This photograph from August 7, 1899 shows a day during Alfred Dreyfus’ second trial. The text below the photograph reads:
The curtain rose at Rennes on August 6, 1899 (Bank holiday!) Dreyfus is seen facing the judges, in front of a captain of gendarmes and having his counsel on his right. The accusation is being read.
The photograph was printed in the book Actors and Scenes in the Drama of Disgrace in London, circa 1899. The book documents the Dreyfus trial step-by-step with around 100 photographs from the arrest and trial. The book also includes photographs of people involved in the affair, the military prison, and the court hall.
After Dreyfus had suffered five years of imprisonment on Devil’s Island following a false conviction of treason, the real perpetrator, Major Esterhazy, was arrested and put on trial. The military, however, was reluctant to accept the new evidence, and Esterhazy was acquitted after a brief trial. The Dreyfusards, the intellectuals who were fighting to prove Dreyfus’ innocence, didn’t give up. The famous French writer Émile Zola published an open letter, “J’Accuse” addressed to the president of the French Republic in the newspaper L’Aurore. Further public pressure brought about the annulment of the 1894 verdict, and Dreyfus was returned to France for a retrial.
Dreyfus’ retrial took place in 1899 in the city of Rennes. He was, once again, convicted, this time to 10 years of hard labour. However, President Emile Loubet granted Dreyfus a presidential pardon, and he was, at last, reunited with his family. It took another seven years for the verdict to be annulled and for Dreyfus’ name to be officially cleared.
Would You Like to Know More?
The Dreyfus Affair – Alfred Dreyfus was born in 1859 to a Jewish family in Alsace in the east of France. Dreyfus joined the French Army and was promoted to the rank of captain in the artillery corps in 1889. In 1894, the French Army’s counter intelligence section became aware of classified information being passed on to the German Army. Suspicion quickly fell on Dreyfus, and he was arrested in October 1894 and convicted of treason in a secret court martial. Dreyfus was stripped of his rank and military decorations before a large crowd of cheering onlookers in a “degradation ceremony” and was deported to Devil’s Island, a penal colony off the coast of South America. Throughout his trial Dreyfus claimed his innocence, and in the degradation ceremony he cried out: “I swear that I am innocent. I remain worthy of serving in the army. Long live France! Long live the army!” The many activists and intellectuals who supported Dreyfus were known as Dreyfusards. The famous French writer Émile Zola published an open letter titled “J’accuse” in a Paris newspaper, accusing the president and government of France of anti-Semitism and of the wrongful imprisonment of Alfred Dreyfus. The anti-Dreyfusards, on the other hand, saw the affair as an example of the unpatriotic views held by the Jews. They saw Dreyfus’ roots in Alsace (a territory still being disputed by France and Germany) as proof of his affiliation to Germany. The protests finally succeeded, and in 1896 Alfred Dreyfus was returned to France and given a second trial. Despite the evidence brought before the court, Dreyfus was again found guilty of treason. Public opinion, however, forced President Émile Loubet to grant a pardon, and in 1899 Dreyfus was released from prison. He, nonetheless, officially remained a traitor until his full acquittal in 1906.
