Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy
Encyclopedia
Charles Marie Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy
(16 December 1847 – 21 May 1923) was a commissioned officer
in the French armed forces
during the second half of the 19th century who has gained notoriety as a spy
for the German Empire
and the actual perpetrator of the act of treason
for which Captain Alfred Dreyfus
was wrongfully accused and convicted in 1894 (see Dreyfus affair
).
After evidence against Esterhazy was discovered and made public, he was eventually subjected to a closed military trial in 1898, only to be officially found not guilty. A revisionist
theory raises the possibility that Esterhazy may have been a double agent working for the French counter-espionage service and that this could help to explain the degree of protection he received. (See section below.) This thesis has not gained general acceptance, the consensus being that the high command saw its own credibility as bound up with upholding the earlier conviction of Dreyfus.
Esterhazy retired from the military with the rank of Major in 1898—presumably under pressure—and fled by way of Brussels to the United Kingdom, where he lived in the village of Harpenden
in Hertfordshire until his death in 1923.
, the son of General Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy who distinguished himself as division commander in the Crimean War
. He inherited the prominent Hungarian family name of Esterházy through his paternal grandfather (a Nîmes
merchant) who was born out of wedlock and brought up under the name of Walsin, but was later acknowledged by his mother after the French Revolution
. This branch of the Esterházys settled in France at the end of the 17th century and was involved in the military, namely in the organisation of Hussar
regiments.
. He disappeared in 1865. In 1869 he was found engaged in the Roman legion, in the service of Pope Pius IX
.
. It was an irregular commission as he had not been an enlisted soldier before. However the start of the Franco-Prussian War
in July prevented actions against him. He then assumed the title of count, to which he was not entitled.
There being a dearth of officers after the catastrophe of Sedan
, Esterhazy was able to pass muster as a French lieutenant, then as a captain, and went through the campaigns of the Loire
and of the Jura
. Though set back after peace was declared, he still remained in the army.
and Lieutenant Colonel Sandherr, both to become major actors involved in the Dreyfus case. Then, under various pretexts, he was employed at the French War Ministry. He never appeared in his regiment at Beauvais
, and for about five years led a life of dissipation in Paris, as a result of which his small fortune was soon squandered.
In 1882 he was attached to the expedition sent to Tunis
, during which he did nothing to distinguish himself; employed later in the Intelligence Department, then in the native affairs of the regency
. On his own authority he inserted in the official records a citation of his "exploits in war", the falseness of which was recognized later.
Returning to France in 1885, he remained in garrison
at Marseille
for a long time. Having come to the end of his resources, he married in 1886; but he soon spent his wife's dowry
, and in 1888 she was forced to demand a separation.
In 1892, through the influence of General Saussier, Esterhazy succeeded in getting a nomination as garrison-major in the Seventy-fourth Regiment of the line at Rouen
. Being thus in the neighborhood of Paris, he plunged afresh into a life of speculation and excess, which soon completed his ruin.
His inheritance squandered, Esterhazy had tried to retrieve his fortune in gambling-houses and on the stock-exchange; hard pressed by his creditors, he had recourse to the most desperate measures.
Having seconded Crémieu-Foa in his duel with Drumont
in 1892, he pretended that this chivalrous role had made his family, as well as his chiefs, quarrel with him. He produced false letters to support his words, threatened to kill both himself and his children, and thus obtained, through the medium of Zadoc Kahn
, chief rabbi
of France, assistance from the Rothschilds (June, 1894).
This did not prevent him from being on the best of terms with the editors of the anti-Semitic
newspaper La Libre Parole, even to the extent of supplying them with information.
For an officer whose original commission was illegitimate, Esterhazy's military advancement had been unusually rapid: lieutenant in 1874, captain in 1880, decorated in 1882, major in 1892. The reports on him were generally excellent.
Nevertheless, he considered himself wronged. In his letters he continually launched into recrimination and abuse against his chiefs. He went still further, bespattering with mud the whole French army
, and even France herself, for which he predicted and hoped that new disasters were in store.
Captain Alfred Dreyfus
was picked by the Army as the alleged traitor in October 1894. Suspicion seems to have fallen on Dreyfus mainly because he was an outsider as both a Jew and an Alsatian. The official evidence against him depended overwhelmingly on the contention that his handwriting matched that on the bordereau. Convicted, he was formally stripped of his military rank in a public ceremony of degradation, and then shipped to the prison island of Devil's Island
(l'Île du Diable) off the coast of French Guiana
.
In 1896, Lieutenant-Colonel Picquart
, the then-new head of the Intelligence Service, uncovered a letter sent by Schwartzkoppen to Esterhazy. After comparison of Esterhazy's handwriting with that of the bordereau, he became convinced of Esterhazy's guilt of the crime for which Dreyfus had been convicted.
In 1897, after fruitless efforts to persuade his superiors to take the new evidence seriously, Picquart provided it to Dreyfus' lawyers. They started a campaign to bring Esterhazy to justice. In 1898 an ex-lover of Esterhazy made public letters of his in which he expressed his hatred of France and his contempt for the army. However, Esterhazy was still protected by the High staff, who did not want to see the judgment of 1895 put into doubt.
In order to clear his name, Esterhazy asked for a trial behind closed doors by French Military Justice (10–11 January 1898). He was acquitted, a judgment which ignited antisemitic riots in Paris.
On 13 January 1898, Emile Zola
published his famous J’accuse
, which accused the French government of anti-Semitism and especially focused on the court-martial and jailing of Dreyfus.
. From 'Milton Road' in the village of Harpenden
, he continued to write in anti-Semitic papers such as La Libre Parole until his death in 1923. He is buried in St Nicholas' churchyard, Harpenden.
In Tunis he was judged to have become too intimate with the German military
attaché
. In 1892 he was the object of an accusation made to the head of the staff, General Brault
. In 1893 he entered (or, if one accepts the revisionist explanation, pretended to enter) the service of Max von Schwartzkoppen, the German military attaché in Paris.
According to later disclosures he received from the German attaché a monthly pension of 2,000 marks ($480). In return, Esterhazy furnished him in the first place with information (or, it is argued, misinformation) about artillery
.
Esterhazy reported that he got his information from Major Henry, who had been his comrade in the French military
counter-intelligence section of the War Ministry, in 1876. But Henry, limited to a very special branch of the service, was hardly in a position to furnish details on technical questions. The main architect of the disinformation campaign is claimed to have been Colonel Sandherr, head of French military counter-intelligence.
The lack of value of the material furnished by Esterhazy soon became so apparent that Panizzardi, the Italian military attaché, to whom Schwartzkoppen communicated it without divulging the name of his informant, began to doubt his qualifications as an officer. To convince the attaché it was necessary for Esterhazy to show himself one day in uniform, galloping behind a well-known general.
The infamous document, or "bordereau", used to convict Dreyfus had been retrieved in a waste paper basket at the German Embassy by a cleaning lady who was in the employ of French military counter-intelligence. This document had been torn up but was easily pieced together. It announced, among other items, a forthcoming report on a new French 120mm howitzer [Canon de 120C Modele 1890 Baquet] and the comportment of its hydraulic recoil mechanism, as well as detailed manuals describing the current organization of French field artillery."
In fact, however, the French army had already rejected the 120 mm model as unworkable and had begun development of the revolutionary (for its time) 75 mm field gun. The argument is thus made that the document was designed to prevent the Germans from discovering the development of the French 75.
The novel "A Man in Uniform: A Novel" by the Canadian author Kate Taylor
, first published in Canada in 2010, a fictional detective story set in Paris at the end of the 19th century against the background of the Dreyfus Affair, contains a reference to Esterhazy as the "unwitting double agent" of a character named Masson.
Esterházy
The House of Esterházy was a Hungarian noble family in Hungary beginning in the Middle Ages. From the 17th century they were among the great landowner magnates of the Kingdom of Hungary, during the time it was part of the Habsburg Empire and later Austria-Hungary.-History:The Esterházys arose...
(16 December 1847 – 21 May 1923) was a commissioned officer
Officer (armed forces)
An officer is a member of an armed force or uniformed service who holds a position of authority. Commissioned officers derive authority directly from a sovereign power and, as such, hold a commission charging them with the duties and responsibilities of a specific office or position...
in the French armed forces
Military of France
The French Armed Forces encompass the French Army, the French Navy, the French Air Force and the National Gendarmerie. The President of the Republic heads the armed forces, with the title "chef des armées" . The President is the supreme authority for military matters and is the sole official who...
during the second half of the 19th century who has gained notoriety as a spy
SPY
SPY is a three-letter acronym that may refer to:* SPY , ticker symbol for Standard & Poor's Depositary Receipts* SPY , a satirical monthly, trademarked all-caps* SPY , airport code for San Pédro, Côte d'Ivoire...
for the German Empire
German Empire
The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...
and the actual perpetrator of the act of treason
Treason
In law, treason is the crime that covers some of the more extreme acts against one's sovereign or nation. Historically, treason also covered the murder of specific social superiors, such as the murder of a husband by his wife. Treason against the king was known as high treason and treason against a...
for which Captain Alfred Dreyfus
Alfred Dreyfus
Alfred Dreyfus was a French artillery officer of Jewish background whose trial and conviction in 1894 on charges of treason became one of the most tense political dramas in modern French and European history...
was wrongfully accused and convicted in 1894 (see Dreyfus affair
Dreyfus Affair
The Dreyfus affair was a political scandal that divided France in the 1890s and the early 1900s. It involved the conviction for treason in November 1894 of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a young French artillery officer of Alsatian Jewish descent...
).
After evidence against Esterhazy was discovered and made public, he was eventually subjected to a closed military trial in 1898, only to be officially found not guilty. A revisionist
Revisionist history
Revisionist history carries both positive and negative connotations. Each has its own entry.*Historical revisionism, the reinterpretation of orthodox views on evidence, motivations, and decision-making processes surrounding a historical event...
theory raises the possibility that Esterhazy may have been a double agent working for the French counter-espionage service and that this could help to explain the degree of protection he received. (See section below.) This thesis has not gained general acceptance, the consensus being that the high command saw its own credibility as bound up with upholding the earlier conviction of Dreyfus.
Esterhazy retired from the military with the rank of Major in 1898—presumably under pressure—and fled by way of Brussels to the United Kingdom, where he lived in the village of Harpenden
Harpenden
Harpenden is a town in Hertfordshire, England.The town's total population is just under 30,000.-Geography and administration:There are two civil parishes: Harpenden and Harpenden Rural....
in Hertfordshire until his death in 1923.
Ancestry
Charles Marie Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy was born in HungaryHungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
, the son of General Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy who distinguished himself as division commander in the Crimean War
Crimean War
The Crimean War was a conflict fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the French Empire, the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Sardinia. The war was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining...
. He inherited the prominent Hungarian family name of Esterházy through his paternal grandfather (a Nîmes
Nîmes
Nîmes is the capital of the Gard department in the Languedoc-Roussillon region in southern France. Nîmes has a rich history, dating back to the Roman Empire, and is a popular tourist destination.-History:...
merchant) who was born out of wedlock and brought up under the name of Walsin, but was later acknowledged by his mother after the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
. This branch of the Esterházys settled in France at the end of the 17th century and was involved in the military, namely in the organisation of Hussar
Hussar
Hussar refers to a number of types of light cavalry which originated in Hungary in the 14th century, tracing its roots from Serbian medieval cavalry tradition, brought to Hungary in the course of the Serb migrations, which began in the late 14th century....
regiments.
Early life and military career
Charles Ferdinand was left an orphan at an early age, after some schooling at the Lycée Bonaparte in Paris, he attempted vainly to enter the École spéciale militaire de Saint-CyrÉcole Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr
The École Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr is the foremost French military academy. Its official name is . It is often referred to as Saint-Cyr . Its motto is "Ils s'instruisent pour vaincre": literally "They study to vanquish" or "Training for victory"...
. He disappeared in 1865. In 1869 he was found engaged in the Roman legion, in the service of Pope Pius IX
Pope Pius IX
Blessed Pope Pius IX , born Giovanni Maria Mastai-Ferretti, was the longest-reigning elected Pope in the history of the Catholic Church, serving from 16 June 1846 until his death, a period of nearly 32 years. During his pontificate, he convened the First Vatican Council in 1869, which decreed papal...
.
Franco-Prussian War
In June 1870, his uncle's influence enabled him to be commissioned in the French Foreign LegionFrench Foreign Legion
The French Foreign Legion is a unique military service wing of the French Army established in 1831. The foreign legion was exclusively created for foreign nationals willing to serve in the French Armed Forces...
. It was an irregular commission as he had not been an enlisted soldier before. However the start of the Franco-Prussian War
Franco-Prussian War
The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the 1870 War was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. Prussia was aided by the North German Confederation, of which it was a member, and the South German states of Baden, Württemberg and...
in July prevented actions against him. He then assumed the title of count, to which he was not entitled.
There being a dearth of officers after the catastrophe of Sedan
Battle of Sedan
The Battle of Sedan was fought during the Franco-Prussian War on 1 September 1870. It resulted in the capture of Emperor Napoleon III and large numbers of his troops and for all intents and purposes decided the war in favour of Prussia and its allies, though fighting continued under a new French...
, Esterhazy was able to pass muster as a French lieutenant, then as a captain, and went through the campaigns of the Loire
Loire
Loire is an administrative department in the east-central part of France occupying the River Loire's upper reaches.-History:Loire was created in 1793 when after just 3½ years the young Rhône-et-Loire department was split into two. This was a response to counter-Revolutionary activities in Lyon...
and of the Jura
Jura mountains
The Jura Mountains are a small mountain range located north of the Alps, separating the Rhine and Rhone rivers and forming part of the watershed of each...
. Though set back after peace was declared, he still remained in the army.
Post-war career
Between 1880 and 1882 he was employed to translate German at the French military counter-intelligence section – where he became acquainted with Major HenryHubert-Joseph Henry
Hubert-Joseph Henry , French Lieutenant-Colonel in 1897 involved in the Dreyfus affair. Arrested for having forged evidence against Alfred Dreyfus, he was found dead in his prison cell...
and Lieutenant Colonel Sandherr, both to become major actors involved in the Dreyfus case. Then, under various pretexts, he was employed at the French War Ministry. He never appeared in his regiment at Beauvais
Beauvais
Beauvais is a city approximately by highway north of central Paris, in the northern French region of Picardie. It currently has a population of over 60,000 inhabitants.- History :...
, and for about five years led a life of dissipation in Paris, as a result of which his small fortune was soon squandered.
In 1882 he was attached to the expedition sent to Tunis
Tunis
Tunis is the capital of both the Tunisian Republic and the Tunis Governorate. It is Tunisia's largest city, with a population of 728,453 as of 2004; the greater metropolitan area holds some 2,412,500 inhabitants....
, during which he did nothing to distinguish himself; employed later in the Intelligence Department, then in the native affairs of the regency
Regent
A regent, from the Latin regens "one who reigns", is a person selected to act as head of state because the ruler is a minor, not present, or debilitated. Currently there are only two ruling Regencies in the world, sovereign Liechtenstein and the Malaysian constitutive state of Terengganu...
. On his own authority he inserted in the official records a citation of his "exploits in war", the falseness of which was recognized later.
Returning to France in 1885, he remained in garrison
Garrison
Garrison is the collective term for a body of troops stationed in a particular location, originally to guard it, but now often simply using it as a home base....
at Marseille
Marseille
Marseille , known in antiquity as Massalia , is the second largest city in France, after Paris, with a population of 852,395 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Marseille extends beyond the city limits with a population of over 1,420,000 on an area of...
for a long time. Having come to the end of his resources, he married in 1886; but he soon spent his wife's dowry
Dowry
A dowry is the money, goods, or estate that a woman brings forth to the marriage. It contrasts with bride price, which is paid to the bride's parents, and dower, which is property settled on the bride herself by the groom at the time of marriage. The same culture may simultaneously practice both...
, and in 1888 she was forced to demand a separation.
In 1892, through the influence of General Saussier, Esterhazy succeeded in getting a nomination as garrison-major in the Seventy-fourth Regiment of the line at Rouen
Rouen
Rouen , in northern France on the River Seine, is the capital of the Haute-Normandie region and the historic capital city of Normandy. Once one of the largest and most prosperous cities of medieval Europe , it was the seat of the Exchequer of Normandy in the Middle Ages...
. Being thus in the neighborhood of Paris, he plunged afresh into a life of speculation and excess, which soon completed his ruin.
His inheritance squandered, Esterhazy had tried to retrieve his fortune in gambling-houses and on the stock-exchange; hard pressed by his creditors, he had recourse to the most desperate measures.
Having seconded Crémieu-Foa in his duel with Drumont
Edouard Drumont
Édouard Adolphe Drumont was a French journalist and writer. He founded the Antisemitic League of France in 1889, and was the founder and editor of the newspaper La Libre Parole.- Early life :...
in 1892, he pretended that this chivalrous role had made his family, as well as his chiefs, quarrel with him. He produced false letters to support his words, threatened to kill both himself and his children, and thus obtained, through the medium of Zadoc Kahn
Zadoc Kahn
Zadoc Kahn was an Alsatian-French rabbi and chief rabbi of France.- Life :In 1856 he entered the rabbinical school of Metz, finishing his theological studies at the same institution after it had been established at Paris as the Séminaire Israélite; and on graduation he was appointed director of...
, chief rabbi
Rabbi
In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רבי , meaning "My Master" , which is the way a student would address a master of Torah...
of France, assistance from the Rothschilds (June, 1894).
This did not prevent him from being on the best of terms with the editors of the anti-Semitic
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
newspaper La Libre Parole, even to the extent of supplying them with information.
For an officer whose original commission was illegitimate, Esterhazy's military advancement had been unusually rapid: lieutenant in 1874, captain in 1880, decorated in 1882, major in 1892. The reports on him were generally excellent.
Nevertheless, he considered himself wronged. In his letters he continually launched into recrimination and abuse against his chiefs. He went still further, bespattering with mud the whole French army
French Army
The French Army, officially the Armée de Terre , is the land-based and largest component of the French Armed Forces.As of 2010, the army employs 123,100 regulars, 18,350 part-time reservists and 7,700 Legionnaires. All soldiers are professionals, following the suspension of conscription, voted in...
, and even France herself, for which he predicted and hoped that new disasters were in store.
Dreyfus Affair
The Dreyfus Affair was triggered in September 1894 when an office cleaner at the German Embassy in Paris, who was also an agent of French military intelligence, passed her French contacts a handwritten memorandum (widely known as the bordereau), evidently written by an unnamed French officer, offering the German Embassy various confidential military documents.Captain Alfred Dreyfus
Alfred Dreyfus
Alfred Dreyfus was a French artillery officer of Jewish background whose trial and conviction in 1894 on charges of treason became one of the most tense political dramas in modern French and European history...
was picked by the Army as the alleged traitor in October 1894. Suspicion seems to have fallen on Dreyfus mainly because he was an outsider as both a Jew and an Alsatian. The official evidence against him depended overwhelmingly on the contention that his handwriting matched that on the bordereau. Convicted, he was formally stripped of his military rank in a public ceremony of degradation, and then shipped to the prison island of Devil's Island
Devil's Island
Devil's Island is the smallest and northernmost island of the three Îles du Salut located about 6 nautical miles off the coast of French Guiana . It has an area of 14 ha . It was a small part of the notorious French penal colony in French Guiana until 1952...
(l'Île du Diable) off the coast of French Guiana
French Guiana
French Guiana is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department located on the northern Atlantic coast of South America. It has borders with two nations, Brazil to the east and south, and Suriname to the west...
.
In 1896, Lieutenant-Colonel Picquart
Georges Picquart
Marie Georges Picquart , was a French army officer and Minister of War. He is best known for his role in the Dreyfus Affair.-Early career:...
, the then-new head of the Intelligence Service, uncovered a letter sent by Schwartzkoppen to Esterhazy. After comparison of Esterhazy's handwriting with that of the bordereau, he became convinced of Esterhazy's guilt of the crime for which Dreyfus had been convicted.
In 1897, after fruitless efforts to persuade his superiors to take the new evidence seriously, Picquart provided it to Dreyfus' lawyers. They started a campaign to bring Esterhazy to justice. In 1898 an ex-lover of Esterhazy made public letters of his in which he expressed his hatred of France and his contempt for the army. However, Esterhazy was still protected by the High staff, who did not want to see the judgment of 1895 put into doubt.
In order to clear his name, Esterhazy asked for a trial behind closed doors by French Military Justice (10–11 January 1898). He was acquitted, a judgment which ignited antisemitic riots in Paris.
On 13 January 1898, Emile Zola
Émile Zola
Émile François Zola was a French writer, the most important exemplar of the literary school of naturalism and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism...
published his famous J’accuse
J'accuse (letter)
"J'accuse" was an open letter published on January 13, 1898, in the newspaper L'Aurore by the influential writer Émile Zola.In the letter, Zola addressed President of France Félix Faure, and accused the government of anti-Semitism and the unlawful jailing of Alfred Dreyfus, a French Army General...
, which accused the French government of anti-Semitism and especially focused on the court-martial and jailing of Dreyfus.
Flight to Britain and later years
Esterhazy was discreetly put on military pension with the rank of Major. On 1 September 1898, having shaved off his mustache, he fled France, via Brussels, for the relative safety of the United KingdomUnited Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....
. From 'Milton Road' in the village of Harpenden
Harpenden
Harpenden is a town in Hertfordshire, England.The town's total population is just under 30,000.-Geography and administration:There are two civil parishes: Harpenden and Harpenden Rural....
, he continued to write in anti-Semitic papers such as La Libre Parole until his death in 1923. He is buried in St Nicholas' churchyard, Harpenden.
Revisionist Thesis: Was Esterhazy a Double Agent?
The French historian Jean Doise espoused the revisionist hypothesis that Esterhazy might have been a French double agent masquerading as a traitor in order to pass along misinformation to the German army. Doise was not the first writer to explore the hypothesis of Esterhazy as a double agent: earlier writings by Michel de Lombarès and Henri Giscard d'Estaing, though differing in the details of their theories, also presented this line of argument. According to Doise, Esterhazy's perceived bitterness and utter lack of patriotic feeling, along with his fluency in German, were qualities which would have helped him to pose as an effective and unrepentant traitor.In Tunis he was judged to have become too intimate with the German military
German Army (German Empire)
The German Army was the name given the combined land forces of the German Empire, also known as the National Army , Imperial Army or Imperial German Army. The term "Deutsches Heer" is also used for the modern German Army, the land component of the German Bundeswehr...
attaché
Attaché
Attaché is a French term in diplomacy referring to a person who is assigned to the diplomatic or administrative staff of a higher placed person or another service or agency...
. In 1892 he was the object of an accusation made to the head of the staff, General Brault
Brault
Brault is a surname, and may refer to:* Jacques Brault* Jean Brault* Marc Brault* Michel Brault...
. In 1893 he entered (or, if one accepts the revisionist explanation, pretended to enter) the service of Max von Schwartzkoppen, the German military attaché in Paris.
According to later disclosures he received from the German attaché a monthly pension of 2,000 marks ($480). In return, Esterhazy furnished him in the first place with information (or, it is argued, misinformation) about artillery
Artillery
Originally applied to any group of infantry primarily armed with projectile weapons, artillery has over time become limited in meaning to refer only to those engines of war that operate by projection of munitions far beyond the range of effect of personal weapons...
.
Esterhazy reported that he got his information from Major Henry, who had been his comrade in the French military
Military of France
The French Armed Forces encompass the French Army, the French Navy, the French Air Force and the National Gendarmerie. The President of the Republic heads the armed forces, with the title "chef des armées" . The President is the supreme authority for military matters and is the sole official who...
counter-intelligence section of the War Ministry, in 1876. But Henry, limited to a very special branch of the service, was hardly in a position to furnish details on technical questions. The main architect of the disinformation campaign is claimed to have been Colonel Sandherr, head of French military counter-intelligence.
The lack of value of the material furnished by Esterhazy soon became so apparent that Panizzardi, the Italian military attaché, to whom Schwartzkoppen communicated it without divulging the name of his informant, began to doubt his qualifications as an officer. To convince the attaché it was necessary for Esterhazy to show himself one day in uniform, galloping behind a well-known general.
The infamous document, or "bordereau", used to convict Dreyfus had been retrieved in a waste paper basket at the German Embassy by a cleaning lady who was in the employ of French military counter-intelligence. This document had been torn up but was easily pieced together. It announced, among other items, a forthcoming report on a new French 120mm howitzer [Canon de 120C Modele 1890 Baquet] and the comportment of its hydraulic recoil mechanism, as well as detailed manuals describing the current organization of French field artillery."
In fact, however, the French army had already rejected the 120 mm model as unworkable and had begun development of the revolutionary (for its time) 75 mm field gun. The argument is thus made that the document was designed to prevent the Germans from discovering the development of the French 75.
The novel "A Man in Uniform: A Novel" by the Canadian author Kate Taylor
Kate Taylor (novelist)
Katherine Mary Taylor is a Canadian critic and novelist, a cultural journalist at the Globe and Mail newspaper and author of two novels, Mme Proust and the Kosher Kitchen and A Man in Uniform....
, first published in Canada in 2010, a fictional detective story set in Paris at the end of the 19th century against the background of the Dreyfus Affair, contains a reference to Esterhazy as the "unwitting double agent" of a character named Masson.