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Alfred Dreyfus[a] (9 October 1859 – 12 July 1935) was aFrench Army officer best known for his central role in theDreyfus affair. In 1894, Dreyfus fell victim to a judicial conspiracy that eventually sparked a major political crisis in theFrench Third Republic when he was wrongfully accused and convicted of being a German spy due toantisemitism. Dreyfus was arrested,cashiered from the French army and imprisoned onDevil's Island inFrench Guiana. Eventually, evidence emerged showing that Dreyfus was innocent and the true culprit was fellow officerFerdinand Walsin Esterhazy.
Gradual revelations indicated that the internal investigation conducted by the French army was biased; Dreyfus was an ideal scapegoat due to being a Jew, and military authorities were aware of his innocence but chose to cover up the affair and leave him imprisoned rather than lose face. A political scandal subsequently erupted, shaking French political life and highlighting antisemitism in the French army and government. After numerous judicial and political developments, the publication ofÉmile Zola's manifestoJ'Accuse...! in 1898 brought new momentum to Dreyfus' cause. Zola accused French military and political leadership of covering up the affair. Dreyfus was eventually exonerated, rehabilitated and reinstated in the French army, although at a lower rank than his seniority would have warranted.
"Anti-Dreyfusards" and antisemites in France, however, viewed even his incomplete rehabilitation unfavorably, and while attending the transfer of Zola's remains to thePanthéon, Dreyfus was the target of an unsuccessful assassination attempt by an antisemitic militarist who was later acquitted at trial. Dreyfus later fought inWorld War I, notably at the battles ofVerdun andthe Aisne, before retiring and leading a quiet life. He died in 1935 inParis and was buried in theMontparnasse Cemetery. Dreyfus' life and the antisemitic persecutions he endured left a significant mark on French political consciousness, while Esterhazy remained unpunished until his death. Among Dreyfus’s defenders were writers such as Zola,Charles Péguy, andAnatole France, politicians such asGeorges Clemenceau andJean Jaurès, filmmakers such asGeorges Méliès, and the founders of theHuman Rights League (LDH)Francis de Pressensé andPierre Quillard.
Born inMulhouse,Alsace on 9 October 1859,[1] to Raphaël and Jeannette Dreyfus (née Libmann), Alfred Dreyfus was the youngest of nine children (seven of whom survived to adulthood).[2] His grandfather was a merchant from a long established Alsatian Jewish family in Rixheim, not far from Mulhouse. His father became a prosperous industrialist who started a cotton mill, then expanded the business with a weaving factory. This enabled the Dreyfus family to live a comfortable and affluent life within Mulhouse society. He spent his first years in a house on Rue du Sauvage, then later in a mansion on Rue de la Sinne, both in Mulhouse.
Because of his mother's bedridden illness following his birth, his sister Henriette became like a second mother to him. Alfred was 10 years old when theFranco-Prussian War broke out in the summer of 1870, and following the annexation ofAlsace-Lorraine byGermany after the war, he and his family moved toBasel,Switzerland, where he attended high school. The family later relocated toParis.
The childhood experience of seeing his family uprooted bythe war with Germany prompted Dreyfus to decide on a career in the military. Following his 18th birthday in October 1877, he enrolled in the eliteÉcole Polytechnique military school inParis, 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 atFontainebleau to receive more specialized training as anartillery officer. On graduation, he was assigned to the 31st Artillery Regiment, which was in the 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.[2]
On 18 April 1891, the 31-year-old Dreyfus married 20-year-oldLucie 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 theÉcole Supérieure de Guerre or 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 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 forcote d'amour (French slang: attraction; translatable aslikability). Bonnefond's assessment lowered Dreyfus' 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]: 83 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.[3]: 84
A torn-up handwritten note, referred to throughout the affair as thebordereau, was found by a French housekeeper, a woman named Marie Bastian, in a wastebasket at the German Embassy. Bastian, whose job was to burn the waste ofMaximilian von Schwartzkoppen, instead sent it toHubert-Joseph Henry for potential interest to French intelligence.[4] The bordereau described a minor French military secret, and had obviously been written by a spy in the French military.
In 1894, this made the French Army's counter-intelligence section, led by Lieutenant ColonelJean Sandherr, aware that information regarding new artillery parts was being passed toMaximilian von Schwartzkoppen, the German military attaché in Paris, by a highly placed spy most likely on the General Staff. Suspicion quickly fell upon Dreyfus, who was arrested fortreason on 15 October 1894.
On 22 December 1894, Dreyfus was summarily convicted in a closed court martial and sentenced tolife imprisonment which was to be served onDevil's Island inFrench Guiana. Following French military custom of the time, on 5 January 1895 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 theÉcole 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!"[3]: 113
In August 1896, the new chief of French military intelligence, Lieutenant ColonelGeorges Picquart, reported to his superiors that he had found evidence to the effect that the real traitor was the MajorFerdinand Walsin Esterhazy. Picquart was silenced by being transferred to command atirailleur regiment based inSousse, Tunisia, in November 1896. When reports of an army cover-up and Dreyfus' possible innocence were leaked to the press, a heated debate ensued aboutantisemitism 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 secretly to England and shaving off his moustache.Rachel Beer, editor ofThe Observer and theSunday Times, interviewed him twice. He confessed to writing the bordereau under orders from Sandherr in an attempt to frame Dreyfus. She wrote about her interviews in September 1898,[5] reporting his confession and writing aleader column accusing the French military of antisemitism and calling for a retrial for Dreyfus.[6]
In France there was a passionate campaign by Dreyfus' supporters, including leading artists and intellectuals such asÉmile Zola,[7] following which he was given a second trial in 1899, but again declared guilty of treason despite the evidence of his innocence.
However, due to public opinion, Dreyfus was offered and accepted a pardon by PresidentÉmile 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 honour.[2]
For two years, until July 1906, he lived in a state of house arrest with one of his sisters atCarpentras, and later atCologny.
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 theLegion of Honour,[8] and subsequently assigned to command an artillery unit atVincennes. On 15 October 1906, he was placed in command of another artillery unit atSaint-Denis.
While attending a ceremony relocating Zola's ashes to thePanthéon on 4 June 1908, Dreyfus was wounded in the arm by a gunshot from a right-wing journalist,Louis Grégori [fr], who was trying to assassinate him. Grégori was acquitted by the Parisian court, which accepted his defence that he had not meant to kill Dreyfus, meaning merely to graze him.[9]
In 1937, Dreyfus' son Pierre published his father's memoirs based on his correspondence between 1899 and 1906. The memoirs were titledSouvenirs et Correspondance and translated into English, asDreyfus: His Life and Letters, byBetty Morgan.[10]
Dreyfus started corresponding with the marquiseMarie-Louise Arconati-Visconti in 1899 and began attending her Thursday (political) salons after his release. They continued their correspondence until her death in 1923.[11]
Dreyfus' 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 ofWorld War I. Serving throughout the war, Dreyfus was promoted to the rank oflieutenant colonel.
By then in his mid-50s, Dreyfus served mostly behind the lines of theWestern Front, in part as commander of an artillery supply column. However, he also performed front-line duties in 1917, notably atVerdun and on theChemin des Dames. He was promoted to Officer of theLegion of Honour in November 1918.[12]
Dreyfus' son Pierre also served throughout the entire war as an artillery officer, receiving theCroix de guerre.
Dreyfus died in Paris aged 75, on 12 July 1935. Two days later, his funeral cortège passed thePlace de la Concorde through the ranks of troops assembled for theBastille Day national holiday. He was interred in theCimetière du Montparnasse, Paris.
During the German occupation of France during WWII,Lucie Dreyfus, who had played a major role in the fight to exonerate her husband, was hidden in a convent in Valence. Their son, Pierre Léon Dreyfus (1891–1946), escaped to the United States in 1943. Their daughter, Jeanne Dreyfus Lévy (1893–1981), also survived, but granddaughter Madeleine Levy, arrested by French police inToulouse, was deported and died of typhus inAuschwitz in January 1944, aged 25.[3]: 352
In October 2021, French presidentEmmanuel Macron inaugurated a museum dedicated to the Dreyfus affair inMédan in the northwestern suburbs of Paris. He said that nothing could repair the humiliations and injustices Dreyfus had suffered, and "let us not aggravate it by forgetting, deepening, or repeating them".[13]
The reference to not repeating them follows attempts by the French far right to question Dreyfus' innocence. An army colonel wascashiered in 1994 for publishing an article suggesting that Dreyfus was guilty; far-right politicianJean-Marie Le Pen's lawyer responded that Dreyfus' exoneration was "contrary to all known jurisprudence".Éric Zemmour, a far-right political opponent of Macron, said repeatedly in 2021 that the truth about Dreyfus was not clear; his innocence was "not obvious".[13]
Dreyfus had been promoted to major when he was exonerated in 1906, a lower rank than was justified by his seniority, and to lieutenant colonel in 1916. In 2025, theNational Assembly finally unanimously backed a symbolic effort to promote him posthumously to brigadier general as an act of reparation, subject to confirmation by theSenate.[14] The promotion was finalized by PresidentEmmanuel Macron on 17 November 2025.[15]
Dreyfus' grandchildren donated over three thousand documents to theMusée 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 had been ripped off as a symbol of treason. The museum created an online platform in 2006 dedicated to the Dreyfus Affair.[16]
An Officer and a Spy, a novel written in first person byRobert Harris, in the form of an account of the Dreyfus Affair as if written by Georges Picquart
^Beer, Rachel. "Light Upon the Dreyfus Case. Major Esterhazy in London." (18 September), "The Esterhazy Revelations." (25 September).The Observer, 1898.
^Dreyfus, Pierre (1937).Souvenirs Et Correspondance. Dreyfus: His Life and Letters. Translated by Morgan, Betty. London: Hutchinson & Co.French originalArchived 30 October 2021 at theWayback Machine
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