The French army officer Alfred Dreyfus (1859-1935) was unjustly convicted of treason. The effort, eventually successful, to clear his name divided French society and had important political repercussions.

Alfred Dreyfus was born at Mulhouse on Oct. 9, 1859, into a Jewish textile-manufacturing family. After the Franco-Prussian War his family left Alsace in order to remain French citizens. Choosing a military career, Dreyfus entered the École Polytechnique in 1878. After further study, during which he attained the rank of captain in 1889, he was assigned as a trainee to the general staff. Dreyfus was a competent and hardworking, though not brilliant or popular, young officer. His ordeal was to prove that he was a man of great courage but limited vision: his whole life was devoted to the army, and he never lost confidence that it would recognize and remedy the wrong done him.

Arrest and Conviction

The Dreyfus case began in...