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Date: Saturday, September 15, 2012
Duration: All Day
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 Lieutenant Colonel Georges Picquart identifies the handwriting in the document used to convict Captain Alfred Dreyfus, the “bordereau”, and now knows the writer was Major Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy and not Dreyfus.
Picquart, newly appointed as chief of the French Army's intelligence section, goes to the Army chief-of-staff, General Boisdeffre to request permission to question Esterhazy, but doing so would calls into question the conviction of Dreyfus, which the Army has publicly backed. Picquart does not receive permission, and shortly afterwards is reassigned to a dangerous command in away from France, in Tunisia. Subsequently, Émile Zola’s famous article, J'accuse, publicises the same facts unearthed by Picquart. Zola was put on trial, and Picquart was accused both of forging the note and of revealing a confidential military document, for which he was arrested in 1898 and dismissed from the Army while in prison – a terrible fall from grace for the proud career officer. After Esterhazy confesses to be the author the “bordereau” in 1899, Picquart is released from prison. The exoneration of Dreyfus does not take place until 1906. Following this, a special act of the Chamber of Deputies reinstates Dreyfus and Picquart to the French Army. Picquart is promoted to brigadier-general, and serves in Georges Clemenceau's first cabinet as Minister of War. He later dies in a riding accident while on active service, a fitting end for this proud and honorable officer. |
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