In late February 1895, the French artillery officer Alfred Dreyfus found himself at sea. Several weeks earlier, a military court had found him guilty of treason. Soldiers marched him into the courtyard of the military college, stripped his officer ribbons, and snapped his sword while cries of “Death to the Jew” swept the crowd. He was then shipped for life to Devil’s Island—thus the sea voyage—where he was condemned to solitary imprisonment for life.
