![]() In July 1897, Dreyfus's family contacted the President of the Senate Auguste Scheurer-Kestner to draw attention to the weakness of the evidence against Dreyfus. The General Staff refused to reconsider its judgment and instead transferred Picquart to a position in North Africa. In March 1896, Colonel Georges Picquart, head of counter-espionage, found evidence that the real traitor was Major Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy. The Dreyfus family, particularly his brother Mathieu, remained convinced of his innocence and worked with journalist Bernard Lazare to prove it. At that time, the opinion of the French political class was unanimously unfavourable towards Dreyfus. He was deported to Devil's Island in French Guiana. After a closed trial, he was found guilty of treason and sentenced to life imprisonment. ( July 2021) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message)Īt the end of 1894, French Army Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a graduate of the École Polytechnique and a Jew of Alsatian origin, was accused of handing secret documents to the Imperial German military. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section. This section needs additional citations for verification. It embittered French politics and encouraged radicalisation. The affair from 1894 to 1906 divided France into pro-republican, anticlerical Dreyfusards and pro-Army, mostly Catholic "anti-Dreyfusards". After being reinstated as a major in the French Army, he served during the whole of World War I, ending his service with the rank of lieutenant colonel. The new trial resulted in another conviction and a 10-year sentence, but Dreyfus was pardoned and released. The intense political and judicial scandal that ensued divided French society between those who supported Dreyfus (now called "Dreyfusards", such as Sarah Bernhardt, Anatole France, Charles Péguy, Henri Poincaré and Georges Clemenceau) and those who condemned him (the anti-Dreyfusards, such as Édouard Drumont, the director and publisher of the antisemitic newspaper La Libre Parole). In 1899, Dreyfus was returned to France for another trial. Subsequently, writer Émile Zola's open letter J'Accuse.! in the newspaper L'Aurore stoked a growing movement of political support for Dreyfus, putting pressure on the government to reopen the case. The Army laid additional charges against Dreyfus, based on forged documents. When high-ranking military officials suppressed the new evidence, a military court unanimously acquitted Esterhazy after a trial lasting only two days. In 1896, evidence came to light-primarily through an investigation made by Georges Picquart, head of counter-espionage-which identified the real culprit as a French Army major named Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy. ![]() He was sent overseas to the penal colony on Devil's Island in French Guiana, where he spent nearly five years imprisoned in very harsh conditions. ![]() He was baselessly convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for communicating French military secrets to the German Embassy in Paris. Dreyfus was a 35-year-old Alsatian French artillery officer of Jewish descent. The scandal began in December 1894 when Captain Alfred Dreyfus was convicted of treason. The role played by the press and public opinion proved influential in the conflict. L'Affaire Dreyfus has come to symbolise modern injustice in the Francophone world it remains one of the most notable examples of a complex miscarriage of justice and antisemitism. The Dreyfus affair ( French: l'affaire Dreyfus, pronounced ) was a political scandal that divided the Third French Republic from 1894 until its resolution in 1906. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |