Prisoners of Honor: The Dreyfus Affair (1974)
The Dreyfus Affair began with the persecution of Alfred Dreyfus, the French Army’s most promising Jewish officer, who was falsely accused of passing as the cause célébre of the nineteenth century, the Affair not only of France but of the world, an event that was eventually to cause mass protests in Europe and America, produce Emile Zola’s ringing J’Accuse, and involve most of the leading international figures of the day.
Even today, this story of high drama that almost caused the downfall of a government is startingly relevant. For Prisoners of Honour tells how ambitious government officials framed Alfred Dreyfus as a traitor, raising anti-Semitism to a national passion, and then offered ‘national security’ as the reason for covering up the crime they had committed, until the nation’s leaders, military and civilian, came to believe that the revelation of the truth might cause the government’s downfall and therefore bring dishonour to France.
As they became ‘Prisonors of Honour,’ so did the object of their persecution. No man would seem a less likely hero than Alfred Dreyfus— ambitious, officious, stiff and formal. But he was also a man of extraordinary courage. Convicted of high treason, publicly degraded, torn frmo his family and sent to Devil’s Island, he remained a patriot determined to have his innocence proclaimed so that he could restore the honour of the Army and the country he loved. Because of the efforts of a few courageous journalists, his brother Mathieu, some of the nation’s leading intellectuals and politicians, including members of the Senate, Alfred Dreyfus and justice - the man and the cause - finally triumphed.