15 Oct 1894: Alfred Dreyfus arrested

On this day in 1894, Alfred Dreyfus was arrested by the French military and accused of espionage.

Dreyfus was accused of giving French military secrets to Germans; his Jewish descent was a key factor in the case, and the military suppressed evidence that would have exonerated him. Some other things you should know about Dreyfus and his “affair”:

• he was convicted in a secret trial in December 1894
• in April 1895, he was sent to Devil’s Island in French Guiana to serve a life sentence
• novelist Emile Zola was his most prominent defender, writing the open letter J’accuse in 1898
• writer Marcel Proust also came to his aid
• after a conviction in a second trial, he was given a pardon in 1899 for “treason under extenuating circumstances”
• he was reinstated as a major in 1906, signaling the end of the “affair”

Image: photograph from 1894.