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Alfred Dreyfus
October 9, 1859(1859-10-09) – July 12, 1935 (aged 75)
Place of birth	Mulhouse, Alsace, France
Place of death	Paris, France
Resting place	Cimetière du Montparnasse, Paris (48°50′17″N 2°19′37″E / 48.83806°N 2.32694°E / 48.83806; 2.32694Coordinates: 48°50′17″N 2°19′37″E / 48.83806°N 2.32694°E / 48.83806; 2.32694)
Allegiance	France
Service/branch	French Army
Years of service	1880-1918
Rank	Lieutenant-colonel
Awards	Officier du Légion d'honneur (1918)

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 tense political dramas in modern French and European history. It is still known today as the Dreyfus Affair.

Contents 1 Early life 2 The Dreyfus affair 3 Later life 4 See also 5 References 6 Bibliography

[edit] Early life

Born in Mulhouse (Mülhausen) in Alsace, Dreyfus was the youngest of seven children born to Raphael and Jeannette Dreyfus, a prosperous, self-made, Jewish textile manufacturer who had started as a peddler. The family moved to Paris from Alsace after the Franco-Prussian War, after which Alsace-Lorraine was annexed by the German Empire in 1871, having long been established in the area that traditionally had been German-speaking, such that the Raphael spoke Yiddish and conducted business affairs in German. The first language of most of Alfred's elder brothers and sisters was German or one of the Alsatian language dialects. Alfred and his brother were the only children to receive a fully French education.^[1]

In 1880 Dreyfus graduated as a sub-lieutenant from the elite École Polytechnique military school in Paris, where he received military training and an education in the sciences. His entry into the military was influenced by his 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 Établissement de Bourges, a government arsenal, and promoted to captain.

On 18 April 1891, Dreyfus married Lucie Hadamard (1870-1945). They had two children, Pierre and Jeanne. Three days after the wedding, Dreyfus received notice that he had been admitted to the École Supérieure de Guerre or War College. Two years later, in 1893, he graduated ninth in his class with honorable 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 War College examination in 1892, his friends had expected him to do well. However, one of the members of the panel, General Bonnefond, felt that "Jews were not desired" on the staff, and gave Dreyfus poor marks, lowering his overall grade; he did the same to another Jewish candidate, Lieutenant Picard. Learning of this injustice, the two officers lodged a protest with the director of the school, General 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.

[edit] The Dreyfus affair

This article is part of the Dreyfus affair series.

Investigation and arrest

Trial and conviction

Picquart's investigations

Other investigations

Public scandal

"J'accuse...!" - Zola

Resolution

Alfred Dreyfus

This box: view • talk • edit

In 1894, the French Army's counter-intelligence section, led by Lt. Col. Sandherr, became aware that new artillery information was being passed to the Germans by a highly-placed spy most likely to be in the General Staff. Suspicion quickly fell upon Dreyfus who was arrested for treason on October 15 1894. On January 5 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 in French Guiana.

In August 1896 the new chief of French military intelligence, Lt Colonel Picquart, reported to his superiors that he had found evidence to the effect that the real traitor was a Major Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy. Picquart was silenced by being transferred, in November 1896, to the southern desert of Tunisia. When reports of an army cover-up and Dreyfus's possible innocence were leaked to the press, a heated debate ensued about anti-Semitism, France's identity as a Catholic nation and a republic founded on equal rights for all citizens. On September 19 1899, following a passionate campaign by his supporters, including leading artists and intellectuals like Émile Zola, Dreyfus was pardoned by President Émile Loubet and released from 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 October 15 1906, he was placed in command of another artillery unit at Saint-Denis.

Dreyfus was present at the ceremony removing 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.

[edit] Later life

Dreyfus's time in prison, notably at Devil's Island, had been difficult on his health, and he was granted early retirement in October 1907. As a reserve officer he re-entered the army, as a Major of Artillery, at the outbreak of World War I in 1914. Serving throughout the War, Dreyfus rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. By now middle-aged, Dreyfus served mostly behind the lines of the Western Front, in part as commander of an artillery supply column. However he also performed front line duties in 1917, notably at Verdun and on the Chemin des Dames. Finally, Dreyfus was promoted to the rank of Officier de la Légion d'honneur in November 1918. Dreyfus's son, Pierre, also served throughout the entire war as an artillery officer, receiving the Croix de Guerre for his services.

Dreyfus died in Paris aged 75, on 12 July 1935, 29 years to the day after his official exoneration. Two days later, his funeral cortège 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

Lieutenant Colonel Alfred Dreyfus

Officer of the Legion of Honour

9 October 1859 - 12 July 1935

Today, a copy of the statue of Dreyfus holding his broken sword stands at the entrance to the Museum of Jewish Art and History in Paris. The original can be found at Boulevard Raspail, n°116-118, at the exit of the Notre-Dame-des-Champs metro station.

[edit] See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Alfred Dreyfus

• Charles Péguy, who wrote a defense of Dreyfus.
• Émile Zola, the author of the pamphlet J'Accuse.
• Gaston Moch, a defence supporter of Dreyfus
• Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy, the real traitor.
• Gérard Louis-Dreyfus, American billionaire and distant relative.
• Julia Louis-Dreyfus, American actress and distant relative.
• Sylvan Goldman, inventor of the shopping cart and distant relative.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] References

[edit] 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