The International Press

The Affair also sparked a significant international response, particularly after 1898, with foreign newspapers covering the affair in detail. Shown here are a group of international journalists sitting together while covering the Rennes trial in 1899, as well as front pages of several American newspapers dramatically headlining the case. The American papers were overwhelmingly critical of the French judicial system and of the military’s refusal to acquit Dreyfus. The French were keenly aware of these international responses, and Reinach’s Le Siècle printed a compilation of foreign political cartoons made between May and October, 1898.

In 1899, the international outcry at the conviction of Dreyfus at Rennes even threatened to produce a boycott of the grand World Fair scheduled to open in Paris in 1900. This response may have played a role in motivating the government to act quickly to pardon Dreyfus.