Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 11.pdf/26

 The Revision of the Dreyfus Case.

THE REVISION OF THE DREYFUS CASE. By Seymour D. Thompson. THE Court of Cassation, the highest civil appellate and superintending court in France, to which was referred by the government of that country the question of the propriety of re-opening the sentence of Captain Dreyfus, and "revising" the case, — to use a term which we get from France, — is, at the time of this writing, conducting an investigation with the view of determining whether there ought to be a " revision " of it. From the conflicting, often inaccurate, and sometimes false, newspaper reports which have reached us of this celebrated case, no very accurate understanding of it can be ob tained. Nevertheless, a State trial, although before a military court, which has resulted in endangering a war between great nations, and in threatening the overthrow of the re publican government of France, may well claim for a few minutes the attention of American lawyers. We have tried with some diligence to get at the real details of this case, but with very unsatisfactory re sults. From a professional gentleman resid ing in that country, we gather that it originated in this way: — It will be recalled that, in the Franco-Ger man war of 1870, the French had on paper an army of about five hundred and fifty thousand men, but were not able to mobilize at the outbreak of hostilities more than one hundred and fifty thousand. Moreover, the German staff knew everything about France and the French army, down to the position occupied by the smallest detachments; whereas the French knew little about the Germans and the German army. Now, French vanity is never willing to concede that French troops can be defeated by Ger man troops in square up-and-down fighting. Such was not the fact in this case. They were not defeated by the Germans, but were

sold out by their generals and beaten by the superiority of the German spy system! The French would therefore organize a spy sys tem of their own in connection with the formidable army which they engaged in re organizing after that disastrous conflict, so that, not only their army but their spy sys tem, would equal or surpass those of their great enemy. This spy system was the socalled Department of Intelligence of the £tat-Major, or high staff of their army, commonly called the general staff. The head of this department of intelli gence, or spy system, was an officer of the French army calling himself Count Esterhazy. He was descended from the cele brated noble family of Esterhazy, of Hun gary, but he is admitted on all hands to be a very unsatisfactory character. He was once tried by court-martial since the Dreyfus affair became flagrant, for crimes connected with his participation in that affair, and acquitted, obviously because his acquittal was necessary to vindicate the in fallibility of the French army. He was tried a second time by a military court, and again acquitted of misconduct connected with the Dreyfus affair, but was given his eonge from the French army by reason of what in our army would be called " conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentlemen," or what would be called in the ranks, general rascality. This ingenious and sham sen tence was intended to get rid of an odious character, and at the same time not to im ply an admission of the wrongfulness of the conviction of Dreyfus, which had taken place through his machinations. Now, the conviction of Dreyfus came about in this way : — Plans were made and changed from time to time for the mobilization of the French army