Why the Dreyfus Affair matters / Louis Begley.
In December 1894, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a brilliant French artillery officer and a Jew of Alsatian descent, was court-martialed for selling secrets to the German military attaché in Paris based on perjured testimony and trumped-up evidence. The sentence was military degradation and life imprisonm...
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| Online Access: |
Full Text (via ProQuest) |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Electronic eBook |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
New Haven :
Yale University Press,
©2009.
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| Series: | Why X matters.
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| Subjects: |
| Summary: | In December 1894, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a brilliant French artillery officer and a Jew of Alsatian descent, was court-martialed for selling secrets to the German military attaché in Paris based on perjured testimony and trumped-up evidence. The sentence was military degradation and life imprisonment on Devil's Island, a hellhole off the coast of French Guiana. Five years later, the case was overturned, and eventually Dreyfus was completely exonerated. Meanwhile, the Dreyfus Affair tore France apart, pitting Dreyfusards - committed to restoring freedom and honor to an innocent man convicted of a crime committed by another - against nationalists, anti-Semites, and militarists who preferred having an innocent man rot to exposing the crimes committed by ministers of war and the army's top brass in order to secure Dreyfus's conviction. |
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| Physical Description: | 1 online resource (xvi, 249 pages) : illustrations. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (pages 229-238) and index. |
| ISBN: | 9780300156454 0300156456 |
| Source of Description, Etc. Note: | Print version record. |