A forged letter and a Jewish officer's wrongful conviction split France for a decade
In 1894, French army captain Alfred Dreyfus was convicted of treason for passing military secrets to Germany, based on evidence later proven forged, and exiled to a penal colony in French Guiana. Novelist Émile Zola's 1898 open letter 'J'Accuse' exposed the cover-up and split French society between Dreyfusards and anti-Dreyfusards for over a decade. Dreyfus was fully exonerated in 1906, and the affair is widely cited as a catalyst for modern political Zionism.