The case rested on a handwritten list, the bordereau, found in the German embassy's wastebasket, and on a secret dossier shown to the judges but not to the defence. Dreyfus was sentenced to life imprisonment, publicly stripped of his rank and sent to Devil's Island off French Guiana. Evidence later showed the real traitor was Major Ferdinand Esterhazy, but the army protected him. Émile Zola's open letter "J'accuse" in 1898 turned the case into a national crisis. Dreyfus was fully exonerated in 1906.
In 1894 the French army's counter-intelligence section obtained the bordereau, an unsigned list of military documents offered to the German military attaché. Suspicion fell on Dreyfus, a wealthy Alsatian Jew on the general staff, partly because of his background, and some handwriting experts said the writing resembled his. The court-martial was held behind closed doors, and the judges were given a secret file of weak or forged evidence.
On January 5, 1895, in the courtyard of the École Militaire, Dreyfus's insignia were torn off and his sword broken while a crowd outside shouted "Death to the Jews!" He cried out, "I am innocent!" The Viennese journalist Theodor Herzl, who covered the case, later said it helped convince him of the need for a Jewish state.
In 1896 Lieutenant Colonel Georges Picquart discovered that Esterhazy's handwriting matched the bordereau. His superiors transferred him to Tunisia, and Esterhazy was acquitted in 1898. Days later Zola published "J'accuse...!" and was convicted of libel. A retrial in 1899 again found Dreyfus guilty, but he was pardoned. The Supreme Court of Appeal overturned the verdict in 1906, and Dreyfus was reinstated in the army.
Key people: Alfred Dreyfus, Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy, Émile Zola, Georges Picquart