Anti-Semitism in France did not begin with the Dreyfus affair. It had already been a factor in French life for some years and it became especially prominent after the La Libre Parole soon became the most influential paper of its kind. In May 1892, it began to publish a series of articles under the heading The Jews in the Army in which the growing number of Jewish officers was denounced as a danger to national security. Naturally, when names were mentioned, challenges to duels tended to ensue and were regarded as the normal outcome. Drumont himself fought a Jewish army officer, Cremieux-Foa, and then, in another duel, the rabidly anti-semitic Marquis de Morès, a leading patron of La Libre Parole, killed a Jewish army officer, Captain Armand Mayer. The affair was a public scandal: in a statement to the press, the Marquis declared that he regretted the death of Mayer but added, "We are at the beginning of a civil war"; and his words were echoed by many other papers in the city, most of which
denounced the killing of a French officer. There was a sudden revulsion against the excesses of the anti semites, and thousands of sympathisers followed the captain's funeral procession. But in 1893, when prominent politicians and financiers were involved in a scandal arising out of revelations of corruption in the dealings of the Panama Canal Company, the Jews were again accused of being responsible for the spread of corruption in high places, while wild rumours circulated in the corridors of Parliament, the newspaper offices, clubs and the Stock Exchange. The Libre Parole, thanks to its influential connections, was one of the best-informed papers and it became one of the most widely read and feared in Paris, with a circulation of more than 200,000. . . . In October 1894, the Libre Parole published a brief account of the arrest of a Jewish staff officer accused of passing secrets to the Germans and began asking questions about the case. On Novem ber 1, 1894, it appeared with a huge headline: "HIGH TREASON - ARREST OF THE JEWISH OFFICER A. DREYFUS". A month later, as the trial was about to take place before a military tribunal, Drumont's paper was claiming that Dreyfus -- whose guilt was taken for granted -- was probably only a tool of the Jewish financiers in France and part of a vast, nation-wide Jewish plot to betray the French people and deliver them unarmed and unprepared into the hands of the enemy -- Germany.
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