THE PROGRESSION OF THE AFFAIR
In order to understand the Dreyfus Affair, a basic understanding of the complicated progression of events becomes important. This section is meant to clarify what events constituted the Affair, giving particular emphasis upon those which coincide with the causes behind it.
The arrest of Alfred Dreyfus was precipitated by the finding of a bordereau in mid-September, 1894. It was obtained from the German embassy by a cleaning woman in the employ of the Statistical Section, which concerned itself with counterintelligence. The bordereau had been sent to the German military attache in Paris, Colonel Maximilian von Schwartzkoppen, an incompetent, indiscreet man who indulged in some espionage, but not very secretively. Colonel Henry was the first to come across this document, which outlined what the true traitor, who was later revealed as Major the Count Ferdinand Walsin-Esterhazy, intended to sell. After realizing the implications of what he had found, he eventually informed his superior, Colonel Sandherr, who in turn, notified Mercier, the Minister of War.
It was concluded that only someone with a general knowledge of the different bureaus could have been the author of the bordereau, and samples of it were circulated to the chiefs of each of the bureaus to see if anyone recognized the handwriting. No progress was made until Lieutenant Colonel the Marquis Albert d’Abovill of the Bureau of Communications and Transport decided that it could only be a General Staff trainee, and while looking over the list of possible suspects, the name of Alfred Dreyfus was first chanced upon. The name alone was enough to raise the question of his reliability, and many officers had unfavorable things to say about the outspoken and fiercely intelligent captain. His handwriting was similar enough to convince Sandherr, who wondered why he had not thought of the lone Jewish officer immediately, and he informed his superiors. Major Armand Du Paty de Clam, after being assigned as chief investigator, was sure of Dreyfus’s guilt, even after one of the handwriting experts claimed it could have been someone else. Mercier’s order to arrest the suspect immediately and get the matter over with, brought hasty action from de Clam, who found a handwriting expert to concur with their findings, and plans were made for the arrest.
Dreyfus was ordered to Ministry of War on Monday, October 15, where de Clam, under false pretenses, had Dreyfus write a dictation for him. Satisfied with what he believed was incriminating behavior from Dreyfus, he arrested him on the spot, offering him subtly the opportunity to commit suicide. The court-martial would not begin until December 19th, and the guilty verdict shocked both Dreyfus’s lawyer and his family, who thought he would be acquitted due to lack of evidence. One factor contributing to the guilty verdict was the illegal submission of documents, designed to link Dreyfus with the Germans, to the judges just prior to the decision. Despite the illegal errors in procedure, the hasty arrest, and the flimsy evidence, Dreyfus was degraded in a public ceremony and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil’s Island, off the coast of South America. The chief of the Statistical Section, Sandherr, knew the danger that the Dreyfus case presented, and before his death, he ordered Henry to "nourish" the secret dossier. Henry would work on this task steadfastly and he would include unrelated, and forged documents in the file.
The death of Sandherr led to the appointment of Major Picquart to the Statistical Section on July 1, 1895. This event becomes very important, because when Picquart discovers that there is still traitorous activity, he realizes the possibility that Dreyfus may have been wrongly accused. When Picquart introduced the new document, the Petit bleu, he was told first by General Gonse to exercise extreme caution, and keep the two affairs separate. Picquart eventually realized that no matter how much evidence he presented that would exonerate Dreyfus, no steps would be taken to revise the case. The upper members of the General Staff realized the potential danger of Picquart and ordered him on assignments, many of which placed him in danger, that would keep his nose out of the case. Picquart, due to his profound sense of honor and respect of the Army, kept, for the most part, his inquiries secret, and only confided in his lawyer friend Leblois after he thought his life was in danger.
But other forces beyond the Army’s control would unravel their efforts to keep the Dreyfus case in the past. The continued activity of Alfred’s brother, Mathieu, kept the Dreyfus case from being forgotten, and he obtained the support of the Jewish writer, Bernard Lazare, and Joseph Reinach. Also, the vice-president of the Senate, Auguste Scheurer-Kestner based on conversations with Reinach and with Picquart’s friend Leblois, became convinced that an error had been done. Even though his talks with the present Minister of War, Jean-Baptiste Billot, yielded little results, he would continue to take an active role.
Up to this time, Mathieu Dreyfus still did not know who the true culprit was, but after he published a copy of the infamous bordereau, a banker by the name of Castro recognized the handwriting and found it to be similar to his client, Major Walsin-Esterhazy. (Snyder, 142) Mathieu met with Scheurer-Kestner, who not only confirmed the name, but also published an article in Le Temps on November 14, 1897. In it, Scheurer-Kestner states that "If the Ministry of War would begin an organized inquiry and carry it through, it could prove without difficulty that another man is guilty." (Snyder, 143) The next day, Mathieu publicly names Esterhazy, and La Libre Parole publishes an article, written anonymously by Henry, which denounces Picquart as an agent of the "Syndicate."
At this point, Esterhazy began to take an active role in defending himself, and the War Office began to fear that he would sue Mathieu and Scheuer-Kestner for libel, thereby leading to a messy civil inquiry. A court-martial preceding for Esterhazy would be the best way to handle the situation, because it would exonerate Esterhazy, just as two previous inquiries had, avoid an unreliable jury, and confirm, at the same time, Dreyfus’s guilt. Clearly, by this point, the War Office and Esterhazy had their fates intertwined with one another. The men previously involved in the 1894 conviction, Gonse, de Boisdeffre, du Paty de Clam and Henry, had already been either directly or indirectly protecting and conversing with Esterhazy. As a result, their survival was based on his acquittal. (Chapman, 165)
With the order to prosecute Esterhazy on December 4, 1897, Prime Minister Meline gave an opening remark designed to "reassure the Army, public opinion and the Chamber." (Bredin, 228) In his speech, Meline did just that :
I shall say at once the decisive words in this debate: there is no Dreyfus case. At this moment, there is not, and cannot be a Dreyfus case. An accusation of treason has been made against an army officer; this particular question bears no relation to the other. (Chapman2, 115)
He also advocated the continuation of the "res judicata" policy, which in effect kept all the actual evidence secret, on the official grounds of national security.
The Esterhazy trial lasted only two days, and resulted in his unanimous acquittal. The cause for revision was given a serious blow, but Emile Zola, on January 13, 1898, published his famous letter to the President of the Republic entitled, "J’Accuse...!" ("I accuse") (Chapman, 374) In it, he accused all the men involved in the two trials of covering up evidence and allowing an innocent man to stay condemned. Urged on by his colleagues, War Minister Billot prosecuted both Zola and Clemenceau, the publisher of the newspaper l’Aurore, for libel, but only on the charges which would keep the 1894 evidence out of the trial. On January 23, both were found guilty, given a fine, and sentenced to prison.
On February 26, Picquart was officially dismissed from the Army, which ultimately meant he could now openly join those seeking revision. (Chapman, 148) The change of government in June, 1898, resulted in the appointment of War Minister as Godefroy Cavaignac, who was determined to clear up the Dreyfus case completely. He was staunchly anti-revisionist, but ordered a thorough investigation of the secret file, which by now contained over 4,000 documents. (Wernick, 120) In a speech before the Chamber on July 7, he confirmed Dreyfus’s and Esterhazy’s guilt, and read openly three documents which supposedly were conclusive of their guilt. Unfortunately for Cavaignac, one of the documents was discovered to be a forgery, and on August 30, Henry confessed before Cavaignac and was arrested. The next day, Henry committed suicide, Esterhazy fled to Belgium, and de Boisdeffre resigned.
By now the tide for revision had unalterably changed, making it inevitable. The months before the retrial on August 7, 1899 were painfully slow, but indicative of the new characteristics the Affair began to assume. The Army continued to be resistant to revision, and consistently clung to the notion that it would only destroy the country. Politically, the shift to the left was made complete with the beginning of Waldeck-Rousseau’s ministry. This trial rendered yet another guilty verdict for Dreyfus, but with extenuating circumstances. On September 19, Dreyfus was pardoned by the President, and Waldeck-Rousseau, on November 17, introduced a general amnesty bill to the Chamber of Deputies. (Lewis, xiv) Dreyfus would not be fully rehabilitated until 1906.
