A forged memo convicted an innocent officer and split France for a decade

In 1894, French artillery officer Alfred Dreyfus was wrongly convicted of treason based on flawed handwriting analysis and antisemitic prejudice, then exiled to Devil's Island. Novelist Émile Zola's open letter 'J'Accuse…!' in 1898 forced the case back open. Dreyfus wasn't fully exonerated until 1906, and the affair left a lasting mark on French politics and on European debates over antisemitism.

— Piers Paul Read, The Dreyfus Affair: The Scandal That Tore France in Two — Bloomsbury, 2012
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