The Humiliation of Alfred Dreyfus

French captain Alfred Dreyfus was sent to a harsh exile after being convicted of spying for Germany. Before he was taken to Devil’s Island, he was subjected to the extreme humiliation of having his officer’s insignia and ribbons stripped from his uniform and his sword broken before hundreds of troops and a mob of screaming anti-Semites. We can only imagine what this meant to a man in his mid-thirties who, despite being Jewish, had worked his way through an elite military school and up the ranks of the army. What do you see in his bearing? (The Granger Collection, NYC—All rights reserved.)