Encyclopaedia Britannica Volume 2, Slice 2 Part 23

This found an echo in the agrarian principles of the Christian Socialists, as expounded by Rudolph Meyer, in which individualism in landed property was admitted on the condition that the landowners were "the families of the nation" and not "cosmopolitan financiers." A further indication of anti-Semitism is found in a speech delivered in 1878 by Prince Alois von Liechtenstein (b. 1846), the most prominent disciple of Rudolph Meyer, who denounced the national debt as a tribute paid by the state to cosmopolitan rentiers (Nitti, _Catholic Socialism_, pp. 200, 201, 211, 216). The growing disorder in parliament, due to the bitter struggle between the German and Czech parties, served to bring anti-Semitism into the field of practical politics. Since 1867 the German Liberals had been in power. They had made enemies of the Clericals by tampering with the concordat, and they had split up their own party by the federalist policy adopted by Count Taaffe. The Radical secessionists in their turn found it difficult to agree, and an ultra-national German wing formed itself into a separate party under the leaders.h.i.+p of Ritter von Schonerer (b. 1842), a Radical nationalist of the most violent type. In 1882 two anti-Semitic leagues had been founded in Vienna, and to these the Radical nationalists now appealed for support. The growing importance of the party led the premier, Count Taaffe, to angle for the support of the Clericals by accepting a portion of the Christian Socialist programme. The hostility this excited in the liberal press, largely written by Jews, served to bring the feudal Christian Socialists and Radical anti-Semites together. In 1891 these strangely a.s.sorted factions became consolidated, and during the elections of that year Prince Liechtenstein came forward as an anti-Semitic candidate and the acknowledged leader of the party. The elections resulted in the return of fifteen anti-Semites to the Reichsrath, chiefly from Vienna.

Although Prince Liechtenstein and the bulk of the Christian Socialists had joined the anti-Semites with the support of the Clerical organ, the _Vaterland_, the Clerical party as a whole still held aloof from the Jew-baiters. The events of 1892-1895 put an end to their hesitation. The Hungarian government, in compliance with long-standing pledges to the liberal party, introduced into the diet a series of ecclesiastical reform bills providing for civil marriage, freedom of wors.h.i.+p, and the legal recognition of Judasim on an equality with other denominations.

These proposals, which synchronized with Ahlwardt's turbulent agitation in Germany, gave a great impulse to anti-Semitism and served to drive into its ranks a large number of Clericals. The agitation was taken in hand by the Roman Catholic clergy, and the pulpits resounded with denunciations of the Jews. One clergyman, Father Deckert, was prosecuted for preaching the Blood Accusation and convicted (1894). Cardinal Schlauch, bishop of Grosswardein, declared in the Hungarian House of Magnates that the Liberals were in league with "cosmopolitans" for the ruin of the country. In October 1894 the magnates adopted two of the ecclesiastical bills with amendments, but threw out the Jewish bill by a majority of six. The crown sided with the magnates, and the ministry resigned, although it had a majority in the Lower House. An effort was made to form a Clerical cabinet, but it failed. Baron Banffy was then entrusted with the construction of a fresh Liberal ministry. The announcement that he would persist with the ecclesiastical bills lashed the Clericals and anti-Semites into a fury, and the agitation broke out afresh. The pope addressed a letter to Count Zichy encouraging the magnates to resist, and once more two of the bills were amended, and the third rejected. The papal nuncio, Mgr. Agliardi, now thought proper to pay a visit to Budapest, where he allowed himself to be interviewed on the crisis. This interference in the domestic concerns of Hungary was deeply resented by the Liberals, and Baron Banffy requested Count Kalnoky, the imperial minister of foreign affairs, to protest against it at the Vatican. Count Kalnoky refused and tendered his resignation to the emperor. Clerical sympathies were predominant in Vienna, and the emperor was induced for a moment to decline the count's resignation. It soon became clear, however, that the Hungarians were resolved to see the crisis out, and that in the end Vienna would be compelled to give way.

The emperor accordingly retraced his steps, Count Kalnoky's resignation was accepted, the papal nuncio was recalled, a batch of new magnates were created, and the Hungarian ecclesiastical bills pa.s.sed.

Simultaneously with this crisis another startling phase of the anti-Semitic drama was being enacted in Vienna itself. Encouraged by the support of the Clericals the anti-Semites resolved to make an effort to carry the Vienna munic.i.p.al elections. So far the alliance of the Clericals with the anti-Semites had been unofficial, but on the eve of the elections (January 1895) the pope, influenced partly by the Hungarian crisis and partly by an idea of Cardinal Rampolla that the best antidote to democratic socialism would be a clerically controlled fusion of the Christian Socialists and anti-Semites, sent his blessing to Prince Liechtenstein and his followers. This action alarmed the government and a considerable body of the higher episcopate, who felt a.s.sured that any permanent encouragement given to the anti-Semites would in the end strengthen the parties of sedition and disorder. Cardinal Schonborn was despatched in haste to Rome to expostulate with the pontiff, and his representations were strongly supported by the French and Belgian bishops. The mischief was however, done, and although the pope sent a verbal message to Prince Liechtenstein excluding the anti-Semites from his blessing, the elections resulted in a great triumph for the Jew-haters. The munic.i.p.al council was immediately dissolved by the government, and new elections were ordered, but these only strengthened the position of the anti-Semites, who carried 92 seats out of a total of 138. A cabinet crisis followed, and the premiers.h.i.+p was entrusted to the Statthalter of Galicia, Count Badeni, who a.s.sumed office with a pledge of war to the knife against anti-Semitism. In October the new munic.i.p.al council elected as burgomaster of Vienna Dr Karl Lueger (b. 1844), a vehement anti-Semite, who had displaced Prince Liechtenstein as leader of the party. The emperor declined to sanction the election, but the council repeated it in face of the imperial displeasure. Once more a dissolution was ordered, and for three months the city was governed by administrative commissioners. In February 1896 elections were again held, and the anti-Semites were returned with an increased majority. The emperor then capitulated, and after a temporary arrangement, by which for one year Dr Lueger acted as vice-burgomaster and handed over the burgomasters.h.i.+p to an inoffensive nominee, permitted the munic.i.p.al council to have its way. The growing anarchy in parliament at this moment served still further to strengthen the anti-Semites, and their conquest of Vienna was speedily followed by a not less striking conquest of the Landtag of Lower Austria (November 1896).

Since then a reaction of sanity has slowly but surely a.s.serted itself.

In 1908 the anti-Semites had governed Vienna twelve years, and, although they had accomplished much mischief, the millennium of which they were supposed to be the heralds had not dawned. On the contrary, the commercial interests of the city had suffered and the rates had been enormously increased (_Neue Freie Presse_, 29th March 1901), while the predatory hopes which secured them office had only been realized on a small and select scale. The spectacle of a Clerico-anti-Semitic tammany in Vienna had strengthened the resistance of the better elements in the country. Time had also shown that Christian Socialism is only a disguise for high Toryism, and that the German Radicals who were originally induced to join the anti-Semites had been victimized by the Clericals.

The fruits of this disillusion began to show themselves in the general elections of 1900-1901, when the anti-Semites lost six seats in the Reichsrath. The elections were followed (26th January 1901) by a papal encyclical on Christian democracy, in which Christian Socialism was declared to be a term unacceptable to the Church, and the faithful were adjured to abstain from agitation of a demagogic and revolutionary character, and "to respect the rights of others." Nevertheless, in 1907 the Christian Socialists trebled their representation in the Reichsrath.

This, however, was due more to their alliance with the German national parties than to any large increase of anti-Semitism in the electorate.

France.

The last country in Europe to make use of the teachings of German anti-Semitism in its party politics was France. The fact that the movement should have struck root in a republican country, where the ideals of democratic freedom have been so pa.s.sionately cultivated, has been regarded as one of the paradoxes of our latter-day history. As a matter of fact, it is more surprising that it was not adopted earlier.

All the social and political conditions which produced anti-Semitism in Germany were present in France, but in an aggravated form due primarily to the very republican _regime_ which at first sight seemed to be a guarantee against it. In the monarchical states the dominance of the _bourgeoisie_ was tempered in a measure by the power of the crown and the political activity of the aristocracy, which carried with them a very real restraining influence in the matter of political honour and morality. In France these restraining influences were driven out of public life by the republic. The n.o.bility both of the _ancien regime_ and the empire stood aloof, and politics were abandoned for the most part to professional adventurers, while the _bourgeoisie_ a.s.sumed the form of an omnipotent plutocracy. This naturally attracted to France all the financial adventurers in Europe, and in the train of the immigration came not a few German Jews, alienated from their own country by the agitation of Marr and Stocker. Thus the _bourgeoisie_ was not only more powerful in France than in other countries, but the obnoxiousness of its Jewish element was accentuated by a tinge of the national enemy. The anti-clericalism of the _bourgeois_ republic and its unexampled series of financial scandals, culminating in the Panama "Krach," thus sufficed to give anti-Semitism a strong hold on the public mind.

Nevertheless, it was not until 1882 that the anti-Jewish movement was seriously heard of in France. Paul Bontoux (b. 1820), who had formerly been in the employ of the Rothschilds, but had been obliged to leave the firm in consequence of his disastrous speculations, had joined the Legitimist party, and had started the Union Generale with funds obtained from his new allies. Bontoux promised to break up the alleged financial monopoly of the Jews and Protestants and to found a new plutocracy in its stead, which should be mainly Roman Catholic and aristocratic. The bait was eagerly swallowed. For five years the Union Generale, with the blessing of the pope, pursued an apparently prosperous career. Immense schemes were undertaken, and the 123-fr. shares rose gradually to 3200 francs. The whole structure, however, rested on a basis of audacious speculation, and in January 1882 the Union Generale failed, with liabilities amounting to 312,000,000 francs. The cry was at once raised that the collapse was due to the manoeuvres of the Jews, and a strong anti-Semitic feeling manifested itself in clerical and aristocratic circles. In 1886 violent expression was given to this feeling in a book since become famous, _La France juive_, by Edouard Drumont (b. 1844).

The author ill.u.s.trated the theories of German anti-Semitism with a _chronique scandaleuse_ full of piquant personalities, in which the corruption of French national life under Jewish influences was painted in alarming colours. The book was read with avidity by the public, who welcomed its explanations of the obviously growing debauchery. The Wilson scandals and the suspension of the Panama Company in the following year, while not bearing out Drumont's anti-Semitism, fully justified his view of the prevailing corruption. Out of this condition of things rose the Boulangist movement, which rallied all the disaffected elements in the country, including Drumont's following of anti-Semites. It was not, however, until the flight of General Boulanger and the ruin of his party that anti-Semitism came forward as a political movement.

The chief author of the rout of Boulangism was a Jewish politician and journalist, Joseph Reinach (b. 1856), formerly private secretary to Gambetta, and one of the ablest men in France. He was a Frenchman by birth and education, but his father and uncles were Germans, who had founded an important banking establishment in Paris. Hence he was held to personify the alien Jewish domination in France, and the ex-Boulangists turned against him and his co-religionists with fury. The Boulangist agitation had for a second time involved the Legitimists in heavy pecuniary losses, and under the leaders.h.i.+p of the marquis de Mores they now threw all their influence on the side of Drumont. An anti-Semitic league was established, and with Royalist a.s.sistance branches were organized all over the country. The Franco-Russian alliance in 1891, when the persecutions of the Jews by Pobedonostsev were attracting the attention of Europe, served to invest Drumont's agitation with a fas.h.i.+onable and patriotic character. It was a sign of the spiritual approximation of the two peoples. In 1892 Drumont founded a daily anti-Semitic newspaper, _La Libre Parole_. With the organization of this journal a regular campaign for the discovery of scandals was inst.i.tuted. At the same time a body of aristocratic swashbucklers, with the marquis de Mores and the comte de Lamase at their head, set themselves to terrorize the Jews and provoke them to duels. At a meeting held at Neuilly in 1891, Jules Guerin, one of the marquis de Mores's lieutenants, had demanded rhetorically _un cadavre de Juif_. He had not long to wait. Anti-Semitism was most powerful in the army, which was the only branch of the public service in which the reactionary cla.s.ses were fully represented. The republican law compelling the seminarists to serve their term in the army had strengthened its Clerical and Royalist elements, and the result was a movement against the Jewish officers, of whom 500 held commissions. A series of articles in the _Libre Parole_ attacking these officers led to a number of ferocious duels, and these culminated in 1892 in the death of an amiable and popular Jewish officer, Captain Armand Mayer, of the Engineers, who fell, pierced through the lungs by the marquis de Mores. This tragedy, rendered all the more painful by the discovery that Captain Mayer had chivalrously fought to s.h.i.+eld a friend, aroused a great deal of popular indignation against the anti-Semites, and for a moment it was believed that the agitation had been killed with its victim.

Towards the end of 1892, the discovery of the widespread corruption practised by the Panama Company gave a fresh impulse to anti-Semitism.

The revelations were in a large measure due to the industry of the _Libre Parole_; and they were all the more welcome to the readers of that journal since it was discovered that three Jews were implicated in the scandals, one of whom, baron de Reinach, was uncle and father-in-law to the hated destroyer of Boulangism. The escape of the other two, Dr Cornelius Herz and M. Arton, and the difficulties experienced in obtaining their extradition, deepened the popular conviction that the authorities were implicated in the scandals, and kept the public eye for a long time absorbed by the otherwise restricted Jewish aspects of the scandals. In 1894 the military side of the agitation was revived by the arrest of a prominent Jewish staff officer, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, on a charge of treason. From the beginning the hand of the anti-Semite was flagrant in the new sensation. The first hint of the arrest appeared in the _Libre Parole_; and before the facts had been officially communicated to the public that journal was busy with a campaign against the war minister, based on the apprehension that, in conspiracy with the _Juiverie_ and his republican colleagues, he might exert himself to s.h.i.+eld the traitor. Anti-Semitic feeling was now thoroughly aroused.

Panama had prepared the people to believe anything; and when it was announced that a court-martial, sitting in secret, had convicted Dreyfus, there was a howl of execration against the Jews from one end of the country to the other, although the alleged crime of the convict and the evidence by which it was supported were quite unknown. Dreyfus was degraded and transported for life amid unparalleled scenes of public excitement.

The Dreyfus Case registers the climax not only of French, but of European anti-Semitism. It was the most ambitious and most unscrupulous attempt yet made to prove the nationalist hypothesis of the anti-Semites, and in its failure it afforded the most striking ill.u.s.tration of the dangers of the whole movement by bringing France to the verge of revolution. For a few months after the Dreyfus court-martial there was a comparative lull; but the highly strung condition of popular pa.s.sion was ill.u.s.trated by a violent debate on "The Jewish Peril" in the Chamber of Deputies (25th April 1895), and by two outrages with explosives at the Rothschild bank in Paris. Meanwhile the family of Dreyfus, absolutely convinced of his innocence, were casting about for the means of clearing his character and securing his liberation. They were wealthy, and their activity unsettled the public mind and aroused the apprehensions of the conspirators. Had the latter known how to preserve silence, the mystery would perhaps have been yet unsolved; but in their anxiety to allay all suspicions they made one false step, which proved the beginning of their ruin. Through their friends in the press they secured the publication of a facsimile of a doc.u.ment known as the _Bordereau_--a list of doc.u.ments supposed to be in Dreyfus's handwriting and addressed apparently to the military attache of a foreign power, which was alleged to const.i.tute the chief evidence against the convict. It was hoped by this publication to put an end to the doubts of the so-called Dreyfusards. The result, however, was only to give them a clue on which they worked with remarkable ingenuity. To prove that the _Bordereau_ was not in Dreyfus's handwriting was not difficult. Indeed, its authors.h.i.+p was recognized almost on the day of publication; but the Dreyfusards held their hands in order to make a.s.surance doubly sure by further evidence. Meanwhile one of the officers of the general staff, Colonel Picquart, had convinced himself by an examination of the _dossier_ of the trial that a gross miscarriage of justice had taken place. On mentioning his doubts to his superiors, who were animated partly by anti-Semitic feeling and partly by reluctance to confess to a mistake, he was ordered to the Tunisian hinterland on a dangerous expedition. Before leaving Paris, however, he took the precaution to confide his discovery to his legal adviser. Hara.s.sed by their anxieties, the conspirators made further communications to the newspapers; and the government, questioned and badgered in parliament, added to the revelations. The new disclosures, so far from stopping the Dreyfusards, proved to them, among other things, that the conviction had been partially based on doc.u.ments which had not been communicated to the counsel for the defence, and hence that the judges had been tampered with by the ministry of war behind the prisoner's back. So far, too, as these doc.u.ments related to correspondence with foreign military attaches, it was soon ascertained that they were forgeries. In this way a terrible indictment was gradually drawn up against the ministry of war. The first step was taken towards the end of 1897 by a brother of Captain Dreyfus, who, in a letter to the minister of war, denounced Major Esterhazy as the real author of the _Bordereau_. The authorities, supported by parliament, declined to reopen the Dreyfus Case, but they ordered a court-martial on Esterhazy, which was held with closed doors and resulted in his acquittal. It now became clear that nothing short of an appeal to public opinion and a full exposure of all the iniquities that had been perpetrated would secure justice at the hands of the military chiefs. On behalf of Dreyfus, emile Zola, the eminent novelist, formulated the case against the general staff of the army in an open letter to the president of the republic, which by its dramatic accusations startled the whole world. The letter was denounced as wild and fantastic even by those who were in favour of revision. Zola was prosecuted for libel and convicted, and had to fly the country; but the agitation he had started was taken in hand by others, notably M.

Clemenceau, M. Reinach and M. Yves Guyot. In August 1898 their efforts found their first reward. A re-examination of the doc.u.ments in the case by M. Cavaignac, then minister of war, showed that one was undoubtedly forged. Colonel Henry, of the intelligence department of the war office, then confessed that he had fabricated the doc.u.ment, and, on being sent to Mont Valerien under arrest, cut his throat.

In spite of this damaging discovery the war office still persisted in believing Dreyfus guilty, and opposed a fresh inquiry. It was supported by three successive ministers of war, and apparently an overwhelming body of public opinion. By this time the question of the guilt or innocence of Dreyfus had become an altogether subsidiary issue. As in Germany and Austria, the anti-Semitic crusade had pa.s.sed into the hands of the political parties. On the one hand the Radicals and Socialists, recognizing the anti-republican aims of the agitators and alarmed by the clerical predominance in the army, had thrown in their lot with the Dreyfusards; on the other the reactionaries, anxious to secure the support of the army, took the opposite view, denounced their opponents as _sans patrie_, and declared that they were conspiring to weaken and degrade the army in the face of the national enemy. The controversy was, consequently, no longer for or against Dreyfus, but for or against the army, and behind it was a life-or-death struggle between the republic and its enemies. The situation became alarming. Rumours of military plots filled the air. Powerful leagues for working up public feeling were formed and organized; attempts to discredit the republic and intimidate the government were made. The president was insulted; there were tumults in the streets, and an attempt was made by M. Deroulede to induce the military to march on the Elysee and upset the republic. In this critical situation France, to her eternal honour, found men with sufficient courage to do the right. The Socialists, by rallying to the Radicals against the reactionaries, secured a majority for the defence of the republic in parliament. Brisson's cabinet transmitted to the court of ca.s.sation an application for the revision of the case against Dreyfus; and that tribunal, after an elaborate inquiry, which fully justified Zola's famous letter, quashed and annulled the proceedings of the court-martial, and remitted the accused to another court-martial, to be held at Rennes. Throughout these proceedings the military party fought tooth and nail to impede the course of justice; and although the innocence of Dreyfus had been completely established, it concentrated all its efforts to secure a fresh condemnation of the prisoner at Rennes. Popular pa.s.sion was at fever heat, and it manifested itself in an attack on M. Labori, one of the counsel for the defence, who was shot and wounded on the eve of his cross-examination of the witnesses for the prosecution. To the amazement and indignation of the whole world outside France, the Rennes court-martial again found the prisoner guilty; but all reliance on the conscientiousness of the verdict was removed by a rider, which found "extenuating circ.u.mstances," and by a reduction of the punishment to ten years' imprisonment, to which was added a recommendation to mercy. The verdict was evidently an attempt at a compromise, and the government resolved to advise the president of the republic to pardon Dreyfus. This lame conclusion did not satisfy the accused; but his innocence had been so clearly proved, and on political grounds there were such urgent reasons for desiring a termination of the affair, that it was accepted without protest by the majority of moderate men.

The rehabilitation of Dreyfus, however, did not pa.s.s without another effort on the part of the reactionaries to turn the popular pa.s.sions excited by the case to their own advantage. After the failure of Deroulede's attempt to overturn the republic, the various Royalist and Boulangist leagues, with the a.s.sistance of the anti-Semites, organized another plot. This was discovered by the government, and the leaders were arrested. Jules Guerin, secretary of the anti-Semitic league, shut himself up in the league offices in the rue Chabrol, Paris, which had been fortified and garrisoned by a number of his friends, armed with rifles. For more than a month these anti-Semites held the authorities at bay, and some 5000 troops were employed in the siege. The conspirators were all tried by the senate, sitting as a high court, and Guerin was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment. The evidence showed that the anti-Semitic organization had taken an active part in the anti-republican plot (see the report of the Commission d'Instruction in the _Pet.i.t Temps_, 1st November 1899).

The government now resolved to strike at the root of the mischief by limiting the power of the religious orders, and with this view a drastic a.s.sociation bill was introduced into the chambers. This anti-clerical move provoked the wildest pa.s.sions of the reactionaries, but it found an overwhelming support in the elections of 1902 and the bill became law.

The war thus definitely reopened soon led to a revival of the Dreyfus controversy. The nationalists flooded the country with incendiary defamations of "the government of national treason," and Dreyfus on his part loudly demanded a fresh trial. It was clear that conciliation and compromise were useless. Early in 1905 M. Jaures urged upon the chamber that the demand of the Jewish officer should be granted if only to tranquillize the country. The necessary _faits nouveaux_ were speedily found by the minister of war, General Andre, and having been examined by a special commission of revision were ordered to be transmitted to the court of ca.s.sation for final adjudication. On the 12th of July 1906, the court, all chambers united, gave its judgment. After a lengthy review of the case it declared unanimously that the whole accusation against Dreyfus had been disproved, and it quashed the judgment of the Rennes court-martial _sans renvoi_. The explanation of the whole case is that Esterhazy and Henry were the real culprits; that they had made a trade of supplying the German government with military doc.u.ments; and that once the _Bordereau_ was discovered they availed themselves of the anti-Jewish agitation to throw suspicion on Dreyfus.

Thus ended this famous case, to the relief of the whole country and with the approval of the great majority of French citizens. Except a knot of anti-Semitic monomaniacs all parties bowed loyally to the judgment of the court of ca.s.sation. The government gave the fullest effect to the judgment. Dreyfus and Picquart were restored to the active list of the army with the ranks respectively of major and general of brigade.

Dreyfus was also created a knight of the Legion of Honour, and received the decoration in public in the artillery pavilion of the military school. Zola, to whose efforts the triumph of truth was chiefly due, had not been spared to witness the final scene, but the chambers decided to give his remains a last resting-place in the Pantheon. When three months later M. Clemenceau formed his first cabinet he appointed General Picquart minister of war. Nothing indeed was left undone to repair the terrible series of wrongs which had grown out of the Dreyfus case.

Nevertheless its destructive work could not be wholly healed. For over ten years it had been a nightmare to France, and it now modified the whole course of French history. In the ruin of the French Church, which owed its disestablishment very largely to the Dreyfus conspiracy, may be read the most eloquent warning against the demoralizing madness of anti-Semitism.

In sympathy with the agitation in France there has been a similar movement in Algeria, where the European population have long resented the admission of the native Jews to the rights of French citizens.h.i.+p.

The agitation has been marked by much violence, and most of the anti-Semitic deputies in the French parliament, including M. Drumont, have found const.i.tuencies in Algeria. As the local anti-Semites are largely Spaniards and Levantine riff-raff, the agitation has not the peculiar nationalist bias which characterizes continental anti-Semitism.

Before the energy of the authorities it has lately shown signs of subsiding.

Great Britain, &c.

While the main activity of anti-Semitism has manifested itself in Germany, Russia, Rumania, Austria-Hungary and France, its vibratory influences have been felt in other countries when conditions favourable to its extension have presented themselves. In England more than one attempt to acclimatize the doctrines of Marr and Treitschke has been made. The circ.u.mstance that at the time of the rise of German anti-Semitism a premier of Hebrew race, Lord Beaconsfield, was in power first suggested the Jewish bogey to English political extremists. The Eastern crisis of 1876-1878, which was regarded by the Liberal party as primarily a struggle between Christianity, as represented by Russia, and a degrading Semitism, as represented by Turkey, accentuated the anti-Jewish feeling, owing to the anti-Russian att.i.tude adopted by the government. Violent expression to the ancient prejudices against the Jews was given by Sir J.G. Tollemache Sinclair (_A Defence of Russia_, 1877). Mr T.P. O'Connor, in a life of Lord Beaconsfield (1878), pictured him as the instrument of the Jewish people, "moulding the whole policy of Christendom to Jewish aims." Professor Goldwin Smith, in several articles in the _Nineteenth Century_ (1878, 1881 and 1882), sought to synthetize the growing anti-Jewish feeling by adopting the nationalist theories of the German anti-Semites. This movement did not fail to find an equivocal response in the speeches of some of the leading Liberal statesmen; but on the country generally it produced no effect. It was revived when the persecutions in Russia threatened England with a great influx of Polish Jews, whose mode of life was calculated to lower the standard of living in the industries in which they were employed, and it has left its trace in the anti-alien legislation of 1905. In 1883 Stocker visited London, but received a very unflattering reception.

Abortive attempts to acclimatize anti-Semitism have also been made in Switzerland, Belgium, Greece and the United States.

Anti-Semitism made a great deal of history during the thirty years up to 1908, but has left no permanent mark of a constructive kind on the social and political evolution of Europe. It is the fruit of a great ethnographic and political error, and it has spent itself in political intrigues of transparent dishonesty. Its racial doctrine is at best a crude hypothesis: its nationalist theory has only served to throw into striking relief the essentially economic bases of modern society, while its political activity has revealed the vulgarity and ignorance which const.i.tute its main sources of strength. So far from injuring the Jews, it has really given Jewish racial separatism a new lease of life. Its extravagant accusations, as in the Tisza Eszlar and Dreyfus cases, have resulted in the vindication of the Jewish character. Its agitation generally, coinciding with the revival of interest in Jewish history, has helped to transfer Jewish solidarity from a religious to a racial basis. The bond of a common race, vitalized by a new pride in Hebrew history and spurred on to resistance by the insults of the anti-Semites, has given a new spirit and a new source of strength to Judaism at a moment when the approximation of ethical systems and the revolt against dogma were sapping its essentially religious foundations. In the whole history of Judaism, perhaps, there have been no more numerous or remarkable instances of reversions to the faith than in the period in question. The reply of the Jews to anti-Semitism has taken two interesting practical forms. In the first place there is the so-called Zionist movement, which is a kind of Jewish nationalism and is vitiated by the same errors that distinguish its anti-Semitic a.n.a.logue (see ZIONISM). In the second place, there is a movement represented by the Maccabaeans' Society in London, which seeks to unite the Jewish people in an effort to raise the Jewish character and to promote a higher consciousness of the dignity of the race. It lays no stress on orthodoxy, but welcomes all who strive to render Jewish conduct an adequate reply to the theories of the anti-Semites. Both these movements are elements of fresh vitality to Judaism, and they are probably destined to produce important fruit in future years. A splendid spirit of generosity has also been displayed by the Jewish community in a.s.sisting and relieving the victims of the Jew-haters. Besides countless funds raised by public subscription, Baron de Hirsch founded a colossal scheme for transplanting persecuted Jews to new countries under new conditions of life, and endowed it with no less a sum than 9,000,000 (see HIRSCH, MAURICE DE).

Though anti-Semitism has been unmasked and discredited, it is to be feared that its history is not yet at an end. While there remain in Russia and Rumania over six millions of Jews who are being systematically degraded, and who periodically overflow the western frontier, there must continue to be a Jewish question in Europe; and while there are weak governments, and ignorant and superst.i.tious elements in the enfranchized cla.s.ses of the countries affected, that question will seek to play a part in politics.

LITERATURE.--No impartial history of modern anti-Semitism has yet been written. The most comprehensive works on the subject, _Israel among the Nations_, by A. Leroy-Beaulieu (1895), and _L'Antisemitisme, son histoire et ses causes_, by Bernard Lazare (1894), are collections of studies rather than histories. M. Lazare's work will be found most useful by the student on account of its detached standpoint and its valuable bibliographical notes. A good list of works relating to Jewish ethnography will be found at the end of M. Isidor Loeb's valuable article, "Juifs," in the _Dictionnaire universel de geographie_ (1884). To these should be added, Adolf Jellinek, _Der Judische Stamm_ (1869); Chwolson, _Die semitischen Volker_ (1872); Nossig, _Materialien zur Statistik_ (1887); Jacobs, _Jewish Statistics_ (1891); and Andree, _Zur Volkskunde der Juden_ (1881). A bibliography of the Jewish question from 1875 to 1884 has been published by Mr Joseph Jacobs (1885). Useful additions and rectifications will be found in the _Jewish World_, 11th September 1885. During the period since 1885 the anti-Semitic movement has produced an immense pamphlet literature. Some of these productions have already been referred to; others will be found in current bibliographies under the names of the personages mentioned, such as Stocker, Ahlwardt, &c. On the Russian persecutions, besides the works quoted by Jacobs, see the pamphlet issued by the Russo-Jewish Committee in 1890, and the annual reports of the Russo-Jewish Mansion House Fund; _Les Juifs de Russie_ (Paris, 1891); _Report of the Commissioners of Immigration upon the Causes which incite Immigration to the United States_ (Was.h.i.+ngton, 1892); _The New Exodus_, by Harold Frederic (1892); _Les Juifs russes_, by Leo Errera (Brussels, 1893).

The most valuable collection of facts relating to the persecutions of 1881-1882 are to be found in the _Feuilles Jaunes_ (52 nos.), compiled and circulated for the information of the European press by the Alliance Israelite of Paris. Complete collections are very scarce. For the struggle during the past decade the _Russische Correspondenz_ of Berlin should be consulted, together with its French and English editions. See also the publications of the _Bund_ (Geneva; Imprimerie Israelite); s.e.m.e.noff, _The Russian Government and the Ma.s.sacres_, and _Quarterly Review_, October 1906. On the Rumanian question, see Bluntschli, _Roumania and the Legal Status of the Jews_ (London, 1879); _Wir Juden_ (Zurich, 1883); Schloss, _The Persecution of the Jews in Roumania_ (London, 1885); Schloss, _Notes of Information_ (1886); Sincerus, _Juifs en Roumanie_ (London, 1901); Plotke, _Die rumanischen Juden unter dem Fursten u. Konig Karl_ (1901); Dehn, _Diplomatic u. Hochfinanz in der rumanischen Judenfrage_ (1901); Conybeare, "Roumania as a Persecuting Power," _Nat. Rev_., February 1901. On Hungary and the Tisza Eszlar Case, see (besides the references in Jacobs) Nathan, _Der Prozess van Tisza Eszlar_ (Berlin, 1892). On this case and the Blood Accusation generally, see Wright, "The Jews and the Malicious Charge of Human Sacrifice," _Nineteenth Century_, 1883. The origins of the Austrian agitation are dealt with by Nitti, _Catholic Socialism_ (1895). This work, though inclining to anti-Semitism, should be consulted for the Christian Socialist elements in the whole continental agitation. The most valuable source of information on the Austrian movement is the _osterreichische Wochenschrift_, edited by Dr Bloch. See also pamphlets and speeches by the anti-Semitic leaders, Liechtenstein, Lueger, Schoenerer, &c. The case of the French anti-Semites is stated by E. Drumont in his _France juive_. and other works; the other side by Isidor Loeb, Bernard Lazare, Leonce Reynaud, &c. Of the Dreyfus Case there is an enormous literature: see especially the reports of the Zola and Picquart trials, the revision case before the Court of Ca.s.sation, the proceedings of the Rennes court-martial, and the final judgment of the Court of Ca.s.sation printed in full in the _Figaro_, July 15, 1906; also Reinach, _Histoire de l'affaire Dreyfus_ (Paris, 1908, 6 vols.), and the valuable series of volumes by Captain Paul Marin, MM.

Clemenceau, Lazare, Yves Guyot, Paschal Grousset, Urbain Gohier, de Haime, de Pressense, and the remarkable letters of Dreyfus (_Lettres d'un innocent_). An English history of the case was published by F.C.

Conybeare (1898), whose articles and those of Sir G.o.dfrey Lus.h.i.+ngton and L.J. Maxse in the _National Review_, 1897-1900, will be found invaluable by the student. On the Algerian question, see M. Wahl in the _Revue des etudes juives_; L. Forest, _Naturalisation des Israelites algeriens_; and E. Audinet in the _Revue generale de droit international publique_, 1897, No. 4. On the history of the anti-Semitic movement generally, see the annual reports of the Alliance Israelite of Paris and the Anglo-Jewish a.s.sociation of London, also the annual summaries published at the end of the Jewish year by the _Jewish Chronicle_ of London. The connexion of the movement with general party politics must be followed in the newspapers. The present writer has worked with a collection of newspaper cuttings numbering several thousands and ranging over thirty years. (L. W.)

ANTISEPTICS (Gr. [Greek: anti], against, and [Greek: saeptikos], putrefactive), the name given to substances which are used for the prevention of bacterial development in animal or vegetable matter. Some are true germicides, capable of destroying the bacteria, whilst others merely prevent or inhibit their growth. The antiseptic method of treating wounds (see SURGERY) was introduced by Lord Lister, and was an outcome of Pasteur's germ theory of putrefaction. For the growth of bacteria there must be a certain food supply, moisture, in most cases oxygen, and a certain minimum temperature (see BACTERIOLOGY). These conditions have been specially studied and applied in connexion with the preserving of food (see FOOD PRESERVATION) and in the ancient practice of embalming the dead, which is the earliest ill.u.s.tration of the systematic use of antiseptics (see EMBALMING). In early inquiries a great point was made of the prevention of putrefaction, and work was done in the way of finding how much of an agent must be added to a given solution, in order that the bacteria accidentally present might not develop. But for various reasons this was an inexact method, and to-day an antiseptic is judged by its effects on pure cultures of definite pathogenic microbes, and on their vegetative and spore forms. Their standardization has been effected in many instances, and a water solution of carbolic acid of a certain fixed strength is now taken as the standard with which other antiseptics are compared. The more important of those in use to-day are carbolic acid, the perchloride and biniodide of mercury, iodoform, formalin, salicylic acid, &c. Carbolic acid is germicidal in strong solution, inhibitory in weaker ones. The so-called "pure" acid is applied to infected living tissues, especially to tuberculous sinuses or wounds, after sc.r.a.ping them, in order to destroy any part of the tuberculous material still remaining. A solution of 1 in 20 is used to sterilize instruments before an operation, and towels or lint to be used for the patient. Care must always be taken to avoid absorption (see CARBOLIC ACID). The perchloride of mercury is another very powerful antiseptic used in solutions of strength 1 in 2000, 1 in 1000 and 1 in 500. This or the biniodide of mercury is the last antiseptic applied to the surgeon's and a.s.sistants' hands before an operation begins. They are not, however, to be used in the disinfection of instruments, nor where any large abraded surface would favour absorption. Boracic acid receives no mention here; though it is popularly known as an antiseptic, it is in reality only a soothing fluid, and bacteria will flourish comfortably in contact with it. Of the dry antiseptics iodoform is constantly used in septic or tuberculous wounds, and it appears to have an inhibitory action on _Bacillus tuberculosis_. Its power depends on the fact that it is slowly decomposed by the tissues, and free iodine given off. Among the more recently introduced antiseptics, chinosol, a yellow substance freely soluble in water, and lysol, another coal-tar derivative, are much used.

But every antiseptic, however good, is more or less toxic and irritating to a wounded surface. Hence it is that the "antiseptic" method has been replaced in the surgery of to-day by the "aseptic" method (see SURGERY), which relies on keeping free from the invasion of bacteria rather than destroying them when present.

ANTISTHENES (c. 444-365 B.C.), the founder of the Cynic school of philosophy, was born at Athens of a Thracian mother, a fact which may account for the extreme boldness of his attack on conventional thought.

In his youth he studied rhetoric under Gorgias, perhaps also under Hippias and Prodicus. Gomperz suggests that he was originally in good circ.u.mstances, but was reduced to poverty. However this may be, he came under the influence of Socrates, and became a devoted pupil. So eager was he to hear the words of Socrates that he used to walk daily from Peiraeus to Athens, and persuaded his friends to accompany him. Filled with enthusiasm for the Socratic idea of virtue, he founded a school of his own in the Cynosarges, the hall of the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds ([Greek: nothoi]).

Thither he attracted the poorer cla.s.ses by the simplicity of his life and teaching. He wore a cloak and carried a staff and a wallet, and this costume became the uniform of his followers. Diogenes Laertius says that his works filled ten volumes, but of these fragments only remain. His favourite style seems to have been the dialogue, wherein we see the effect of his early rhetorical training. Aristotle speaks of him as uneducated and simple-minded, and Plato describes him as struggling in vain with the difficulties of dialectic. His work represents one great aspect of Socratic philosophy, and should be compared with the Cyrenaic and Megarian doctrines.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Charles Chappuis, _Antisthene_ (Paris, 1854); A.

Muller, _De Antisthenis cynici vita et scriptis_ (Dresden, 1860); T.

Gomperz, _Greek Thinkers_ (Eng. trans., 1905), vol. ii. pp. 142 ff., 150 ff. For his philosophy see CYNICS, and for his pupils, Diogenes and Crates, see articles under these headings.

ANTISTROPHE, the portion of an ode which is sung by the chorus in its returning movement from west to east, in response to the strophe, which was sung from east to west. It is of the nature of a reply, and balances the effect of the strophe. Thus, in Gray's ode called "The Progress of Poesy," the strophe, which dwelt in triumphant accents on the beauty, power and ecstasy of verse, is answered by the antistrophe, in a depressed and melancholy key--

"Man's feeble race what ills await, Labour, and Penury, the racks of Pain, Disease and Sorrow's weeping Train, And Death, sad refuge from the storms of Fate," &c.

When the sections of the chorus have ended their responses, they unite and close in the epode, thus exemplifying the triple form in which the ancient sacred hymns of Greece were composed, from the days of Stesichorus onwards. As Milton says, "strophe, antistrophe and epode were a kind of stanza framed only for the music then used with the chorus that sang."

ANt.i.tHESIS (the Greek for "setting opposite"), in rhetoric, the bringing out of a contrast in the meaning by an obvious contrast in the expression, as in the following:--"When there is need of silence, you speak, and when there is need of speech, you are dumb; when present, you wish to be absent, and when absent, you desire to be present; in peace you are for war, and in war you long for peace; in council you descant on bravery, and in the battle you tremble." Ant.i.thesis is sometimes double or alternate, as in the appeal of Augustus:--"Listen, young men, to an old man to whom old men were glad to listen when he was young."

The force of the ant.i.thesis is increased if the words on which the beat of the contrast falls are alliterative, or otherwise similar in sound, as--"The fairest but the falsest of her s.e.x." There is nothing that gives to expression greater point and vivacity than a judicious employment of this figure; but, on the other hand, there is nothing more tedious and trivial than a pseudo-ant.i.thetical style. Among English writers who have made the most abundant use of ant.i.thesis are Pope, Young, Johnson, and Gibbon; and especially Lyly in his _Euphues_. It is, however, a much more common feature in French than in English; while in German, with some striking exceptions, it is conspicuous by its absence.

ANt.i.tYPE (Gr. [Greek: ant.i.tupos]), the correlative of "type," to which it corresponds as the stamp to the die, or vice versa. In the sense of copy or likeness the word occurs in the Greek New Testament (Heb. ix.

24; 1 Peter iii. 21), English "figure." By theological writers ant.i.type is employed to denote the reality of which a type is the prophetic symbol. Thus, Christ is the ant.i.type of many of the types of the Jewish ritual. By the fathers of the Greek church (e.g. Gregory n.a.z.ianzen) ant.i.type is employed as a designation of the bread and wine in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper.