The Dreyfus Affair began in 1894 when a bordereau (detailed memorandum) offering to procure French military secrets was recovered by French agents from the waste paper basket of Maximilian Von Schwartzkoppen, the military attaché at the German Embassy in Paris. Blame was quickly pinned upon Alfred Dreyfus, a young French artillery officer who was in training within the French Army's general staff.
French espionage Among the military services reorganized after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 was that of the French Counter Intelligence Department (disguised under the name of "Section de Statistique") led by a Lt Col Jean Conrad Sandherr. It watched the German embassy as one of its principal occupations. The ambassador, Count Münster, had promised on his word of honor that his attachés would abstain from bribing the French officers or officials. However, it was known at the "Section de Statistique" that the new attaché, Maximilian von Schwartzkoppen, probably without the knowledge of the ambassador, continued to pay spies and was in direct correspondence with the War Office in Berlin. According to indications furnished by a former Spanish military attaché, Valcarlos, Schwartzkoppen and the Italian military representative, Colonel Panizzardi, had agreed to exchange the results of whatever discoveries they might make.
To keep an eye on this plotting, the Counter Intelligence Office (the"Section de Statistique") secured the help of a cleaning lady employed at the German Embassy, a certain Marie Bastian. Madame Bastian, wife of a soldier of the Republican Guard, was "a vulgar, stupid, completely illiterate woman about 40 years in age," according to her boss. However she was of Alsatian descent and spoke German fluently. She was hired as a cleaning woman in the office of the German military attaché, Schwartzkoppen.Douglas Porch, Military History Magazine Vol.23, No.1, March/April 2008, pp.42 Madame Bastian carefully collected all the scraps of paper, torn up or half-burnt, which she found in the waste-paper baskets or in the fireplace of Schwartzkoppen's office. She put them all in a paper bag, and once or twice a month took them or had them taken to the "Section de Statistique." There the pieces were carefully fitted together and gummed. By this means it was ascertained that, since 1892, certain secret information concerning the national defense had leaked out. Eventually, the conclusion was reached at high levels in the French General Staff that a traitor was passing on confidential military information to the German Embassy in Paris.
The anonymous letter
During the summer of 1894 a document arrived at the French Counter Intelligence Office which was far more alarming than any which had preceded it. It had been retrieved by French spy and cleaning lady Marie Bastian from the waste paper basket of the military attache at the German Embassy, Maximilian von Schwartzkoppen. It was a handwritten list of potentially available and highly sensitive French military documents. It was unsigned and has since become uniquely celebrated under the name of the "bordereau." This list, written on so-called "papier pelure" (thin notepaper), ruled in squares and almost transparent, was torn from top to bottom in two places, but was otherwise intact. The hand written text was present on both sides of the page.
According to the official version, which was long believed to be the true one, the paper had arrived by the usual means, through Madame Bastian; but the appearance of the document, which was hardly torn, makes this story unlikely. It would appear from other disclosures that the letter was taken intact from the letter-box of Colonel Schwartzkoppen in the porter's lodge at the embassy, and brought to the office by an agent named Brucker, who had formerly acted as a go-between of Madame Bastian and French counter intelligence. The detailed documents that this letter announced as having been sent to the German Embassy, along with the original envelope of the initial "bordereau" letter were never found. Here is a translation of this famous document from its French original:
Being without information as to whether you desire to see me, I send you nevertheless, monsieur, some interesting information, viz.:
1. A note concerning the hydraulic brake of the 120, and the way this gun has performed. This phrase is a reference to the hydro-pneumatic recoil mechanism of a field gun called "120mm court Modele 1890 Baquet." It was a heavy field-piece, recently introduced into French artillery service; the mechanism of its hydraulic plus compressed-air short-recoil brake mechanism was quite novel for the time. But according to Touzin and Vauvillier (2006) as quoted from Les materiels de l'Armee Francaise (Les canons de la Victoire 1914–18): "...the 120mm Baquet Mle 1890 was far from being entirely satisfactory". As a matter of published record, only two hundred and ten (210) Mle 1890 120mm Baquet field guns were eventually built. Conversely, and precisely at the same time as the discovery of the "bordereau" in the summer of 1894, the first successful prototype of the highly advanced long-recoil Mle 1897 French 75 field gun had just been tested in great secrecy. Ultimately, over 20,000 French 75's had been built by 1918.]
2. A note upon the 'troupes de couverture' (some modifications will be carried out, according to the new plan). [This referred to troops that would be called to the frontier at the commencement of mobilization. They were destined to "cover" the concentration of the rest of the army; hence their name. The "new plan" is the plan No. XIII. adopted in 1895.]
3. A note concerning a modification in the formations of artillery. [Most likely the "formations de manœuvre," which were just about to be altered by the new regulations.]
4. A note relative to Madagascar. [The War Office was preparing an expedition to conquer that island.]
5. The proposed 'manuel de tir' of field-artillery manual (March 14, 1894). [See below]
This document is exceedingly difficult to get hold of, and I can have it at my disposal for only a very few days. The minister of war has distributed a certain number of copies among the troops, and the corps are held responsible for them.
Each officer holding a copy is required to return it after the maneuvers.
Therefore if you will glean from it whatever interests you, and let me have it again as soon as possible, I will manage to obtain possession of it. Unless you would prefer that I have it copied in extenso, and send you the copy.
I am just starting for the maneuvers.
–D. [The initial was taken to be Dreyfus']
This communication was clearly written in August, 1894, at the latest. The "manuel de tir" for field-artillery is the résumé of the methods used to regulate the actual firing of ordnance on the battle-field; this shooting never takes place during the grand maneuvers in September but only during the "écoles à feu," which begin in May and finish in August. It is these "écoles à feu" that the writer incorrectly translates as "maneuvers," and the word probably has the same meaning in the last sentence.
It seems evident that the bordereau was handed over to Major Henry, who, with Major Cordier, was then assisting Colonel Sandherr, the head of the military counter-intelligence section at the French War Ministry. According to General Auguste Mercier, the letter in question arrived at the office with other documents whose dates ranged from August 21 to September 2. It is probable that Henry kept the "bordereau" in his possession for a considerable time, making it all the more surprising that he did not recognize the undisguised writing of one of his former fellow officers, Major Esterhazy. It was not until September 24 that he spoke about the document to his close associates and to his chief, Colonel Sandherr. Sandherr immediately informed the head of the French general staff, General de Boisdeffre, and the secretary of war, General Auguste Mercier. They concluded that the informant of the German military attaché was a French officer, and furthermore, from the tone and diverse informations in the "bordereau", that he probably was an officer in the General Staff. Nothing justified this last supposition. On the contrary, the technically and grammatically incorrect wording, the difficulty which the author had in procuring the "manuel de tir" (which was distributed freely among artillerymen), and the inflated importance which the informant appeared to attach to his disclosures, all pointed to the suspected informant as not being a staff-officer.
Investigation Nevertheless, this "first falsehood," suggested perhaps by the previous warnings of Valcarlos, was generally accepted; right from the start, the investigations led down a false path. At first no result was obtained from an examination of handwritings in the bureaus of the department. But on October 6 Lieutenant-Colonel d'Aboville suggested to his chief, Colonel Fabre, the idea that the bordereau, dealing as it did with questions which were under the jurisdiction of different departments, must be the work of one of the officers going through their "stage" (i.e., staff-schooling), they being the only men who passed successively through the various branches to complete their military education; moreover as, out of the five documents mentioned, three had reference to artillery, the officer probably belonged to this branch of the army. It remained only to consult the list of officers in training with the General Staff who had also come from the artillery. While looking through it, the two colonels came to a halt before the name of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, an officer professing the Jewish faith and with family roots in Mulhouse, Alsace a province which had become German in 1871. Captain Dreyfus, who was raised in Paris, was an alumnus of the elite Ecole Polytechnique and a promising young officer. In fact he had been placed in this much coveted temporary assignment on the General Staff as a step up the promotional ladder. However Dreyfus had been in the office of Colonel Fabre during the second quarter of 1893, and Fabre remembered having given him a bad record on the report of Lieutenant-Colonel Roget and Major Bertin-Mourot. Dreyfus had given these gentlemen the impression (upon the most superficial grounds) of presumption and overbearing, and of neglecting the routine of service to go into matters which were kept secret. Fabre and D'Aboville immediately began to search for papers bearing the writing of Dreyfus. By coincidence the writing of Dreyfus showed a likeness to the writing of the bordereau. These officers, inexperienced and prejudiced, mistook a vague resemblance for real identity.
Arrest