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DREYFUS, ALFRED (1859– )

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Originally appearing in Volume V08, Page 579 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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DREYFUS, See also:ALFRED (1859– ) , See also:French soldier, of Jewish parentage, the See also:scandal of whose condemnation for See also:treason and subsequent rehabilitation convulsed French See also:political See also:life between 1894 and 1899, and only ended in 1906, was See also:born in See also:Mulhausen, Upper See also:Alsace, removing to See also:Paris in 1874. After going through the usual course of military instruction with See also:credit, he became a sous-See also:lieutenant in the See also:artillery in 1882, and was promoted See also:captain in 1889; and, after passing through the Ecole de Guerre with distinction, he was appointed to the See also:general See also:staff. His name was, however, unknown to the general public till he was arrested on the 15th of See also:October 1894 on a See also:charge of selling military secrets to See also:Germany, condemned, publicly degraded (See also:January 4, 1895), and transported (See also:March ro) to the Ile du Diable, French See also:Guiana. The See also:story of the subsequent proceedings in this celebrated See also:case is told in the See also:article See also:ANTI-SEMITISM, and need not here be repeated. It was not till 1899 that the unfortunate prisoner was brought back to See also:France for retrial by See also:court-See also:martial, and even then, so strong was the anti-Semitic and military See also:prejudice, he was again found guilty " with extenuating circumstances " at See also:Rennes (See also:September 9), though ten days later he was " pardoned " by See also:President See also:Loubet. It was not till the Cour de Cassation ordered a further investigation, and on the 12th of See also:July 1906 decided that his conviction had been based on a See also:forgery and that Dreyfus was See also:innocent, that the agitation came to a final conclusion. He was then restored to his See also:rank in the See also:army and promoted See also:major. But the anti-Semitic and anti-Dreyfusard spirit in certain French circles could not easily be quelled even then; and on the occasion of the See also:translation of the remains of Emile See also:Zola (Dreyfus's determined See also:champion) to the See also:Pantheon on the 4th of See also:June 1908, Major Dreyfus was shot at and wounded by a fanatical journalist named Gregori, who was subsequently acquitted by a Paris See also:jury of the charge of attempted See also:murder, his own plea being that he had merely intended a " demonstration." See Dreyfus's own Five Years of my Life (1901), and literature cited under ANTI-SEMITISM.

End of Article: DREYFUS, ALFRED (1859– )

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