Since Dreyfus was imprisoned on Devil’s Island at the time the second paper was discovered, he could not have authored this or the original treasonous note. The handwriting was identical to that found on the piece of paper used in the Dreyfus case. In March of 1896, French intelligence discovered another piece of paper–in the same German office–which promised new deliveries of French military secrets. Based on Colonel Henry’s testimony, Dreyfus was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in exile on Devil’s Island. Colonel Henry, a French military intelligence agent, testified that he had additional information definitively implicating Dreyfus, but that this information involved classified military secrets and thus could not be revealed.
While his background made him “suspicious,” the military court hesitated to convict Dreyfus without more substantive proof. The press ran stories questioning his loyalty: Was he, above all, French? German? Or part of an “international Jewish conspiracy”? After the area was returned to Germany, the Dreyfus family moved to Paris. He was also from Alsace, the border area of France that was ceded to Germany as a result of the Franco-Prussian war in 1870-71.
Handwriting experts could not definitively link the note to Dreyfus, but the captain was vulnerable on other accounts.ĭreyfus was rich and Jewish.
#Captain alfred dreyfus manual#
The physical evidence consisted of a slip of paper discovered in a German military trashcan on which was written a promise, in French, to deliver a valuable French artillery manual to the Germans. He was convicted by a military court for supposedly selling French military secrets to the Germans. In 1894, Dreyfus was arrested and accused of spying. The anti-Semitism that characterized the arrest, trial, and retrial of Captain Alfred Dreyfus shocked world Jewry. My Jewish Learning is a not-for-profit and relies on your help DonateĪt the end of the 19th century in France, the birthplace of European Jewish emancipation, an espionage scandal erupted involving an assimilated Jewish army captain and questions about his “loyalty” to the state.
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