Global InformationAffair of the Cards information
| Part of a series on |
| Freemasonry |
|---|
 |
| History of France |
|---|
 |
| Topics |
|
| Timeline |
 France portal |
The Affair of the Cards (French: Affaire des Fiches), sometimes called the Affair of the Casseroles,[a] was a political scandal which broke out in 1904 in France, during the Third French Republic. It concerned a clandestine political and religious filing operation set up in the French Army at the initiative of General Louis André, Minister of War, in the context of the aftermath of the Dreyfus affair and accusations of anti-republicanism made by leftists and radicals against the Corps of Officers in the French Army (which was at the time the largest land army in Europe) who accused it of being a final redoubt of conservative Catholic and Royalist individuals within French society.
From 1900 to 1904, the prefectural administrations, the Masonic lodges of the Grand Orient de France and other intelligence networks established data sheets on officers, which were sent to General André's office in order to decide on which officers would be allowed to receive promotions and advance up the military hierarchy, as well as be awarded decorations, and who would be excluded from advancement. These secret documents were preferred by General André to the official reports of the military command; this allowed him to set up a system whereby the advancement of republican, masonic and "free-thinking" officers was ensured and those who were identified as nationalist, Catholic or suspected to be sympathetic to any of the various strands of royalism would be hampered. For the Grand Orient and the cabinet of André, the purpose was to ensure the loyalty of the Officer Corps to the ruling regime of the Third Republic.
The scandal was unveiled to the public on 28 October 1904, when Jean Guyot de Villeneuve challenged the government in the Chamber of Deputies and revealed the filing system established by General André and the Grand Orient, producing in support of his accusations files which had been purchased from Jean-Baptiste Bidegain, deputy of the secretary-general of the Grand Orient. The Minister at first denied having any knowledge of these actions, but during the meeting of 4 November 1904, Guyot de Villeneuve produced a document which directly incriminated André; the meeting was stormy and the nationalist deputy Gabriel Syveton slapped the Minister of War, triggering a tussle on the floor.
The scandal had a major significance in French politics. The twists and turns and revelations of the affair followed one another for several months, while the press regularly published the files in question. Despite the support of Jean Jaurès of the French Socialist Party and the republican Bloc des gauches, the Émile Combes government collapsed on 15 January 1905, due to the pressure from the affair. The Maurice Rouvier cabinet, which succeeded him, formally condemned the system, pronounced symbolic sanctions and pursued a policy of rehabilitation. Nevertheless, the card system continued after 1905, no longer based on spying from the Grand Orient but on prefectural information and backed by the practice of political pressure. In 1913, the Minister of War Alexandre Millerand put an end to it definitively.
This political filing system, in addition to causing a certain moral and political crisis within Dreyfusard circles, which were divided on the priority to be given between the defense of the Third French Republic and the protection of freedom of conscience for all (including those they disagreed with), also weakened the French military high command, due to more than ten years of discrimination in the advancement of officers, which had consequences that were difficult to assess during the first months of the First World War.
Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).