1-157-108 - Ann Ronan Picture Library/Heritage-Images

Disgracing of Albert Dreyfus, 1895. Alfred Dreyfus (c1859-1935), French army officer of Jewish extraction, wrongly accused of passing secret documents to the Germans, being disgraced as a traitor and degraded by having his sword broken and all signs of rank removed from his uniform. After being court-martialled and disgraced, Dreyfus was sent to serve a life sentence on Devil's Island. Although the legal proceedings were irregular, the verdict was widely approved of in French society and the press, where anti-Semitism was rife. The case, which became known as 'l'Affaire Dreyfus' continued to divide France, with the author Emile Zola writing a famous open letter accusing the army of a cover-up. Eventually, in 1906, Dreyfus received a full pardon from the President of France, and he went on to serve with distinction in the French army in the First World War. From Le Petit Journal. (Paris, 13 January 1895).