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Auguste Mercier
Auguste Mercier (8 December 1833 – 3 March 1921) was a French general and Minister of War at the time of the Dreyfus Affair. Military career Auguste Mercier was born in Arras. He entered the École Polytechnique at the age of 19 in 1852, and came 4th in a class of 106. He continued for a second period in 1854 and chose to enter the artillery. Appointed in 1856 as a second lieutenant in the 13th Regiment of Mounted Artillery, then in 1856, he was assigned to the 2nd Regiment of Mounted Artillery. Subsequently he was assigned to the Regiment of Horse Artillery of the Guard. Promoted to Lieutenant in 1857, he was appointed captain of the 18th Regiment of Horse Artillery in 1860 until December 1861. Next in 1862 he was posted to the 5th Regiment of Foot Artillery. In Mexico from 1862 to 1864, he was deputy commanding general of the depot. He ran the foundry during the siege of Puebla. He was a recipient of the Medal of Mexico, Knight of the Legion of Honour (1863), Knight o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dreyfus Affair
The Dreyfus affair (french: affaire Dreyfus, ) was a political scandal that divided the French Third Republic from 1894 until its resolution in 1906. "L'Affaire", as it is known in French, has come to symbolise modern injustice in the Francophone world, and it remains one of the most notable examples of a complex miscarriage of justice and antisemitism. The role played by the press and public opinion proved influential in the conflict. The scandal began in December 1894 when Captain Alfred Dreyfus was convicted of treason. Dreyfus was a 35-year-old Alsatian French artillery officer of Jewish descent. He was falsely convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for communicating French military secrets to the German Embassy in Paris, and was imprisoned on Devil's Island in French Guiana, where he spent nearly five years. In 1896, evidence came to light—primarily through an investigation made by Georges Picquart, head of counter-espionage—which identified the real culprit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles De Freycinet
Charles Louis de Saulces de Freycinet (; 14 November 1828 – 14 May 1923) was a French statesman and four times Prime Minister during the Third Republic. He also served an important term as Minister of War (1888–1893). He belonged to the Opportunist Republicans faction. He was elected a member of the Academy of Sciences, and in 1890, the fourteenth member to occupy a seat in the Académie Française. Biography Early years Freycinet was born at Foix ( Ariège) of a Protestant family and was the nephew of Louis de Freycinet, a French navigator. Charles Freycinet was educated at the ''École Polytechnique''. He entered government service as a mining engineer (see X-Mines). In 1858 he was appointed traffic manager to the ''Compagnie de chemins de fer du Midi'', a post in which he showed a remarkable talent for organization, and in 1862 returned to the engineering service, attaining in 1886 the rank of inspector-general. He was sent on several special scientific missions, inclu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Salle Wagram
The Salle Wagram is a historic auditorium in the 17th arrondissement of Paris, France. It was built in 1865. It has been listed as an official historical monument by the French Ministry of Culture since March 2, 1981. First built in 1812 as the Bal Dourlans, the huge ballroom was designed by Adrien Alphonse Fleuret, and has been the setting for international congresses, political conferences, fashion exhibitions and dance competitions.Holoman, D. Kern. ''The Société des Concerts du Conservatoire, 1828–1967.'' Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004, p490. From the 1950s the hall was much used as a classical recording venue, including a Beethoven symphony cycle with the Paris Conservatoire Orchestra conducted by Carl Schuricht, Stravinsky ballets with the same orchestra under Pierre Monteux, the complete ''Carmen'' with Maria Callas and Nicolai Gedda, and in the 1990s for many Poulenc recordings with the French National Orchestra under Charles Dutoit.Philip Stuart. ''De ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Georges Picquart
Marie-Georges Picquart (6 September 1854 – 19 January 1914) was a French Army officer and Minister of War. He is best known for his role in the Dreyfus affair, in which he played a key role in uncovering the real culprit. Early career Picquart was born in Strasbourg. He began his military career in 1872, graduating from the '' Ecole Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr'' as fifth in his year. Picquart served as an infantry officer in France before seeing service in Indochina. He subsequently studied at the General Staff Academy (''École d'État-major'') where he was second in his class, after which he became a lecturer at the War Academy (''École supérieure de guerre''). One of his students at the latter institute was Alfred Dreyfus. Picquart and the Dreyfus Affair Picquart was then appointed to the General Staff in Paris. As a staff officer he acted as reporter of the debates in the first Dreyfus court-martial for the then Minister of War, Auguste Mercier, and the Chief of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jean Jaurès
Auguste Marie Joseph Jean Léon Jaurès (3 September 185931 July 1914), commonly referred to as Jean Jaurès (; oc, Joan Jaurés ), was a French Socialist leader. Initially a Moderate Republican, he later became one of the first social democrats and (in 1902) the leader of the French Socialist Party, which opposed Jules Guesde's revolutionary Socialist Party of France. The two parties merged in 1905 in the French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO). An antimilitarist, Jaurès was assassinated in 1914 at the outbreak of World War I, but remains one of the main historical figures of the French Left. As a heterodox Marxist, Jaurès rejected the concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat and tried to conciliate idealism and materialism, individualism and collectivism, democracy and class struggle, patriotism and internationalism. Early career The son of an unsuccessful businessman and farmer, Jean Jaurès was born in Castres, Tarn, into a modest French pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Georges Clemenceau
Georges Benjamin Clemenceau (, also , ; 28 September 1841 – 24 November 1929) was a French statesman who served as Prime Minister of France from 1906 to 1909 and again from 1917 until 1920. A key figure of the Independent Radicals, he was a strong advocate of separation of church and state, amnesty of the Communards exiled to New Caledonia, as well as opposition to colonisation. Clemenceau, a physician turned journalist, played a central role in the politics of the Third Republic, most notably successfully leading France through the end of the First World War. After about 1,400,000 French soldiers were killed between the German invasion and Armistice, he demanded a total victory over the German Empire. Clemenceau stood for reparations, a transfer of colonies, strict rules to prevent a rearming process, as well as the restitution of Alsace–Lorraine, which had been annexed to Germany in 1871. He achieved these goals through the Treaty of Versailles signed at the Par ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wilhelm II, German Emperor
Wilhelm II (Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Albert; 27 January 18594 June 1941) was the last German Emperor (german: Kaiser) and King of Prussia, reigning from 15 June 1888 until his abdication on 9 November 1918. Despite strengthening the German Empire's position as a great power by building a powerful navy, his tactless public statements and erratic foreign policy greatly antagonized the international community and are considered by many to be one of the underlying causes of World War I. When the German war effort collapsed after a series of crushing defeats on the Western Front in 1918, he was forced to abdicate, thereby marking the end of the German Empire and the House of Hohenzollern's 300-year reign in Prussia and 500-year reign in Brandenburg. Wilhelm II was the son of Prince Frederick William of Prussia and Victoria, German Empress Consort. His father was the son of Wilhelm I, German Emperor, and his mother was the eldest daughter of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Émile Zola
Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola (, also , ; 2 April 184029 September 1902) was a French novelist, journalist, playwright, the best-known practitioner of the literary school of naturalism, and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism. He was a major figure in the political liberalization of France and in the exoneration of the falsely accused and convicted army officer Alfred Dreyfus, which is encapsulated in his renowned newspaper opinion headlined ''J'Accuse…!'' Zola was nominated for the first and second Nobel Prize in Literature in 1901 and 1902. Early life Zola was born in Paris in 1840 to François Zola (originally Francesco Zolla) and Émilie Aubert. His father was an Italian engineer with some Greek ancestry, who was born in Venice in 1795, and engineered the Zola Dam in Aix-en-Provence; his mother was French. The family moved to Aix-en-Provence in the southeast when Émile was three years old. Four years later, in 1847, his father die ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
J'accuse
"''J'Accuse...!''" (; "I Accuse...!") is an open letter that was published on 13 January 1898 in the newspaper ''L'Aurore'' by Émile Zola in response to the Dreyfus affair. Zola addressed President of France Félix Faure and accused his government of antisemitism and the unlawful jailing of Alfred Dreyfus, a French Army General Staff officer who was sentenced to lifelong penal servitude for espionage. Zola pointed out judicial errors and lack of serious evidence. The letter was printed on the front page of the newspaper and caused a stir in France and abroad. Zola was prosecuted for libel and found guilty on 23 February 1898. To avoid imprisonment, he fled to England, returning home in June 1899. Other pamphlets proclaiming Dreyfus's innocence include Bernard Lazare's ''A Miscarriage of Justice: The Truth about the Dreyfus Affair'' (November 1896). As a result of the popularity of the letter, even in the English-speaking world, ''J'accuse!'' has become a common expression of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Émile Zurlinden
Émile Auguste François Thomas Zurlinden (3 November 1837 in Colmar, Haut-Rhin – 9 March 1929) was French Minister of War between 28 January 1895 and 1 November 1895 and again between 5 September 1898 and 17 September 1898 when he succeeded Godefroy Cavaignac. A general, he was previously governor of Paris, and he accepted the vacant post of minister of war at the personal request of the president of the republic. According to Joseph Jacobs, "he was an honest soldier, but narrow-minded;" insults in the press "did not fail to affect him". He was closely involved in the Resolution of the Dreyfus affair. His successor was Charles Chanoine. He was cross-eyed Esotropia is a form of strabismus in which one or both Human eye, eyes turns inward. The condition can be constantly present, or occur intermittently, and can give the affected individual a "cross-eyed" appearance. It is the opposite of exotropi .... References 1837 births 1929 deaths People from Colmar P ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Treason
Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplomats, or its secret services for a hostile and foreign power, or attempting to kill its head of state. A person who commits treason is known in law as a traitor. Historically, in common law countries, treason also covered the murder of specific social superiors, such as the murder of a husband by his wife or that of a master by his servant. Treason (i.e. disloyalty) against one's monarch was known as ''high treason'' and treason against a lesser superior was ''petty treason''. As jurisdictions around the world abolished petty treason, "treason" came to refer to what was historically known as high treason. At times, the term ''traitor'' has been used as a political epithet, regardless of any verifiable treasonable action. In a civil war or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alfred Dreyfus
Alfred Dreyfus ( , also , ; 9 October 1859 – 12 July 1935) was a French artillery officer of Jewish ancestry whose trial and conviction in 1894 on charges of treason became one of the most polarizing political dramas in modern French history. The incident has gone down in history as the Dreyfus affair, the reverberations from which were felt throughout Europe. It ultimately ended with Dreyfus's complete exoneration. Early life Born in Mulhouse, Alsace in 1859, Dreyfus was the youngest of nine children born to Raphaël and Jeannette Dreyfus (née Libmann). Raphaël Dreyfus was a prosperous, self-made Jewish textile manufacturer who had started as a peddler. Alfred was 10 years old when the Franco-Prussian War broke out in the summer of 1870 and following the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine by Germany after the war, he and his family first moved to Basel in Switzerland, where he went to high school and later on to Paris. The childhood experience of seeing his family uprooted ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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