Alfred Dreyfus was a French army officer who was accused of selling military secrets to the Germans. He was arrested on October 15, 1894, convicted on December 15, and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island. The legal proceedings were based on insufficient evidence, but public opinion, and the French press, largely anti-Semitic at the time, regarded the verdict as an example of the supposed disloyalty of French Jews.

The Dreyfus affair split France in two between conservative and progressive forces. On January 13, 1898, the novelist Émile Zola wrote an open letter published on the front page of Aurore under the headline "J'Accuse," in which he accused the army of covering up its mistaken conviction of Dreyfus. Nationalists pressed to have Zola arrested; he was found guilty of libel and sentenced to a year's imprisonment and fined 3,000 francs. Zola fled to London and returned when Dreyfus's conviction was overturned.

More trials followed, but it was not until 1899--and the fall of the government--that Alfred Dreyfus was finally declared completely innocent of all charges. He rejoined the French Army in 1906, and was recalled to active service during World War I as a lieutenant colonel. He died on July 12, 1935, in Paris.

Source: "Dreyfus, Alfred" Encyclopædia Britannica from Encyclopædia Britannica Online. http://search.eb.com/eb/article?eu=31714 [Accessed May 13, 2003].

Walter Littefield, 1867-1948, was an American author and journalist born in Boston. His father was a newspaper executive. Littlefield received his preparatory education in Boston public schools, and attended Harvard University from 1888-1893.

Historical information adapted from http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/authors.php?auid=45865 (accessed October 2018).