Quick Facts
- NAME: Alfred Dreyfus
- OCCUPATION: General
- BIRTH DATE: October 09, 1859
- DEATH DATE: July 12, 1935
- EDUCATION: École Polytechnique
- PLACE OF BIRTH: Mulhouse, France
- PLACE OF DEATH: Paris, France
Best Known For
Alfred Dreyfus was a French army officer who was wrongly convicted of treason based primarily on anti-semitism. The scandal was known as the Dreyfus Affair.
Alfred Dreyfus. (2012). Biography.com. Retrieved 10:52, Feb 08, 2012 from http://www.biography.com/people/alfred-dreyfus-9279233
Alfred Dreyfus [Internet]. 2012. http://www.biography.com/people/alfred-dreyfus-9279233, February 08
" Alfred Dreyfus." 2012. Biography.com 08 Feb 2012, 10:52 http://www.biography.com/people/alfred-dreyfus-9279233
' Alfred Dreyfus', Biography.com,(2012) http://www.biography.com/people/alfred-dreyfus-9279233 [accessed Feb 08, 2012]
" Alfred Dreyfus," Biography.com, http://www.biography.com/people/alfred-dreyfus-9279233 (accessed Feb 08, 2012).
Alfred Dreyfus [Internet]. Biography.com; 2012 [cited 2012 Feb 08]. Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/alfred-dreyfus-9279233.
Alfred Dreyfus, http://www.biography.com/people/alfred-dreyfus-9279233 (last visited Feb 08, 2012).
Alfred Dreyfus, http://www.biography.com/people/alfred-dreyfus-9279233 (last visited Feb 08, 2012).
Synopsis
Alfred Dreyfus was on born October 9, 1859 in Mulhouse, France. The son of a wealthy Jewish manufacturer, he rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel in the army. Accused of selling military secrets, Dreyfus was sentenced to life imprisonment. He was convicted through poor evidence and antisemitism. French writers came to his defense and he was eventually vindicated after many years. He died in 1935.
Profile
(born October 9, 1859, Mulhouse, France—died July 12, 1935, Paris) French army officer whose trial for treason began a 12-year controversy, known as the Dreyfus Affair, that deeply marked the political and social history of the French Third Republic.
Dreyfus was the son of a wealthy Jewish textile manufacturer. In 1882 he entered the cole Polytechnique and decided on a military career. By 1889 he had risen to the rank of captain. Dreyfus was assigned to the War Ministry when, in 1894, he was accused of selling military secrets to the German military attaché. He was arrested on October 15, and on December 22 he was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. He entered the infamous penal colony of Devils Island, off the coast of French Guiana, on April 13, 1895.
The legal proceedings, which were based on specious evidence, were highly irregular. Although he denied his guilt and although his family consistently supported his plea of innocence, public opinion and the French press as a whole, led by its virulently anti-Semitic faction, welcomed the verdict and the sentence. In particular, the newspaper La Libre Parole, edited by douard Drumont, used Dreyfus to symbolize the supposed disloyalty of French Jews.
But doubts began to grow. Lieutenant Colonel Georges Picquart found evidence that Major Ferdinand Walsin-Esterhazy was engaged in espionage and that it was Esterhazy's handwriting found on the letter that had incriminated Dreyfus. When Picquart was removed from his post, it was believed that his discovery was too inconvenient for his superiors. The pro-Dreyfus side slowly gained adherents (among them, journalists Joseph Reinach and Georges Clemenceau—the future World War I premier—and a senator, Auguste Scheurer-Kestner).
The affair was made absurdly complicated by the activities of Esterhazy in inventing evidence and spreading rumours, and of Major Hubert Joseph Henry, discoverer of the original letter attributed to Dreyfus, in forging new documents and suppressing others. When Esterhazy was brought before a court martial, he was acquitted, and Picquart was arrested. This precipitated an event that was to crystallize the whole movement for revision of Dreyfus's trial. On January 13, 1898, the novelist mile Zola wrote an open letter published on the front page of Aurore, Clemenceau's paper, under the headline “J'Accuse.” By the evening of that day, 200,000 copies had been sold. Zola accused the army of covering up its mistaken conviction of Dreyfus and of acquitting Esterhazy on the orders of the Ministry of War.
By the time of the Zola letter
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