DREYFUS, Alfred.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Cinq années de ma vie. 1894-1899. First edition, presentation copy, inscribed by Dreyfus on the half-title, "À Mr le Lt colonel Cordier, En témoignage de reconnaissance et de vive sympathie A. Dreyfus" (To Lieutenant Colonel Cordier, As a token of gratitude and warm esteem. A. Dreyfus). The recipient was a senior intelligence officer who initially accepted Dreyfus's conviction, but later broke with his colleagues to testify in his defence.In 1894, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer on the French General Staff, was falsely convicted of passing military secrets to Germany and deported to Devil's Island. The resulting Dreyfus Affair was one of the defining political and judicial scandals of modern France, exposing the force of anti-Semitism within French society and raising questions across Europe about the place and future of the Jewish people - not least in inspiring many of the early political Zionists to seek a separate national home. The recipient, Albert-Marie-Anatole Cordier (1844-1908), was a senior officer in the small and highly secretive Section de statistique or service des renseignements, the military counter-intelligence office attached to the General Staff. Cordier initially accepted Dreyfus's conviction, but later concluded that he was innocent and gave extensive insider evidence at the Rennes retrial in 1899. He testified, "In 1894... I had been reassured by the unanimity of the judges, and I was absolutely convinced of the guilt of Dreyfus. Now I am absol

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