Alfred Dreyfus

Alfred Dreyfus (/ˈdreɪfəs/ DRAY-fəs, also US: /ˈdraɪ-/ DRY-, French: [alfʁɛd dʁɛfys]; 9 October 1859 – 12 July 1935) was a French artillery officer of Jewish ancestry whose trial and conviction in 1894 on charges of treason became one of the most controversial and polarizing political dramas in modern French history. The incident has gone down in history as the Dreyfus affair, the reverberations from which were felt throughout Europe. It ultimately ended with Dreyfus's complete exoneration.

Alfred Dreyfus
Alfred Dreyfus c. 1894
Personal details
Born(1859-10-09)9 October 1859[1]
Mulhouse, French Empire
Died12 July 1935(1935-07-12) (aged 75)
Paris, French Republic
Resting placeCimetière du Montparnasse
48°50′17″N 2°19′37″E
NationalityFrench[1]
Spouse(s)
Lucie Eugénie Hadamard
(
m. 1890)
ChildrenPierre Dreyfus
Jeanne Dreyfus
MotherJeannette Libmann
FatherRaphael Dreyfus
Alma materÉcole Polytechnique
École Supérieure de Guerre
Signature
Military service
Allegiance French Third Republic
Branch/serviceFrench Army
Years of service1880 – 1918
Rank Lieutenant-colonel
Unit
  • 31st Artillery Regiment
  • 1st Cavalry Division
Battles/wars

Early life

Born in Mulhouse, Alsace in 1859, Dreyfus was the youngest of nine children born to Raphaël and Jeannette Dreyfus (née Libmann). Raphaël Dreyfus was a prosperous, self-made Jewish textile manufacturer who had started as a peddler. Alfred was 10 years old when the Franco-Prussian War broke out in the summer of 1870, and his family moved to Paris following the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine by Germany after the war.

The childhood experience of seeing his family uprooted by the war with Germany prompted Dreyfus to decide on a career in the military. Following his 18th birthday in October 1877, he enrolled in the elite École Polytechnique military school in Paris, where he received military training and an education in the sciences. In 1880, he graduated and was commissioned as a sub-lieutenant in the French army. From 1880 to 1882, he attended the artillery school at Fontainebleau to receive more specialized training as an artillery officer. On graduation he was assigned to the Thirty-first Artillery Regiment, which was in garrison at Le Mans. Dreyfus was subsequently transferred to a mounted artillery battery attached to the First Cavalry Division (Paris), 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, the 31-year-old Dreyfus married 20-year-old Lucie Eugénie Hadamard (1870–1945). They had two children, Pierre (1891–1946) and Jeanne (1893–1981).[2] Three days after the wedding, Dreyfus learned that he had been admitted to the École Supérieure de Guerre or War College. Two years later, 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 for cote d'amour (French slang: attraction; translatable as likability). Bonnefond's assessment lowered Dreyfus's 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. The French army of the period was relatively open to entry and advancement by talent, with an estimated 300 Jewish officers, of whom ten were generals.[3] However, within the Fourth Bureau of the General Staff, General Bonnefond's prejudices appear to have been shared by some of the new trainee's superiors. The personal assessments received by Dreyfus during 1893/94 acknowledged his high intelligence, but were critical of aspects of his personality.[4]

The Dreyfus affair
Main article: Dreyfus affair
Alfred Dreyfus in his room on Devil's Island in 1898,
stereoscopy sold by F. Hamel, Altona-Hamburg...; collection Fritz Lachmund
Dreyfus painted by Jean Baptiste Guth for Vanity Fair, 1899
Part of a series on the
Dreyfus affair
Military degradation of Alfred Dreyfus
People

In 1894, the French Army's counter-intelligence section, led by Lieutenant Colonel Jean Sandherr, became aware that information regarding new artillery parts was being passed to the Germans by a highly placed spy, most likely on the General Staff. Suspicion quickly fell upon Dreyfus, who was arrested for treason on 15 October 1894. 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 in French Guiana. Following French military custom of the time, Dreyfus was formally degraded (cashiered) by having the rank insignia, buttons and braid cut from his uniform and his sword broken, all in the courtyard of the École Militaire before silent ranks of soldiers, while a large crowd of onlookers shouted abuse from behind railings. Dreyfus cried out: "I swear that I am innocent. I remain worthy of serving in the Army. Long live France! Long live the Army!"[5]

In August 1896, the new chief of French military intelligence, Lieutenant Colonel Georges Picquart, reported to his superiors that he had found evidence to the effect that the real traitor was the Major Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy. Picquart was silenced by being transferred to the southern desert of Tunisia in November 1896. 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 or a republic founded on equal rights for all citizens. Esterhazy was found not guilty by a secret court martial, before fleeing to England. Following a passionate campaign by Dreyfus's supporters, including leading artists and intellectuals such as Émile Zola,[6] he was given a second trial in 1899 and again declared guilty of treason despite the evidence in favor of his innocence.

However, due to public opinion, Dreyfus was offered and accepted a pardon by President Émile Loubet in 1899 and released from prison; this was a compromise that saved face for the military's mistake. Had Dreyfus refused the pardon, he would have been returned to Devil's Island, a fate he could no longer emotionally cope with; so officially Dreyfus remained a traitor to France, and pointedly remarked upon his release:

The government of the Republic has given me back my freedom. It is nothing for me without my honor.[2]

For two years, until July 1906, he lived in a state of house-arrest with one of his sisters at Carpentras, and later at Cologny.

On 12 July 1906, Dreyfus was officially exonerated by a military commission. The day after his exoneration, he was readmitted into the army with a promotion to the rank of major (Chef d'Escadron). A week later, he was made Knight of the Legion of Honour,[7] 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.

Aftermath

While attending a ceremony removing Zola's ashes to the Panthéon on 4 June 1908, Dreyfus was wounded in the arm by a gunshot from a right-wing journalist, Louis Gregori, in an assassination attempt.

In 1937 his son Pierre published his father's memoirs based on his correspondence between 1899 and 1906. The memoirs were titled Souvenirs et Correspondance and translated into English by Dr Betty Morgan.

Dreyfus had started corresponding with the marquise Marie Arconati Visconti in 1899 and began attending her Thursday (political) salons after his release. They continued correspondence until her death in 1923.[8]

Later life
The Dreyfus family, taken in 1905
A 74-year-old Alfred Dreyfus, ca. 1934

World War I

Dreyfus's prison sentence on Devil's Island had taken its toll on his health. He was granted retirement from the army in October 1907 at the age of 48. As a reserve officer, he re-entered the army as a major of artillery at the outbreak of World War I. Serving throughout the war, Dreyfus rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel.

By then in his mid-50s, 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. He received de la Légion d'honneur, at the rank of "Officer," in November 1918.[9]

Dreyfus's son Pierre also served throughout the entire war as an artillery officer, receiving the Croix de guerre.

Death

Dreyfus died in Paris aged 75, on 12 July 1935, exactly 29 years after his 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

A statue of Dreyfus holding his broken sword is located at Boulevard Raspail, n°116–118, at the exit of the Notre-Dame-des-Champs metro station. A duplicate statue stands in the courtyard to the Museum of Jewish Art and History in Paris.

Legacy

Alfred Dreyfus's grandchildren donated over three thousand documents to the Musée d'art et d'histoire du judaïsme (Museum of Jewish art and history), including personal letters, photographs of the trial, legal documents, writings by Dreyfus during his time in prison, personal family photographs, and his officer stripes that were ripped out as a symbol of treason. The museum created an online platform in 2006 dedicated to the Dreyfus Affair.

Military ranks
Ranks attained in the French Army
Aspirant Sous-lieutenant Lieutenant Capitaine Chef d'escadrons Lieutenant-colonel
1 October 1878[10] 4 October 1880[10] 1 November 1882[10] 12 September 1889[10] 13 July 1906[10] 26 September 1918[10]

Honours and decorations

National honours
Ribbon barHonour
Knight of the National Order of the Legion of Honour - 21 July 1906[11]
Officer of the National Order of the Legion of Honour - 21 January 1919[12]

Decorations and medals
Ribbon barHonour
War Cross 1914–1918
1914–1918 Commemorative war medal
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See also

References
  1. Government of the French Republic. "Birth certificate of Dreyfus, Alfred". culture.gouv.fr. Retrieved 24 July 2019.
  2. YuMuseum
  3. Read, Piers Paul (2012). The Dreyfus Affair. p. 83. ISBN 978-1-4088-3057-4.
  4. Read. The Dreyfus Affair. p. 84.
  5. Read. The Dreyfus Affair. p. 113.
  6. "Summary of Emile Zola's J'Accuse, and its Repercussions. Dreyfus Letter to Zola's Widow, 1910". SMF Primary Sources. Shapell Manuscript Foundation.
  7. Minutes of the induction of Dreyfus into the Legion of Honor, French Ministry of Culture and Communication
  8. Wood, Michael (17 September 2017). "The French Are Not Men". Retrieved 29 October 2017. (London Review of Books)
  9. Biography of Alfred Dreyfus and General Chronology, French Ministry of Culture and Communication
  10. Government of the French Republic. "Service records of Dreyfus, Alfred". culture.gouv.fr. Retrieved 24 July 2019.
  11. Government of the French Republic. "Legion of honour certificate (Knight) of Dreyfus, Alfred". culture.gouv.fr. Retrieved 24 July 2019.
  12. Government of the French Republic. "Legion of honour certificate (Officer) of Dreyfus, Alfred". culture.gouv.fr. Retrieved 24 July 2019.

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), New edition 2019, Comino. ISBN 978-3-945831-19-9.
  • Souvenirs et correspondence, posthumously in 1936
  • Michael Burns, Dreyfus: a family affair 1789–1945 (1991), Harpercollins. ISBN 978-0-06-016366-2.
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