ALFRED DREYFUS

'Alfred Dreyfus' (9 October, 1859 – 12 July, 1935) was a French artillery officer of Jewish background whose trial and conviction in 1894 on charges of treason became one of the most sensational political dramas in modern French history, still known as the Dreyfus Affair.

Contents

Biography

See also

Trivia

References

Biography

Born in Mulhouse, Alsace, Dreyfus was the youngest of seven children in the family of a prosperous Jewish textile manufacturer who stayed in France and kept their French nationality when Alsace was annexed by the German Empire in 1871. The family had long been established in Alsace. Alfred was accepted into the elite ''École Polytechnique'' for initial military training and thorough scientific studies in 1877 and graduated in 1880 as a sub-lieutenant.
His entry into the military was influenced by the experience of seeing Prussian troops enter his hometown in 1871 when he was eleven years old. From 1880 to 1882 he attended the artillery school at Fontainebleau to receive more specialized training as an artillery officer. On graduation he was attached to the first division of the 32nd Cavalry Regiment and promoted to lieutenant in 1885. In 1889 he was made adjutant to the director of the pyrotechnical facility in Bourges, and promoted to captain.
On 18 April, 1891, Dreyfus married Lucie Hadamard (1870-1945) who would later bear his son Pierre and daughter Jeanne. A mere three days later, he received notice that he had been admitted to the Superior War College. Two years later, he graduated ninth in his class with honourable mention and was immediately designated as a trainee in the French Army's General Staff headquarters, where he would be the only Jewish officer. His father Raphaël died on 13 December, 1893.
At the college examination in 1892, his friends had expected him to do well and to be attached to the general staff. However, one of the members of the jury, General Bonnefond, felt that "Jews were not desired" on the staff, and gave Dreyfus poor marks, lowering his overall grade; he did the same thing for another Jewish candidate, Lieutenant Picard. Learning of this injustice, the two officers lodged a protest with the director of the school, Gen. Lebelin de Dionne, who expressed his regret for what had occurred, but said he was powerless to take any steps in the matter. The protest would later count against Dreyfus, who was assigned to a lesser post within the War Ministry.
In 1894, the French Army's counter-intelligence section became aware that some new artillery information was being passed to the Germans by a highly-placed spy most likely to be in the General Staff. With anti-Semitism still widespread in many parts of French society, particularly in the conservative military, suspicion quickly fell upon Dreyfus, who was arrested for treason on 15 October, 1894. The events that follow until his eventual exoneration on 12 July, 1906 are chronicled in the article on the Dreyfus Affair. On 5 January, 1895, Dreyfus was summarily convicted in a secret court martial, publicly stripped of his army rank, and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island.
When reports of an army cover-up and Dreyfus's possible innocence were leaked to the press, a heated debate ensued about anti-Semitism and France's identity as a Catholic nation and a republic founded on equal rights for all citizens. On 19 September, 1899, following a passionate campaign by his supporters, including leading artists and intellectuals like Émile Zola, Dreyfus was pardoned by President Émile Loubet and left the prison. During that time he lived with one of his sisters at Carpentras, and later at Cologny.
On July 12 1906, Dreyfus was officially exonerated by a military commission. The day after his exoneration, he was readmitted into the army with the rank of Major ("Chef d'Escadron"). A week later, he was made a Knight of the Legion of Honour, and subsequently assigned to command an artillery unit at Vincennes. On 15 October, 1906, he was placed in command of another artillery unit at Saint-Denis.
Dreyfus' time in prison, notably at Devil's Island, had been difficult on his health, and he was granted early retirement in October 1907. He volunteered,however, to serve again as a lieutenant-colonel during World War I and thus held several commands including in the Paris region. He eventually served in front-line duty as well, during 1917, although he had by that time reached normal retirement age. Finally, Lt Colonel Dreyfus was raised to the rank of Officer of the Legion of Honour in November 1918. Dreyfus' son, Pierre, served in numerous battles as an artillery captain and managed to survive the entire war. Pierre was awarded the Croix de Guerre for his services.[1]
Dreyfus was present at the ceremony removing Émile Zola's ashes to the Panthéon in 1908, when he was wounded in the arm by a gunshot from Louis Gregori, a disgruntled journalist, in an assassination attempt.
Two days after Dreyfus's death in Paris in 1935, at the age of 75, his funeral cortege passed the Place de la Concorde through the ranks of troops assembled for the Bastille Day National Holiday (14 July, 1935). He was interred in the Cimetière du Montparnasse, Paris. The inscription on his tombstone is in Hebrew and French. It reads (translated to English):
Here Lies (Hebrew. The rest is in French.):
Lieutenant Colonel Alfred Dreyfus
Officer of the Legion of Honor
9 October 1859 - 12 July 1935
There is a statue of Dreyfus holding his broken sword at the entrance to the Museum of Jewish Art and History in Paris.
Bibliography

★ ''Lettres d'un innocent'' (Letters from an innocent man) (1898)

★ ''Les lettres du capitaine Dreyfus à sa femme'' (Letters from capitaine Dreyfus to his wife) (1899), written at Devil's Island

★ ''Cinq ans de ma vie'' (5 years of my life) (1901)

★ ''Souvenirs et correspondence'', posthumously in 1936

See also

★ Charles Péguy, who wrote a defense of Dreyfus.

★ Émile Zola, the author of the pamphlet ''J'Accuse''

★ Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy, the real traitor.

Trivia

★ Actor Richard Dreyfuss says that according to family tradition they are related. ^[1] This is disputed by others. ^[2]

★ Actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus is said to be a distant relative.[2]

★ The father in E. Nesbit's book ''The Railway Children'' is said to be inspired by Dreyfus' tale. ^[3]

References

1. ''Washington Post'', January 22, 1978
2. '' New York Times'', October 24, 2006
3. Philip, Neil in Introduction to ''The Railway Children'' published by Philomel Books, 1990.