The Dreyfus Affair and the Crisis of French Manhood (review)

Much has been written about the Dreyfus affair in France. It was one of the decisive events that shaped political and ideological debate in that nation for half a century. Christopher Forth joins a small but growing group of scholars interested in the deep-level cultural changes associated with the affair. He focuses, in accordance with the current scholarly climate, on gender issues and, more specifically, changing notions of manhood.

Forth recognizes that the affair was not primarily about masculine identity. He makes two fundamental claims. First, debates about the guilt or innocence of Dreyfus and the political implications of each were sometimes couched in the language of a long-brewing "crisis" regarding the nature and quality of French manhood. This is plausible, and will be discussed below. The stronger claim is that the Dreyfus affair did not just reflect or use such ideas but "provided the French with an opportunity to elevate hitherto localized anxieties about masculine identity to national proportions, thus expressing and perhaps even accelerating changes in manly ideals that had been developing in earlier years" (p. 5). This latter claim may well prove to be correct, but it is, to say the least, unsupported by any evidence that the author provides. Because so much was going on during the decades before World War I, it is virtually impossible to isolate the effects of the affair on ideals of manhood from, say, the repercussions of the defeat at Sedan, radical political change, and the fear of German power. I will therefore focus on the first, more plausible—and in my view, more interesting—argument.

First, some background. As in other countries, the changing social and economic order in France was perceived to threaten the health of populations, especially of elites. Sedentary life and work styles, as well as the pressures of modern life, seemed to be causing health problems for men as well as women and were complicating gender identities that were already in flux. The problem in France was intensified by three factors: the development of a system of elite selection that relied to an extraordinary degree on academic achievement measured by examinations; the defeat at the hands of Prussia, which made many fear that the nation was caught in a vortex of degeneration; and, from the 1870s, the entry of the "new classes" into the political system of the emerging Third Republic. Fear of a weakened population was thus conflated with debate about the physical and moral virtues of old and new elites.

What Forth and others call a crisis of masculinity or manhood was at some levels primarily a debate about the virtues most appropriate to a ruling class (masculine, to be sure). Often, it had to do with the competition among various groups to be identified with traditional virtues (like courage, wisdom, and strength), even as real differences emerged about the kinds of training appropriate for elites and the people. Consequently, as I read this book, I frequently found myself wondering whether "crisis of masculinity" was the most appropriate way to frame the issues being discussed, and whether it did not actually obscure the ongoing struggle to control symbols. (Does the fact that both supporters and opponents of the war in Iraq claim to represent true "patriotism" constitute a "crisis" of patriotism, as opposed to a political crisis tout court with its attendant battles to mobilize powerful national symbols?)

That being said, this is a book worth reading. Forth's early chapters are original and interesting. He charts the competition between anti-Dreyfusards and their opponents to appropriate symbols of manly courage and to tar their opponents with the brush of physical and moral weakness (often associated with Jews, women, and the Crowd). Anti-Dreyfusards who were defending the army had the considerable advantage of being in a position to appeal to military ideals...