Part 18 (2/2)
In the succeeding years perils manifold threatened the existence of the French Republic. A moral decline seemed to have sapped the foundations of public virtue, and the new military organization rose to a dangerous height of power, becoming a possible instrument of ambition which overshadowed and portended evil to the state. The spirit of anarchy, which had been so strikingly displayed in the excesses of the Parisian Commune, was shown later in various instances of death and destruction by the use of dynamite bombs, exploded in Paris and elsewhere. But its most striking example was in the murder of President Carnot, who was stabbed by an anarchist in the streets of Lyons. This a.s.sa.s.sination, and the disheartening exposures of dishonesty in the Panama Ca.n.a.l case trials, stirred the moral sentiment of France to its depths, and made many of the best citizens despair of the permanency of the republic.
DESPOTISM OF THE ARMY LEADERS
But the most alarming threat came from the army, which had grown in power and prominence until it fairly overtopped the state, while its leaders felt competent to set at defiance the civil authorities. This despotic army was an outgrowth of the Franco-Prussian war. The terrible punishment which the French had received in that war and in particular the loss of Alsace and Lorraine, filled them with bitter hatred of Germany and a burning desire for revenge. Yet it was evident that their military organization was so imperfect as to leave them helpless before the army of Germany, and the first thing to be done was to place themselves on a level in military strength with their foe. To this President Thiers had earnestly devoted himself, and the work of army organization went on until all France was virtually converted into a great camp, defended by powerful fortresses, and the whole male population of the country were practically made part of the army.
The final result of this was the development of one of the most complete and well-appointed military establishments in Europe.
The immediate cause of the reorganization of the army gradually pa.s.sed away. As time went on the intense feeling against Germany softened and the danger of war decreased. But the army became more and more dominant in France, and, as the century neared its end, the autocratic position of its leaders was revealed by a startling event, which was claimed to prove the moral decadence of France and the controlling influence and dominating power of the members of the General Staff. This was the celebrated Dreyfus Case, the CAUSE CELEBRE of the period. At the time concerned it excited the utmost interest, stirring France to its center, and attracting the earnest attention of the world. It aroused indignation as well as interest, and years pa.s.sed before it lost its hold on public attention. It can be dealt with here only with great brevity.
THE DREYFUS CASE
Albert Dreyfus, an Alsatian Jew and a captain in the Fourteenth Regiment of Artillery of the French army, detailed for service at the Information Bureau of the Minister of War, was arrested October 15, 1894, on charge of having sold military secrets to a foreign power. The following letter was said to have been found at the German emba.s.sy by a French detective, in what was declared to be the handwriting of Dreyfus:
”Having no news from you I do not know what to do. I send you in the meantime the condition of the forts. I also hand you the princ.i.p.al instructions as to firing. If you desire the rest I shall have them copied. The doc.u.ment is precious. The instructions have been given only to the officers of the General Staff. I leave for the maneuvers.”
Previous to the arrest of Dreyfus, the editor of the LIBRE PAROLE, had been carrying on a violent anti-Semitic agitation in his paper. He now raved about the Jews in general, declared Dreyfus guilty of selling army secrets to the Germans, and by his crusade turned public opinion in Paris strongly against the accused.
As a result of this a.s.sault and the statement that the letter was in the handwriting of the accused, he was tried before a military court, which sat behind closed doors, kept parts of the indictment from the knowledge of the prisoner and his lawyer, and in other ways manifested a lack of fairness.
As a result of this secret trial the accused was found guilty and condemned to be degraded from his military rank, and by a special act of the Chamber of Deputies was ordered to be imprisoned for life in a penal settlement on Devil's Island, off the coast of French Guiana, a tropical region, desolate and malarious in character. The sentence was executed with the most cruel harshness. During part of his detention Dreyfus was locked in a hut, surrounded by an iron cage, on the island. This was done on the plea of possible attempts at rescue. He was allowed to send and receive only such letters as had been transcribed by one of his guardians.
He denied, and never ceased to deny, his guilt. The letters he wrote to his counsel after the trial and after his disgrace are most pathetic a.s.sertions of his innocence, and of the hope that ultimately justice would be done him. His wife and family continued to deny his guilt, and used every influence to get his case reopened.
The whole affair in time excited a strong suspicion that Dreyfus had been used as a scapegoat for some one higher up and had been unjustly condemned, the fact of his being a Jew being used to excite prejudice against him. Many eminent literary men of France advocated the revision of a sentence which did not appeal to the sense of justice of the best element of France.
It was declared that military secrets continued to leak out after Dreyfus's arrest, and that the handwriting of the letter found was closely similar to that of Count Ferdinand Esterhazy, an officer in the French army, of n.o.ble Hungarian descent. This matter was so ventilated that some action became necessary and Esterhazy was tried secretly by court-martial, the trial ending in acquittal.
At this juncture, Emile Zola, the celebrated novelist, stepped into the fray as a defender of Dreyfus, writing a notable letter to President Favre, in which he accused the members of the court-martial of acquitting Esterhazy under order of their chiefs, who would not admit that a military court of France could possibly make a mistake.
This letter led to the arrest and trial of Zola and of the editor who published it. Their trials were conducted in a secret manner and they were found guilty and sentenced to a heavy fine and a year's imprisonment. Zola escaped imprisonment by absenting himself from France.
By this time the interest of the whole world was enlisted in the case, the action of the French courts was everywhere condemned, and in the end it was deemed advisable to bring Dreyfus back to France and accord him a new trial. This trial, which lasted from August 7 to September 7, 1899, indicated that he had been convicted on the most flimsy and uncertain evidence, largely conjectural in character, while there was strong evidence in his favor. Yet the judges of the court-martial seemed biased against him, and by a vote of three judges to two, he was again found guilty - ”of treason, with extenuating circ.u.mstances,” as if treason could be extenuated.
The whole affair was a transparent travesty upon justice, and the method by which it was conducted threw into a strong light the faulty character of the French method of trial. The result, indeed, was so flagrantly unsatisfactory that no further punishment was inflicted upon the accused, and in July, 1906, his case was brought before the Court of Appeals, with the result that he was acquitted and restored to his rank in the army.
CHURCH AND STATE
Later events of interest in French history had to do with the status of the Catholic Church in France and with the relations of France, Germany and Spain to Morocco, the latter more than once threatening war. The union of Church and State in France, which had only before been broken during the turbulent period of the Revolution, was definitely abrogated by a law of December 19, 1905, proclaiming the separation of Church and State in that country. By this, and a supplementary act in 1907, the Catholic church was put on the same footing in the republic as the Protestant and Jewish congregations. The use of church buildings, which had been the property of the state since the Revolution, was granted only under conditions which the Pope refused to accept, and religious liberty made a radical advance in France.
THE MOROCCO CONTROVERSY
Meanwhile troubles had arisen on the borders of Algeria between the French army of occupation and the unruly Moroccan tribes beyond the boundary. The efforts of France to abate these disturbances, which found support in the British government, aroused opposition in Germany, which objected to the claim of France to a predominant interest in Morocco. The affair went so far that Emperor William II visited Tangier, had a conference with the representatives of the Sultan, and was reported to have agreed to enforce the integrity of Morocco. The friction that resulted was allayed by a conference of the Powers held at Algeciras, Spain, in 1905, and the trouble was temporarily settled by a series of resolutions establis.h.i.+ng a number of reforms in Morocco, the privileged position of France along the Moroccan-Algerian frontier being acknowledged.
Disturbances continued, however, and the murder of a French doctor by the tribesmen in March, 1907, led to the occupation of a Moroccan town by French troops. Later in the year a more serious affair took place at the port of Casablanca, which was raided by insurgent tribesmen and European laborers and others were ma.s.sacred. A French force landed on August 7th and a desperate fight took place, during which nearly every inhabitant of the town was killed and wounded or had fled, the dead alone numbering thousands.
In 1911 matters in Morocco grew serious, there being severe fighting by Spanish troops in the Spanish concession around Alcazar, while tribal outbreaks against Fez, the Sultan's capital, brought a French military expedition to that point. By this, communication between the capital and the coast was established, the French government undertaking to organize the Sultan's army and carry out certain works of public improvement.
These movements revived the suspicions of Germany and that country took the decisive step of sending a war vessel to Agadir, a southern port of Morocco, with the ostensible purpose of protecting the persons and property of German subjects. This act led to the suspicion in France that Germany meant more than she said and that her real purpose was to gain a permanent hold on Moroccan territory. There was heated talk of war, as there usually is in such cases, but the affair was, in the end, amicably adjusted.
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