Affaire Des Fiches

L'Affaire des Fiches de délation (“affair of the cards of denunciation”) was a political scandal in France in 1904-1905 in which it was discovered that the militantly anticlerical War Minister under Emile Combes, General Louis André, was determining promotions based on a huge card index on public officials, detailing which were Catholic and who attended Mass, with a view to preventing their promotions. Much of the information had been collected by the Masonic Grand Orient de France. Discovery of this by the media undermined the government.

Further reading

Porch, Douglas The March to the Marne: The French Army, 1871-1914, Ch. 6 "The affaire des fiches" pp. 92-104, 1981 Cambridge University Press

References