AFFAIRE DREYFUS

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2977, 15 January 1917, Page 5

AFFAIRE DREYFUS

A PLAYER IN THE DRAMA DEAD London, January 12. . General Schwartzkoppen, a former ! German attache at Paris, to whom Cap- , tain Dreyfus was accused of supplying information, is dead. —Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn. i [Captain 'Alfred Dreyfus of the French Army, was arrested in October, ; 1894. tried by court-martial in camera, ; convicted of high treason (supplying ' military information to a foreign i Power) and sentenced to life imprison- • ment. Later he was publicly degraded . and sent first to the He do Re and i afterwards to the He du Diablo. In 1896 Colonel (afterwards General) Picquart urged an inquiry into the case, but he was dismissed from the War i Office, and replaced by Colonel Henry. In 1897 Major Estorhazy was charged with having written the bordereau (secret documents from the War Office) on which Dreyfus was convicted, but was acquitted. Then, in. 1898, Zola took , a hand. Ho defended Dreyfus and demanded a new trial- The same year Colonel Henry confessed to the forgery \ against Dreyfus, was arrested, and committed suicide in prison. Esterhazy fled from France and Colonel do Paty de Clam (also concerned in the conspiracy against Dreyfus) was retired. The case of Dreyfus was, towards the end of 1898, submitted for revision to the Court of Cassation, and after a good deal of delay he was taken to Renues, where another court-martial was opened in -August, 1899. On September 12 of tho latter year Dreyfus was I "pardoned" by the President and reI leased. After several attempts to rei open the ca6e had failed, the Courts of Cassation held the innocence of Dreyfus to have been proved, and quashed the judgment of the Rennes Court, etc. In 1906 Dreyfus was rehabilitated, made a major, and presented with the insignia of the rank of chevalier in tho i-Legion, ofi Honoury^