An Officer And A Spy/Robert Harris
This book came heavily recommended by the podcast The Rest is History as a novel about the Dreyfus affaire that you could read in one sitting.
In fact it took me a week, largely because the detail of the various trials were so copious.
The scandal is seen – not through the eyes of Alfred Dreyfus – but those of the Head of Intelligence Colonel Picquart who is dubious of the evidence upon which Dreyfus was convicted and exiled.
The evidence was flimsy and cloaked in intense antisemitism.
The actual spy in the army was not Alfred Dreyfus, but Major Esterhazy.
The irony was that Dreyfus himself was a somewhat dull patriot would have been Dreyfusard.
He was totally exonerated in 1906.
Picquart who, after two trials was stripped of his rank, later became Minister of War and Georges Clemenceau – whose newspaper l’Aurore published Émile Zoila’s denunciation (J’accuse) – became Prime Minister .
You may wonder – as I did – whether another book on Dreyfus is necessary. The ground has been well-covered and Roman Polanski has directed a film recently called J’accuse.
The antisemitism was indeed shocking – and the cover up too. The French army and judiciary were implicated in both, but did not learn their lesson as it was repeated in the Vichy administration under Nazi occupation.