Le Tour; Photo by Tommy Chandler
Pop quiz: What do Alfred Dreyfus, French newspaper L’Equipe, and a yellow jersey have in common?
Answer: the Tour de France
As we rush headlong into July, the bike race that America (even Texas!) cares about is upon us. The Tour de France will run from July 3 to July 25, 2010, and features some stunning stages. Many viewers don’t pay much attention to the history of the tour, at least not further back than LeMond, so as the resident history dork here, I decided to give you something new to talk about during your July club rides.
What if we told you that the world’s greatest (arguably) bicycle race takes place because a French military captain was wrongly accused and convicted of treason for allegedly providing military secrets to the Germans? It may be a slight stretch to say that the Tour exists solely because of spies, but it’s not far off. Captain Alfred Dreyfus was charged with and convicted of treason in 1894 for allegedly providing military secrets to the German army in the years following the Franco-Prussian War. Two years after Dreyfus’ conviction, it was discovered that he was indeed innocent, but thanks to some in-house document fabrication, the French military and government reaffirmed his conviction.
This ongoing scandal, known as the Dreyfus Affair, consumed France and the French daily newspapers. Everyone had an opinion, and newspapers were no different. The editor of Le Velo, which was the largest sports newspaper of the time, supported Dreyfus’ innocence. The proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back for the anti-Dreyfus crowd came in a story about a Dreyfus-related demonstration in which industrialist Jules-Albert de Dion struck the president of France with a cane. De Dion was extremely unhappy with how the incident was portrayed in the news, and together with other wealthy industrialists, decided to start his own newspaper.
And so, L’Auto was born. The paper struggled to gain share against Le Velo, which was firmly entrenched in the minds of the French. Needing to drum up support for their dying paper, the cycling editor came up with the idea of a six-day cycling race throughout the whole of France. Cycling races were popular ways to sell newspapers; ten years prior, Le Velo created the Paris-Roubaix race for the same reason. His idea evolved into a much longer 19-day race, comprised of five stages, taking the riders through all of France. L’Auto of course covered the race, and sold newspapers with the details of each day.
Did the bike race as PR stunt work? You bet. L’Auto is known today as L’Equipe, the largest sporting newspaper in France. Le Velo ceased publication in 1904.
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Tags: france, road cycling, scandals, tour de france