page_title: Dreyfus affair
section_title: Conduct of the trial
hierarchical_section_title: Dreyfus affair / The trial in Rennes 1899 / Conduct of the trial
caption_attribution_description: Winter supplement; double print: Caricature of The trial of Dreyfus. Col Jouaust, Capt Dreyfus, MM Labori and Demange, Gens Billot, Mercier, Zurlinden, Roget, Gonse and Boisdeffre, Col Picquart, MM Hanotaux and Cavaignac, and others. Caption reads: "At Rennes"
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: Alfred Dreyfus was in no way aware of what was happening thousands of kilometres from him. Neither was he aware of the schemes hatched to guarantee that he could never return, or the commitment of countless men and women to his cause. The prison administration filtered information deemed confidential. At the end of 1898, he learned with astonishment the actual size of the affair, about which he knew nothing: the accusation by his brother against Esterhazy, the acquittal of the traitor, Henry's confession and suicide, and the reading of the record of investigations of the Supreme Court, which he received two months after its publication. On 5 June 1899 Alfred Dreyfus was notified of the decision of the Supreme Court on the judgement of 1894. On 9 June 1899 he left Devil's Island, heading to France, but locked in a cabin as if guilty, even though he no longer was. He disembarked on 30 June 1899 in Port Haliguen on the Quiberon peninsula in the greatest secrecy, "a clandestine and nocturnal return". After five years of imprisonment, he was on his native soil, but he was immediately locked up from 1 July 1899 in the military prison in Rennes. He was remanded on 7 August 1899 before the military court of the Breton capital.
  General Mercier, champion of the anti-Dreyfusards, intervened constantly in the press to confirm the accuracy of the first judgement: Dreyfus was surely guilty. Immediately, however, dissent emerged in the defence of Dreyfus. His two lawyers actually had opposing strategies. Demange wanted to stand on the defensive and just get the acquittal of Dreyfus. Labori, a brilliant lawyer who was just 35 years old, wanted to take the offensive, to aim higher and defeat and publicly humiliate the General Staff. Mathieu Dreyfus imagined a complementarity between the two lawyers. The conduct of the trial revealed the disunity that served the prosecution with a defence so impaired.
  The trial opened on 7 August 1899 in an atmosphere of extreme tension. Rennes was in a state of siege. The judges of the court-martial were under pressure. Esterházy, who admitted authorship of the bordereau, was in exile in England. He and du Paty were both excused. On the appearance of Dreyfus, emotions ran high. His physical appearance disturbed his supporters and some of his opponents. Despite his deteriorated physical condition, he had a complete mastery of the files acquired in only a few weeks. All the General Staff testified against Dreyfus without providing any proof. They stubbornly considered null and void the confessions of Henry and Esterhazy. The trial even tended to go out of control to the extent that the decisions of the Supreme Court were not taken into account. They discussed in particular the bordereau, which was the proof of guilt of Esterhazy. Nevertheless Mercier was booed at the end of the hearing. The nationalist press and the anti-Dreyfusards could only speculate on his silence about the "conclusive evidence" (the pseudo-note annotated by the Kaiser, which nobody will ever see in evidence) that he had not ceased to report before the trial.
  On 14 August 1899 Labori was on his way to court when he was shot in the back by an extremist who escaped and was never found. The lawyer was missing from discussions for over a week at the decisive moment of the examination of witnesses. On 22 August 1899 his condition had improved and he returned. Incidents between the two lawyers for Dreyfus multiplied. Labori reproached Demange about his excessive caution. The Government, in the face of the military hardening stance, still had two ways to influence events: call for testimony from Germany or abandon the charge. These negotiations in the background, however, had no result. The German Embassy sent a polite refusal to the government. The Minister of War, General Gaston de Galliffet, sent respectful word to Major Louis Carrière, the government commissioner. He asked him to act in the spirit of the revised judgment of the Supreme Court. The officer pretended not to understand the allusion and helped the nationalist lawyer Auffray to
caption: The trial of 1899, by Guth
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