Alfred Dreyfus

Source

• Born: 9 October 1859
• Birthplace: Mulhouse, France
• Died: 12 July 1935
• Best Known As: The French captain wrongly accused of treason in 1894

Captain Alfred Dreyfus of France was accused in 1894 of selling military secrets to Germany. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison, but in 1896 new evidence surfaced that seemed to exonerate Dreyfus. The military tried to suppress the information and failed, and the case became a political firestorm. On the anti-Dreyfus side were royalists, militarists and Roman Catholics. Those defending Dreyfus were republicans, socialists and anti-clerics, including famed author Emile Zola, who was sentenced to jail for criticizing the government's role. The military would not acknowledge any injustice, and the case dragged on until Dreyfus was finally pardoned in 1906. After 101 years, the French army officially said they had been wrong. The affair revealed an institutionalized anti-Semitism in the army and helped unite the French left, eventually leading to the separation of church and state.

Dreyfus, Lt Col Alfred (1859-1935). Son of a Jewish textile manufacturer from Mulhouse in Alsace, Dreyfus was commissioned from the École Polytechnique into the artillery. In 1894, a staff-learner in the Ministry of Defence, he was accused of betraying military secrets to Germany on the evidence of a short paper, allegedly in his handwriting. Convicted by court martial, he was sentenced to military degradation and imprisonment for life on Devil's Island in French Guyana. A resolute but unlovable figure, Dreyfus consistently protested his innocence. When doubts arose about the conviction, the army's high command suppressed evidence and used forged documents to reinforce the case against him. In 1898 the novelist Émile Zola published J'Accuse, a powerful attack on the war minister, and was convicted of libel. Brought back to France for a retrial, Dreyfus was again found guilty but, ludicrously, with ‘extenuating circumstances’. Pardoned, he was declared innocent in 1906, restored to the army and decorated. He served in WW I, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel.

‘L'Affaire Dreyfus’ split the nation, with the Dreyfusards, strong on the left and in antimilitarist circles, arguing that a morally bankrupt army had condemned an outsider to protect its own, while the anti-Dreyfusards, feeding on anti-Semitism, accused ‘the Jews, the Protestants and all the enemies of France’ of besmirching the army's honour. The affair cast a long shadow over civil-military relations in France. Some aspects remain murky, although it seems clear that the real author of the incriminating paper was a Maj Esterhazy, who enjoyed powerful support and survived to die in England.

— Richard Holmes

The French army officer Alfred Dreyfus (1859-1935) was unjustly convicted of treason. The effort, eventually successful, to clear his name divided French society and had important political repercussions.

Alfred Dreyfus was born at Mulhouse on Oct. 9, 1859, into a Jewish textile-manufacturing family. After the Franco-Prussian War his family left Alsace in order to remain French citizens. Choosing a military career, Dreyfus entered the École Polytechnique in 1878. After further study, during which he attained the rank of captain in 1889, he was assigned as a trainee to the general staff. Dreyfus was a competent and hardworking, though not brilliant or popular, young officer. His ordeal was to prove that he was a man of great courage but limited vision: his whole life was devoted to the army, and he never lost confidence that it would recognize and remedy the wrong done him.

Arrest and Conviction

The Dreyfus case began in September 1894, when French Army Intelligence found among some papers taken from the office of the German military attaché in Paris, a list (bordereau) of secret documents given to the Germans by someone in the French army. A hasty and inadequate investigation convinced the anti-Semitic Intelligence chief, Col. Sandherr, that Dreyfus was the traitor. Apart from a certain resemblance between his handwriting and that of the bordereau, no very convincing evidence against Dreyfus could be discovered. He was arrested, however, on October 15.

Dreyfus's court-martial was held behind closed doors during December 19-21. A unanimous court found him guilty and imposed the highest legal penalty: perpetual imprisonment, loss of rank, and degradation. He was sent to the infamous Devil's Island, where he was to spend almost 5 years under the most inhumane conditions. Still protesting his innocence, Dreyfus was unaware that he had been convicted with the aid of a secret dossier prepared by Army Intelligence. Communication of the dossier to the judges without the knowledge of the defense violated due process and was the first of many actions that would bring discredit on the army and ruin the careers of the officers involved.

Convinced of his innocence, the Dreyfus family, led by his brother Mathieu, sought new evidence which would persuade the army to reopen its investigation. Aside from a few individuals such as the brilliant young writer Bernard Lazare and the respected Alsatian life-senator Scheurer-Kestner, they found few supporters, and their efforts stirred the anti-Semitic press to raise the bogey of a "Jewish syndicate" trying to corrupt the army.

Fortune came to Dreyfus's aid for the first time in July 1895, when the new Intelligence chief, Lt. Col. Marie Georges Picquart, became convinced of Dreyfus's innocence and discovered a Maj. Walsin-Esterhazy to be the real author of the bordereau. Although Picquart was unable to convince his superiors to reexamine the verdict, he remained determined to help free Dreyfus.

Still unable to persuade the government to act, the supporters of Dreyfus - the Dreyfusards - now took their case to the public, charging Esterhazy with the crime for which Dreyfus was being punished. The anti-Semitic press counterattacked, and the Dreyfus case began to turn into the Dreyfus Affair, as public passions were raised against the few who dared to challenge the verdict of the court-martial. Supported by friends within the command, Esterhazy demanded a court-martial to prove his innocence; he received a triumphant acquittal in January 1898. The evidence against Esterhazy was little better than that which had convicted Dreyfus, but his acquittal dashed the hopes of the Dreyfusards, who had expected his conviction to prove Dreyfus innocent.

Retrial and Exoneration

The controversial novelist Émile Zola, however, found a way to reopen the case: he charged in an open letter to the President of the Republic entitled J'accuse that the military court had acquitted Esterhazy although they knew him to be guilty. Zola hoped to bring the facts of Dreyfus's case before a civil court, where it would be more difficult for the army to conceal what had happened; he was only partially successful, but increased public concern and violence in the streets forced the authorities to take further action.

The minister of war, Godefroy Cavaignac, aiming to quiet criticism, publicly revealed much of the evidence against Dreyfus. But the Dreyfusards, headed by socialist leader Jean Jaurès, charged that forgery was obvious. Cavaignac's further investigation led to the confession and suicide (Aug. 31, 1898) of an Intelligence officer, Lt. Col. Joseph Henry, who had been manufacturing evidence to strengthen the case against Dreyfus. This was the turning point of the Affair. The government brought the case before the highest appeals court, which declared (June 3, 1899) Dreyfus entitled to a new trial.

Dreyfus was brought back to France to face a new court-martial at Rennes in September 1899. It returned, by a vote of 5 to 2, the incredible verdict of guilty with extenuating circumstances and sentenced him to 10 years' imprisonment. The honor of the army had been made such an issue by the anti-Dreyfusards that no military court could ever find him innocent. No one believed in the honor of the army more than Dreyfus, and only with difficulty could he be persuaded to accept the pardon offered by President Émile Loubet.

Dreyfus continued to seek exoneration, and his record was finally cleared by the civil courts in July 1906. He was returned to service, promoted, and decorated, but he soon retired. Returning to active duty during World War I, he then spent his retirement in complete obscurity, and his death on July 11, 1935, passed almost unnoticed.

Political Consequences

Dreyfus understood little of the battle that raged in his name. The question of his innocence became a secondary matter beside the public issue of individual human rights versus the demands of state policy. Political issues also played a part in the Affair: to many conservatives the army and the Church seemed the last bulwarks of social stability; both would be undermined by the victory of the Dreyfusards. On the left many welcomed the opportunity to strike at the monarchist and clerical forces, which they saw as enemies of the Republic. Last but not least was the question of anti-Semitism. The Affair saw the first outpouring of modern political anti-Semitism, which proved a harbinger of the Nazi terror.

The immediate political consequence of the Affair was to bring the Radicals to power; they made the Church the scapegoat for the sins of the anti-Dreyfusards, taking a number of anticlerical measures culminating in the separation of Church and state in 1905. The passions exposed by the Affair were submerged in World War I but reappeared in the defeat of 1940 and under the Vichy regime.

Further Reading

There are hundreds of books dealing with the Dreyfus Affair. A well-balanced introduction is Douglas Johnson, France and the Dreyfus Affair (1966). The detailed study by Guy Chapman, The Dreyfus Case: A Reassessment (1955), upsets much of the standard Dreyfusard version but underestimates the importance of anti-Semitism. The role of crowd psychology is explored by Nicholas Halasz, Captain Dreyfus: The Story of a Mass Hysteria (1955). For something of the man see Dreyfus's prison memoirs, Five Years of My Life, 1894-1899 (trans. 1901).

Additional Sources

Lewis, David L., Prisoners of honor: the Dreyfus affair, New York: H. Holt, 1994.

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Alfred Dreyfus, before 1894. (credit: H. Roger-Viollet)

(born Oct. 9, 1859, Mulhouse, France — died July 12, 1935, Paris) French army officer, subject of the Dreyfus Affair (l'Affaire). Son of a Jewish textile manufacturer, he studied at the École Polytechnique, then entered the army and rose to the rank of captain (1889). He was assigned to the war ministry when, in 1894, he was accused of selling military secrets to Germany. He was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island. The legal proceedings, based on insufficient evidence, were highly irregular, but public opinion and the French press, led by its virulently anti-Semitic section, welcomed the verdict. Doubts began to grow as evidence came out suggesting that C.F. Esterhazy (1847 – 1923) was the true traitor. The movement for revision of Dreyfus's trial gained momentum when Émile Zola wrote an open letter under the headline "J'Accuse," accusing the army of covering up its errors in making the case. After a new court-martial (1899) again found Dreyfus guilty, he was pardoned by the president of the republic in an effort to resolve the issue. In 1906 a civilian court of appeals cleared Dreyfus and reversed all previous convictions. Formally reinstated and decorated with the Legion of Honour, he later saw active service in World War I. The affair resulted in the separation of church and state in 1905.

For more information on Alfred Dreyfus, visit Britannica.com.

Alfred Dreyfus in an army uniform.

Alfred Dreyfus (9 October, 1859 – 12 July, 1935) was an Alsatian artillery officer of Jewish background whose trial and conviction in 1894 on charges of treason became one of the most sensational political dramas in modern French and also European history, still known today as the Dreyfus Affair.

Biography

Born in Mulhouse, Alsace, Dreyfus was the youngest of seven children in the family of a prosperous Jewish textile manufacturer who stayed in Alsace when it was annexed by the expanding German Empire in 1871. The family had long been established in the area.

Dreyfus was accepted into the French military for initial military training and thorough scientific studies in 1877 and finally graduated in 1880 as a sub-lieutenant. His entry into the military was influenced by the experience of seeing Prussian troops enter his hometown in 1871 when he was eleven years old. From 1880 to 1882 he attended the artillery school at Fontainebleau to receive more specialized training as an artillery officer. On graduation he was attached to the first division of the 32nd Cavalry Regiment and promoted to lieutenant in 1885. In 1889 he was made adjutant to the director of the Etablissement de Bourges, a government arsenal, and promoted to captain.

On 18 April, 1891, Dreyfus married Lucie Hadamard (1870-1945) who would later bear his son Pierre and daughter Jeanne. Three days later, he received notice that he had been admitted to the Ecole Superieure de Guerre or War College. Two years later, he graduated ninth in his class with honourable mention and was immediately designated as a trainee in the French Army's General Staff headquarters, where he would be the only Jewish officer. His father Raphaël died on 13 December, 1893.

At the college examination in 1892, his friends had expected him to do well and to be attached to the general staff. However, one of the members of the panel, General Bonnefond, felt that "Jews were not desired" on the staff, and gave Dreyfus poor marks, lowering his overall grade; he did the same thing for another Jewish candidate, Lieutenant Picard. Learning of this injustice, the two officers lodged a protest with the director of the school, Gen. Lebelin de Dionne, who expressed his regret for what had occurred, but said he was powerless to take any steps in the matter. The protest would later count against Dreyfus, who was assigned to a lesser post within the War Ministry.

In 1894, the French Army's counter-intelligence section, led by a Lt. Col.Sandherr, became aware that some new artillery information was being passed to the Germans by a highly-placed spy most likely to be in the General Staff. With anti-Semitism still widespread in many parts of French society, particularly in the conservative military, suspicion quickly fell upon Dreyfus, who was arrested for treason on 15 October, 1894. The events that follow until his eventual exoneration on 12 July, 1906 are chronicled in the article on the Dreyfus Affair. On 5 January, 1895, Dreyfus was summarily convicted in a secret court martial, publicly stripped of his army rank, and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island.

In August 1896 the new chief of French military intelligence, Lt Colonel Picquart, reported to his superiors that he had found evidence to the effect that the real traitor was a Major Walsin-Esterhazy. Lt Col Picquart was silenced by being transferred, in November 1896, to the southern desert of Tunisia. When reports of an army cover-up and Dreyfus's possible innocence were leaked to the press, a heated debate ensued about anti-Semitism and France's identity as a Catholic nation and a republic founded on equal rights for all citizens. On 19 September, 1899, following a passionate campaign by his supporters, including leading artists and intellectuals like Émile Zola, Dreyfus was pardoned by President Émile Loubet and left the prison. During that time he lived with one of his sisters at Carpentras, and later at Cologny.

On July 12 1906, Dreyfus was officially exonerated by a military commission. The day after his exoneration, he was readmitted into the army with the rank of Major ("Chef d'Escadron"). A week later, he was made a Knight of the Legion of Honour, and subsequently assigned to command an artillery unit at Vincennes. On 15 October, 1906, he was placed in command of another artillery unit at Saint-Denis.

Dreyfus' time in prison, notably at Devil's Island, had been difficult on his health, and he was granted early retirement in October 1907. He volunteered, however, to serve again as a lieutenant-colonel during World War I and thus held several commands including in the Paris region. He eventually served in front-line duty as well, during 1917, although he had by that time reached normal retirement age. Finally, Lt Colonel Dreyfus was raised to the rank of Officer of the Legion of Honour in November 1918. Dreyfus' son, Pierre, served in numerous battles as an artillery captain and managed to survive the entire war. Pierre was awarded the Croix de Guerre for his services.[1]

Dreyfus was present at the ceremony removing Émile Zola's ashes to the Panthéon in 1908, when he was wounded in the arm by a gunshot from Louis Gregori, a disgruntled journalist, in an assassination attempt.

Two days after Dreyfus's death in Paris in 1935, at the age of 75, his funeral cortege passed the Place de la Concorde through the ranks of troops assembled for the Bastille Day National Holiday (14 July, 1935). He was interred in the Cimetière du Montparnasse, Paris. The inscription on his tombstone is in Hebrew and French. It reads (translated to English): Here Lies (Hebrew. The rest is in French.): Lieutenant Colonel Alfred Dreyfus Officer of the Legion of Honor 9 October 1859 - 12 July 1935

There is a statue of Dreyfus holding his broken sword at the entrance to the Museum of Jewish Art and History in Paris.

Bibliography

• Lettres d'un innocent (Letters from an innocent man) (1898)
• Les lettres du capitaine Dreyfus à sa femme (Letters from capitaine Dreyfus to his wife) (1899), written at Devil's Island
• Cinq ans de ma vie (5 years of my life) (1901)
• Souvenirs et correspondence, posthumously in 1936

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Alfred Dreyfus

See also

• Charles Péguy, who wrote a defense of Dreyfus.
• Émile Zola, the author of the pamphlet J'Accuse
• Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy, the real traitor.

Trivia

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

• Actor Richard Dreyfuss says that according to family tradition they are related. ^[1] This is disputed by others. ^[2]
• Actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus is said to be a distant relative.[2]
• The father in E. Nesbit's book The Railway Children is said to be inspired by Dreyfus' tale. ^[3]

References

1. ^ Washington Post, January 22, 1978
2. ^ New York Times, October 24, 2006
3. ^ Philip, Neil in Introduction to The Railway Children published by Philomel Books, 1990.

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