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| Sunday, 12 June 2005 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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Famous trials that shook the world : The trial of Alfred Dreyfus by Lionel Wijesiri
Throughout Jewish history, there have been many events that have helped evolve the Jews as a nation. From the Exodus to the Holocaust all had profound effects on the Jews. One such event which many people may not link with the advancement of Jewish history is the 'Dreyfus Affair' of 1894. Born in 1859, Alfred Dreyfus was the youngest of seven children in the family of a Jewish textile manufacturer who had accepted French nationality. Dreyfus was accepted into the Ecole Polytechnique for initial military training in 1887 and after graduation in 1880 entered into the French Military as a sub-lieutenant. By 1889 through a series of promotions he became a Captain. In 1891 he married Lucie Hadamard the same year he was admitted to the Superior War College. The French army, at this time was a stronghold of monarchists and Catholics and was permeated by anti-Semitism. At the college examination in 1892, his friends had expected him to do well and be attached to the general staff. However, one of the members of the jury, General Bonnefond, under the pretext that "Jews were not desired" on the staff, lowered the total of his marks by making a very bad report. Learning of this injustice, he lodged a protest with the Director of the school, who expressed his regret for what had occurred, but was powerless to take any steps in the matter. The protest would later count against Dreyfus. However, a year later he graduated, and was designated as a trainee at army headquarters where he would be the only Jew. Then in 1894, an incident occurred which created a profound effect on the life and career of Dreyfus. A French spy in the German embassy discovered a handwritten schedule, received by a German military attache in Paris, which listed secret French documents. The French army attempted to ferret out the traitor. Dreyfus came under suspicion, probably because he was a Jew and also because he had access to the type of information that had been supplied to the German agent. The army authorities declared that Dreyfus' handwriting was similar to that on the papers. Despite his protestations of innocence he was found guilty of treason in a secret military court-martial, during which he was denied the right to examine the evidence against him. The army stripped him of his rank in a humiliating ceremony and shipped him off to Devil's Island, a penal colony located off the coast of South America. Dreyfus seemed destined to die in disgrace. He had only a few defenders. However, an unlikely defender came to his rescue, motivated by the evidence that the officer who had actually committed espionage remained in position to do further damage. Lieutenant Colonel Georges Picquart, an unapologetic anti-Semite, was appointed chief of army intelligence two years after Dreyfus was convicted. Picquart, after examining the evidence and investigating the affair in greater detail, concluded that the guilty officer was a Major named Walsin Esterhazyl. Picquart soon discovered, however, that the army was more concerned about preserving its image than rectifying its error, and when he persisted in attempting to reopen the case the army transferred him to Tunisia. In 1897 Dreyfus's brother, Mathieu, made the same discovery and increased pressure to reopen the case. Esterhazy was tried in January 1898 by a court-martial and acquitted in a matter of minutes. "The Affair" might have ended then but for the determined intervention of the novelist Emile Zola who promptly published an open letter (J'accuse) to the president of the French republic, Felix Faure, accusing the judges of having obeyed orders from the war office in their acquittal of Esterhazy. Zola was tried for libel and sentenced to jail, but he escaped to England. By this time the case had become a major political issue and was fully exploited by royalist, militarist, and nationalist elements on the one hand and by republican, socialist, and anticlerical elements on the other. Later in 1898 it was discovered that much of the evidence against Dreyfus had been forged by a Lieutenant Colonel Hubert Henry of army intelligence. Immediately after interrogation, Henry committed suicide, and Esterhazy fled to England. At this point, revision of Dreyfus's sentence had become imperative. The case was referred to an Appeals Court in September and after Waldeck-Rousseau became premier in 1899, the Court of Appeals ordered a new court-martial. There was worldwide indignation when the military court, unable to admit error, found Dreyfus guilty with "extenuating circumstances" and sentenced him to 10 years in prison. On September 19, 1899, the president of France pardoned Dreyfus, thereby making it possible for him to return to Paris. The day after his exoneration he was re-admitted into the army with the rank of Squadron Chief. A week later he was made a Knight in the Legion of Honour, and subsequently named to the artillery command at Vincennes. On October 15, 1906 he was placed in command of the artillery unit at Saint-Denis. Dreyfus' time in prison, notably at Devil's Island, had been difficult on his health, and he was granted retirement in October 1907. He was re-mobilized during World War I when he held assignments in the Paris region. Dreyfus died on 12 July 1935 and two days after his death is funeral cortege passed the Place de la Concorde through the ranks of troops assembled for the National Holiday. He was interred in the Cimetiere du Montparnasse, Paris, France. "The Affair" had inspired moderate republicans, Radicals, and socialists to work together, and the ultimate exoneration of Dreyfus strengthened the Republic. In 1905 the Radical party, emphasising the role of the Catholic leadership in the Dreyfus case, succeeded in passing legislation separating church and state. 101 years after the judgement, on 7th September 1995, General Jean-Louis Mourrut, head of the French Army's Historical Service acknowledged for the first time officially and publicly, that the French army had been wrong.
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