DREYFUS, Alfred, French military officer: Mtilhausen, Alsace, 1859. He was a member of a wealthy Jewish family, became a captain in the 21st regiment of artillery and three years later was appointed to the general staff. On 14 Oct. 1894 he was arrested on a charge of communicating certain important military docu ments to a foreign government, and at a secret court-martial on 19 December and succeeding days was found guilty and condemned to public degradation and lifelong imprisonment. He was degraded on 5 Jan. 1895, and in accordance with the act passed by the Chambers was sent to the Ile du Diable (Devil's Island) near Cay enne, to undergo the other part of the sentence. On 1 June of the same year Colonel Picquart became head of the intelligence department of the army, and in the course of his official duties discovered various circumstances which threw doubt on the correctness of the court-martial's decision and pointed to another officer of the name of Esterhazy as the real traitor. In particular he obtained a copy of a telegram card, subsequently known as the al leged to have been addressed to Esterhazy by a German officer, Colonel von Schwarzkoppen. On 7 Sept. 1896, he wrote to General Gonse urging a reinvestigation of the case, and seven days later a newspaper divulged the fact that certain documents had been communicated to the court-martial unknown to the prisoner's counsel. Not long afterward Dreyfus accusers took a false step by the publication of the fac simile of the bordoreau (memorandum, detailed list of documents), alleged to have been written by Dreyfus ; and on 16 November Colonel Picquart was superseded in his office by Colonel Henry. On 15 Nov. 1897 M. Mathieu Dreyfus, brother of the condemned man, charged Ester hazy with having written the Bordereau, but on 11 Jan. 1898 he was acquitted by court-martial which sat with closed doors. On the following day Colonel Picquart, who had been sent to Tunis on a dangerous expedition after his dis missal from office, had been afterward recalled to answer certain charges made by Esterhazy, was arrested and imprisoned. On 13 January M. Zola, the eminent novelist, published in the Aurore a letter headed raccuse (I accuse), in which he made serious charges against the gen eral staff and the government in regard to the Esterhazy court-martial. After a stormy debate in the chamber it was decided to prosecute him; but the government steadily refused to reopen the Dreyfus case, declaring their determination to stand by the chose jugieN Zola's trial began on 11 February, and on the 23d he was con demned to pay a heavy fine and to undergo a term of imprisonment. lOn 2 April the Court of Cassation quashed ti* sentence of Zola on technical ground, but a fresh prosecution was or dered a few days later. On 27 June M. Cavaig nac became head of the war office, and 7 July he read to the chamber several documents which he regarded as proving the guilt of Dreyfus, but three days later Colonel Picquart wrote to the Premier denouncing these documents as for geries. This interference led to his rearrest, and shortly after Zola was again condemned. On 31 August Colonel Henry was arrested and con fessed to having forged the chief document on by Cavaignac, put soon after his arrest he committed suicide The War Minister resigned 4 September an was succeeded by General Zurlinden. The latter resigned because of the government's determination to refer the question of revision to a commission, and on 18 September General Chanoine succeeded him. The commission decided against revision, and on 26 September the government resolved to ascertain the view of the Court of Cassation. On 25 October the Brisson ministry resigned and a few days later the court reported in favor of revision. On 31 October a ministry
under M. Dupuy came into office, and on 9 December the prosecution of Picquart was stopped by the Court of Cassation. The Drey fus case marked the culmination of the anti Semitic agitation in France, which began in La Libre Parole in 1882 and became specially men acing after the Panama Scandal in 1892. On 16 Feb. 1899 M. Felix Faure, the President of the republic, died suddenly and three days later was succeeded by M. Emile Loubet. On 3 June of the same year the Court of Cassation, hav ing concluded its hearing of the evidence, ordered a fresh court-martial to be held at Rennes for the purpose of deciding whether Dreyfus communicated to a foreign government any of the documents mentioned in the bor dereau, of which Esterhazy had previously con fessed himself to be the author. Picquart was re leased on 9 June, and on the 12th of the same month the ministry was defeated. On 22 June M. Waldeck-Rousseau succeeded in forming a new ministry. The new court-martial opened 7 August, under the Presidency of Colonel Jouaust, and about this time the press published accounts of the inhuman treatment of Dreyfus in his prison. Dreyfus, who had been brought to Rennes for trial, was defended by MM. De mange and Labori. The chief witnesses in favor of the prisoner were Colonel Picquart and Cap tain Freystatter, a member of the first court martial, and against him were Generals Mer tier, Gonse, Roget, de Boisdeffre and Billot. An attempt to assassinate M. Labori on his way to court 14 August was fortunately unsuccessful. On 9 September the judges, by five votes to two, declared the prisoner guilty, with extenuating circumstances. This verdict was flagrantly opposed to the published evidence, yet Dreyfus was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment in a fortress, but a subsequent full pardon from President Loubet set him at liberty. On 12 July 1906 the Court of Cassation, after a rehearing of his case, began on 19 June, quashed the verdict of the Rennes court-martial. In its survey of the charges the court declared them without foun dation; that the bordereau was the work of Esterhazy and that the information contained therein could not have emanated from an officer of the general staff, but must have been trans mitted by a regimental officer such as Esterhazy. The court further held that three new facts had been established: (1) That the document from General Mercier's secret papers (letters sup posed to have been written by Dreyfus, two in 1894 and one in 1896) presented at the Rennes court-martial, in which the initial "D" was sub stituted for °P," was a forgery; (2) That the document containing the plans for railway mob ilization, supposed to have been given to the Germans by Dreyfus, never reached the War Department authorities and therefore Dreyfus could not have obtained possession of them; (3) That the Rennes court-martial failed to hear testimony which would have established the innocence of Dreyfus. He was therefore restored to the army with the rank of major on 13 July and Picquart was made a brigadier and subsequently Minister of War. In 1908 he was shot at and wounded by a reactionary jour nalist.
Consult Dreyfus, 'Five Years of My Life' (1901) ; Barlow, 'History of the Dreyfus Case' (1898) ; Conybeare, 'The Dreyfus Case' (1898) ; Eugon, 'The Dreyfus Case' (1898) • Steevens, 'The Tragedy of Dreyfus' (1899) ; Marin, 'Comptes-rendus offi ciels' (1897) ; Vanex, 'Dossier de l'affaire Dreyfus' (1898) • Brez, solecisme du bordereau et des ; de Dreyfus' (1898) ; Esterhazy, 'Les dessous de l'affaire Dreyfus' (1898).