Alfred Dreyfus Alfred Dreyfus ( ; 9 October 1859 – 12 July 1935 ) was a French artillery officer of Jewish background whose trial and conviction in 1894 on charges of treason became one of the most tense political dramas in modern French and European history . Known today as the Dreyfus Affair , the incident eventually ended with Dreyfus ' complete exoneration . Early life . Born in Mulhouse ( " Mülhausen " ) in Alsace , Dreyfus was the youngest of nine children born to Raphael and Jeannette Dreyfus ( née Libmann ) . Raphael Dreyfus was a prosperous , self - made , Jewish textile manufacturer who had started as a peddler . The family moved to Paris from Alsace after the Franco - Prussian War , when in 1871 Alsace - Lorraine was annexed by the German Empire . The Dreyfus family had long been established in that traditionally German - speaking area . Raphael spoke Yiddish and conducted business affairs in the German language ; the first language of most of Alfred ' s elder brothers and sisters was German or one of the Alsatian dialects . Alfred and his brother were the only children to receive a fully French education . In 1880 , Dreyfus graduated as a sub - lieutenant from the elite École Polytechnique military school in Paris , where he received military training and an education in the sciences . His entry into the military was influenced by his experience of seeing Prussia n troops enter his hometown in 1871 when he was eleven years old . From 1880 to 1882 , he attended the artillery school at Fontainebleau to receive more specialized training as an artillery officer . On graduation he was attached to the first division of the 32nd Cavalry Regiment and promoted to lieutenant in 1885 . In 1889 , he was made adjutant to the director of the Établissement de Bourges , a government arsenal , and promoted to captain . On 18 April 1891 , Dreyfus married Lucie Eugénie Hadamard ( 1870 – 1945 ) . They had two children , Pierre ( 1891 – 1946 ) and Jeanne ( 1893 – 1981 ) . Three days after the wedding , Dreyfus received notice that he had been admitted to the École Supérieure de Guerre or War College . Two years later , in 1893 , he graduated ninth in his class with honorable mention and was immediately designated as a trainee in the French Army ' s General Staff headquarters , where he would be the only Jewish officer . His father Raphaël died on 13 December 1893 . At the War College examination in 1892 , his friends had expected him to do well . However , one of the members of the panel , General Bonnefond , felt that " Jews were not desired " on the staff , and gave Dreyfus poor marks for " cote d ' armour " ( translatable as team spirit ) . Bonnefond ' s assessment lowered Dreyfus ' overall grade ; he did the same to another Jewish candidate , Lieutenant Picard . Learning of this injustice , the two officers lodged a protest with the director of the school , General Lebelin de Dionne , who expressed his regret for what had occurred , but said he was powerless to take any steps in the matter . The protest would later count against Dreyfus . The French army of the period was relatively open to entry and advancement by talent with an estimated 300 Jewish officers , of whom ten were generals . However within the Fourth Bureau of the General Staff General Bonnefond ' s prejudices appear to have been shared by some of the new trainee ' s superiors , The personal assessments received by Dreyfus during 1893 / 94 acknowledged his high intelligence but were critical of aspects of his personality . The Dreyfus affair . In 1894 , the French Army ' s counter - intelligence section , led by Lt . Colonel Sandherr , became aware that new artillery information was being passed to the Germans by a highly placed spy most likely to be in the General Staff . Suspicion quickly fell upon Dreyfus who was arrested for treason on 15 October 1894 . On 5 January 1895 , Dreyfus was summarily convicted in a secret court martial , publicly stripped of his army rank , and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil ' s Island in French Guiana . In August 1896 , the new chief of French military intelligence , Lt Colonel Picquart , reported to his superiors that he had found evidence to the effect that the real traitor was a Major Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy . Picquart was silenced by being transferred to the southern desert of Tunisia in November 1896 . When reports of an army cover - up and Dreyfus ' possible innocence were leaked to the press , a heated debate ensued about anti - Semitism , and France ' s identity as a Catholic nation and a republic founded on equal rights for all citizens . Esterhazy was found not guilty by a secret court martial , before fleeing France . On 19 September 1899 , following a passionate campaign by his supporters , including leading artists and intellectuals like Émile Zola , Dreyfus was pardoned by President Émile Loubet in 1899 and released from prison . He had been subjected to a second trial in that year and again declared guilty of treason despite the evidence in favor of his innocence . Dreyfus , however , officially remained a traitor in a French court of law and pointedly remarked upon his release : During that time , he lived with one of his sisters at Carpentras , and later at Cologny . On 12 July 1906 , Dreyfus was officially exonerated by a military commission . The day after his exoneration , he was readmitted into the army with a promotion to the rank of Major ( " Chef d ' Escadron " ) . A week later , he was made a Knight of the Legion of Honour , and subsequently assigned to command an artillery unit at Vincennes . On 15 October 1906 , he was placed in command of another artillery unit at Saint - Denis . Dreyfus was present at the ceremony removing Zola ' s ashes to the Panthéon in 1908 , when he was wounded in the arm by a gunshot from Louis Gregori , a disgruntled journalist , in an assassination attempt . Later life . World War I . Dreyfus ' s time in prison , notably at Devil ' s Island , had been hard on his health , and he was granted early retirement in October 1907 . As a reserve officer , he re - entered the army , as a Major of Artillery , at the outbreak of World War I in 1914 . Serving throughout the war , Dreyfus rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel . By now middle - aged , Dreyfus served mostly behind the lines of the Western Front , in part as commander of an artillery supply column . However , he also performed front line duties in 1917 , notably at Verdun and on the Chemin des Dames . Finally , Dreyfus was promoted to the rank of Officier de la Légion d ' honneur in November 1918 . Dreyfus ' s son , Pierre , also served throughout the entire war as an artillery officer , receiving the Croix de Guerre for his services . Death . Dreyfus died in Paris aged 75 , on 12 July 1935 , 29 years to the day after his official exoneration . Two days later , his funeral cortège passed the Place de la Concorde through the ranks of troops assembled for the Bastille Day National Holiday ( 14 July 1935 ) . He was interred in the Cimetière du Montparnasse , Paris . The inscription on his tombstone is in Hebrew and French . It reads ( translated to English ) : Today , a copy of the statue of Dreyfus holding his broken sword stands at the entrance to the Museum of Jewish Art and History in Paris . The original can be found at Boulevard Raspail , n°116 – 118 , at the exit of the Notre - Dame - des - Champs metro station .