July 20, 1894. The German Military Attache in Paris. Colonel Maximillien von Schwarzkoppen received a visit from a seedy-looking middle-aged Frenchman who would not give his name. He told Schwarzkoppen that he was a French army officer serving on the General Staff; that he was in desperate need of money; and was therefore prepared to sell military secrets to the Germans.
Captain Alfred Dreyfus, then aged 35, was a high-flying career artillery officer. Shy, reserved, sometimes awkward, but intelligent and ambitious, Dreyfus had everything he might have hoped for: a wife, two enchanting children, plenty of money and a post on the General Staff. However, Dreyfus' rise in the army had not made him friends. Many of them came from the impoverished Catholic aristocracy and disliked Dreyfus because he was rich, bourgeois and, above all, a Jew.
On October 13, Captain Dreyfus was summoned by the General de Boisdeffre to the Ministry of War. Despite minimal evidence against him he was placed under arrest for the crime of high treason. Not long afterwards Dreyfus was incarcerated on Devil's Island.
But how did an innocent man come to be convicted? And why was he kept locked up for so long?
The Dreyfus Affair uniquely combines a fast-moving mystery story with a snapshot of France at a moment of great social flux and cultural richness - the Belle Epoque , the Impressionists, novelists such as Flaubert, Zola, the Goncourts, Proust. It is a key to an understanding of later history; the Holocaust and Zionism: the virulent anti-Semitism of the anti-Dreyfusards and the decision that the Jews must have a state of their own.

lgrsnf/Z:\Bibliotik_\33\P\Piers Paul Read - The Dreyfus Affair.epub

lgli/Z:\Bibliotik_\33\P\Piers Paul Read - The Dreyfus Affair.epub

nexusstc/The Dreyfus affair: the scandal that tore France in two/e83436d5482fb7901fe9901ceebd24f0.epub

Piers Paul Read

Bloomsbury Press

United States, United States of America

1st U.S. ed, New York, 2012

lg2614571

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Captain Alfred Dreyfus was a rising star in the French artillery command. Reserved yet intelligent and ambitious, Dreyfus had everything: a family, money, and a clear path to a prestigious post. However, Dreyfus also had enemies, especially within the impoverished aristocracy, who disliked him because he was rich, bourgeois, and, above all, a Jew. On the basis of flimsy evidence, he was arrested for high treason, and sentenced to life on the legendary, lethal Devil's Island. The saga of Dreyfus's many trials--he was not exonerated until 1906, twelve years after first being arrested--the fight to free him, and the intrigues on both sides, is a fast-moving mystery story rife with heroes and villains, loose women, loyal wives, bisexual men, tricksters, and charlatans. The anti-Semitism and deceit on display in the Dreyfus case was an ominous prelude to the Holocaust and the long, bloody twentieth century to come. The Dreyfus scandal still has much to teach us, and prizewinning novelist, biographer, and narrative historian Piers Paul Read brings this real-life morality tale alive for a new generation.--From publisher description.;pt. 1. Before the affair -- The French Revolution -- The Third Republic -- Edouard Drumont -- pt. 2. Alfred Dreyfus -- Evidence of treason -- Dreyfus accused -- Dreyfus condemned -- The Salvation Islands -- pt. 3. The affair -- The first Dreyfusards -- Colonel Picquart -- Commandant Esterhazy -- Emile Zola -- The pen versus the sword -- The road to Rennes -- Rennes -- The last act -- Epilogue -- Principal characters.

2020-07-26