th century

The Dreyfus Affair was a political scandal that divided France from 1894 to 1906. Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish army officer, was wrongly convicted of spying for Germany, and the army covered up evidence pointing to Major Ferdinand Esterhazy. Émile Zola's open letter J'Accuse in 1898 turned it into a national conflict between republicans and their nationalist, Catholic and antisemitic opponents, and Dreyfus was finally cleared in 1906.

Dreyfus Affair
Image: Aron Gerschel · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

Mentioned in 1 state history

French Third Republic

See also

Cite this entry
APA
The Epoch Institute. (2026). Dreyfus Affair. In The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/dreyfus-affair
MLA
“Dreyfus Affair.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia, The Epoch Institute, 2026, https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/dreyfus-affair. Accessed .
Chicago
The Epoch Institute. “Dreyfus Affair.” The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. 2026. https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/dreyfus-affair.
Harvard
The Epoch Institute (2026) ‘Dreyfus Affair’, The Epoch Institute Encyclopedia. Available at: https://the-epoch-institute.org/encyclopedia/dreyfus-affair (Accessed: ).

Last reviewed October 2026Random entry ↻