Picquart's Investigations of The Dreyfus Affair - Colonel Picquart

Colonel Picquart

Not long after the condemnation of Alfred Dreyfus, the military counter-intelligence section at the French War Ministry had a change of leadership. Lt Col Jean Conrad Sandherr, incapacitated by illness, had resigned from the post simultaneously with his assistant, Cordier (July 1, 1895). Georges Picquart, who had been in charge of reporting the proceedings of the Dreyfus case to the War Minister and to his chief of staff, received the appointment. He was a young and brilliant officer, of Alsatian origin, hard-working, well-informed, with a clear intellect, a ready speech, and who appeared to share all the prejudices of his surroundings; he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant-colonel on April 6, 1896, and was the youngest officer of that grade in the army. Immediately upon his arrival at the office he reorganized the service, which had been neglected during the prolonged illness of Sandherr. He required that the paper bags in which Madame Marie Bastian continued to collect the waste papers from the German embassy, and which she brought to Major Henry, should pass through his hands before being given to Captain Lauth, whose work it was to review them. These bags, however, never brought anything of importance to light, except that the leakage of secret information had not ceased since the condemnation of Dreyfus.