page_title: Dreyfus affair
section_title: Legal rehabilitation
hierarchical_section_title: Dreyfus affair / Rehabilitation, 1900–1906 / The semi-rehabilitation / Legal rehabilitation
caption_attribution_description: Procureur Baudouin - affaire dreyfus
context_page_description: The Dreyfus Affair was a political scandal that divided the Third French Republic from 1894 until its resolution in 1906. "L'Affaire", as it is known in French, has come to symbolise modern injustice in the Francophone world, and it remains one of the most notable examples of a complex miscarriage of justice and antisemitism. The role played by the press and public opinion proved influential in the conflict.
  The scandal began in December 1894 when Captain Alfred Dreyfus was convicted of treason. Dreyfus was a 35-year-old Alsatian French artillery officer of Jewish descent. He was sentenced to life imprisonment for allegedly communicating French military secrets to the German Embassy in Paris, and was imprisoned in Devil's Island in French Guiana, where he spent nearly five years.
  In 1896, evidence came to light—primarily through an investigation instigated by Georges Picquart, head of counter-espionage—which identified the real culprit as a French Army major named Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy. When high-ranking military officials suppressed the new evidence, a military court unanimously acquitted Esterhazy after a trial lasting only two days.
context_section_description: The elections of 1902 saw the victory of the left. Jean Jaurès was re-elected and he revived the Affair on 7 April 1903 while France thought the Affair buried forever. In a speech Jaurès evoked the long list of falsehoods peppering the Dreyfus case, and placed particular emphasis on two things, the letter of resignation from Pellieux, which was worded in very harsh terms. Legally, it formed an admission of the collusion of the General Staff,
  [It] dupes people without honour [and] can no longer rely on the trust of subordinates, without which command is impossible. For my side I can not trust any of my chiefs who have been working on falsehoods, I ask for my retirement.
  and the note allegedly annotated (by Kaiser Wilhelm II), which General Mercier had alluded to at the Rennes trial, which is reported by the press to have influenced the judges of the Military Court.
  Given these developments, General Louis André, the new Minister of War, led an investigation at the instigation of Émile Combes and assisted by judges. The investigation was conducted by Captain Antoine Louis Targe, aide to the minister. During searches of the Statistics Section he discovered numerous documents, most of which were obviously fabricated. In November 1903 a report was submitted to the Minister of Justice by the Minister of War. This was in compliance with the regulations since the Minister found an error committed by the Military Court. This was the beginning of a new review led by lawyer Ludovic Trarieux, the founder of the League of Human Rights, with a thorough investigation to run over two years. The years 1904 and 1905 were devoted to different legal phases before the Supreme Court. The court identified three events (grounds) for review, the demonstration of the falsification of the Panizzardi telegram, demonstration of a date change on a document in the 1894 trial (April 1895 changed to April 1894) and demonstration of the fact that Dreyfus had not removed the minutes related to heavy artillery in the army.
  In regard to the writing of the bordereau the court was particularly severe against Alphonse Bertillon who "reasoned badly on forged documents". The report showed that the writing was certainly by Esterhazy and that the latter had also confessed subsequently. Finally the Court demonstrated by a comprehensive and skilled analysis of the bordereau the futility of this purely intellectual construction and a commission of four headed by a general of artillery, General Sebert, maintained "it is highly unlikely that an artillery officer could write this missive".
  On 9 March 1905 Attorney-General Baudouin delivered an 800-page report in which he demanded the convictions be quashed without further reference to another court and denounced the army. He began a divestiture of the military justice system, which did not conclude until 1982. It was not until 12 July 1906 that the Supreme Court unanimously cancelled the judgment without reference to the military trial at Rennes in 1899 and pronounced "the end of the rehabilitation of Captain Dreyfus". The anti-Dreyfusards protested at this hasty rehabilitation. The goal was obviously political: it was to finish and finally turn the page. Nothing could dent the conviction of the opponents of Dreyfus. This method was the most direct and most definitive. What was annulled not only put a stop to Rennes, but the entire chain of prior acts, beginning with the arraignment order given by General Saussier in 1894. The Court focused on the legal aspects only and observed that Dreyfus did not have a duty to be returned before a Military Court for the simple reason that it should never have taken place due to the total absence of charges:
  Whereas in the final analysis of the accusation against Dreyfus nothing remains standing and setting aside the judgment of the Military Court leaves nothing that can be considered to be a crime or misdemeanour; therefore by applying the final paragraph of Article 445 no reference to another court should be pronounced.
caption: Manuel Baudoin, attorney general at the heart of the rehabilitation of Dreyfus
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