Dreyfus had few defenders, and anti-Semitism was rampant in the French army.
Lieutenant Colonel Georges Picquart, an unapologetic anti-Semite, was appointed
chief of army intelligence two years after Dreyfus was convicted. After
examining the evidence and investigating the affair in greater detail, he
concluded that the guilty officer was a Major named Walsin Esterhazy. When
Picquart persisted in attempting to reopen the case the army transferred him to
Tunisia. A military court then acquitted Esterhazy, ignoring the convincing
evidence of his guilt.
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"The Affair" might have ended then but for the determined intervention of the
novelist Emile Zola, who published his denunciation ("J'accuse!") of the army
cover-up in a daily newspaper. At this point public passion became more aroused
than ever, as the political right and the leadership of the Catholic Church -
both of which were openly hostile to the Republic - declared the Dreyfus case to
be a conspiracy of Jews and Freemasons designed to damage the prestige of the
army and thereby destroy France.
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Sometime later another military officer discovered that additional documents had
been added to the Dreyfus file. He determined that a lieutenant colonel (Hubert
Henry) had forged the documents - which seemed to strengthen the case against
Dreyfus - in anticipation that Dreyfus would be given a new trial. Immediately
after an interrogation the lieutenant colonel committed suicide. In 1899 the
army did in fact conduct a new court-martial which again found Dreyfus guilty
and condemned him to 10 years detention, although it observed that there were
"extenuating circumstances."
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In September 1899, the president of France pardoned Dreyfus, thereby making it
possible for him to return to Paris, but he had to wait until 1906 - twelve
years after the case had begun - to be exonerated of the charges, after which he
was reinstated in the army as a major, re-enlisted in World War I, and was
promoted to Lieutenant Colonel.
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