Picquart concluded that the bordereau incriminating Dreyfus had been written by Esterhazy. This made it clear that Esterhazy was a German agent. In March 1896, Intelligence Service personnel seized a letter which Schwartzkoppen had written to a French major, Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy, an adventurer of aristocratic Hungarian origin. Georges Picquart, had independently sensed something suspicious in the Dreyfus trial. The new head of the French Intelligence Service, Lt. In November 1896 Lazare published a pamphlet, "The Truth about the Dreyfus Affair," and sent it to members of the senate and public figures. Dreyfus was exiled to Devil's Island (French Guinea, off the coast of South America), even though in the meanwhile, the German ambassador had declared formally that Germany had had no contact with Dreyfus.ĭreyfus' brother turned to the writer Bernard *Lazare, who now led the struggle against the verdict. *Drumont, accompanied the ceremony with fulminations against Dreyfus and the Jews. On January 5, 1895, Dreyfus was publicly demoted in a degrading ceremony, during which he continued to proclaim, "I am innocent." The mob, which had been incited by the antisemitic press, especially by E.A. The court unanimously found Dreyfus guilty of treason, and he was sentenced to life imprisonment. It was also not disclosed that contrary to all legal procedure the ministry of war had placed a file of secret documents (part of which were forgeries) before the tribunal, a fact concealed even from Dreyfus' attorney. The trial took place in camera and the testimonies were insufficiently verified. He was arrested and tried before a court-martial. Henry was conspicuous – threw suspicion upon Dreyfus. On the basis of a certain similarity of handwriting, and probably out of anti-Jewish prejudice against Dreyfus, the heads of the Intelligence Service – among whom Major H.J. von Schwartzkoppen, fell into the hands of the French Intelligence Service. In the fall of 1894 a secret military document (the bordereau) sent by a French officer to the military attaché of the German embassy in Paris, Col. Additional Souvenirs et correspondence were published posthumously (1936 Dreyfus: His Life and Letters, 1937). Dreyfus published his Lettres d'un innocent (1898 The Letters of Captain Dreyfus to his Wife, 1899) written from Devil's Island, and his memoirs Cinq ans de ma vie (1901 Five Years of my Life, 1901). He reenlisted in World War i and was promoted to lieutenant colonel at its conclusion. After his final exoneration he was reinstated in the army as major and served a further year. He was overwhelmed by the drama (see below) in which he played the central role, but failed to grasp its deeper significance: its Jewish, general humanitarian, and political aspects. In 1892 he became a captain on the general staff, where he was the only Jew. He studied at the Ecole Polytechnique and entered the army as an engineer. Born in Mulhouse, Alsace, Dreyfus was the son of a wealthy, assimilated family which settled in Paris after the Franco-Prussian War. His court-martial, conviction, and final acquittal developed into a political event which had repercussions throughout France and the Jewish world. DREYFUS, ALFRED (1859–1935), officer in the French army, involved in a treason trial.
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