FRENCH SENSATION

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 283, 27 October 1934, Page 7

FRENCH SENSATION

SIMILAR TO DREYFUS CASE. ALLEGATIONS AGAINST OFFICER. COURT UNDER GUARD. (United Press Association.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) Received October 27, 10.45 a.in. PARIS, Oct. 26. For the first time since the Dreyfus case, troops are guarding the Law Courts at Belfort owing to fears of disturbances at the trial of Captain Froge, a French officer with a distinguished record, who is accused of betraying secret army plans to a foreign Power. Captain Frogo’s lawyer is demanding that the British Secret Service disclose documents revealing that the principal witness against Froge was a spy in the service of various Governments and for this reason was unreliable.

Feeling in the Army is very high as Captain Froge has hitherto been blameless and it is felt this may be another Dreyfus case. “The secret hearing is a pretext- to cover the machinations of the French Intelligence Service,” declared Froge’s counsel. “There are obvious' forgers on the French General Staff, which fears to open tho debate because the dossier is riddled with improper proceedings. It does not want to let in daylight thereon.”

The famous Dreyfus case was a miscarriage of justice in connection with Alfred Dreyfus, a captain of the Artillery in the French Army. In December, 1894, he was sentenced by a courtmartial on a charge of telling ‘ French military secrets to the German Government and imprisoned on Devil’s Island. After an agitation which divided France into two camps, and in which Zola figured as champion of the accused, the Cour de Cassation in July, 1906, declared Dreyfus was innocent and he was restored to the army. He received the Legion of Honour in 1919.