In 1896 the French Army intelligence chief Lieutenant-Colonel Georges Picquart discovered that the wrong man had been convicted of treason and sent to Devil's Island. His superiors ordered him to keep quiet. He refused. What did they do to him?
Picquart was transferred to Tunisia in January 1897 to keep him away from Paris; he continued to pursue the Dreyfus case from there through his Paris lawyer. He was eventually arrested on fabricated charges of mishandling intelligence material in September 1898 and held at the Cherche-Midi military prison for eleven months. The Henry forgery confession of August 1898 destroyed the Army's institutional position; Picquart was released without trial. He was rehabilitated, promoted to brigadier general, and on 25 October 1906 appointed Minister of War — the same day Dreyfus's final rehabilitation was pronounced. He died in 1914 in a horseback-riding accident.
Read the full story →Georges Picquart was the head of French Army intelligence in 1896 when he realised that the wrong man had been convicted of treason and sent to Devil's Island. His superiors ordered him to keep quiet. He refused, was framed for forgery, and was imprisoned. Twelve years later he became Minister of War.
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