Brass Medal o. J. (c. 1899), on Alfred Dreyfus, Émile Zola and Gaston Labori, on the one hand, and the actual traitor Ferdinand Walsin-Esterhazy and the Armand Mercier du Paty de Clam, on the other hand, busts of Dreyfus, Zola and 7.99 g.; 28.5 mm. Excellent/stamp gloss; French officer Marie Charles Ferdinand Walsin-Esterházy (16.12.1847 Paris - 21.5.1923 Harpenden, England) was the trigger of the Dreyfus affair, the actual author of the letter originally attributed to Alfred Dreyfus and for which he was condemned. From 1894 he began to spy for the German side, probably for mainly financial motives. After Mathieu Dreyfus, brother of the wrongly condemned Alfred Dreyfus, wrote to the Minister of War in November 1897 and called Esterházy the author of the Bordereau with the offer of espionage to the German ambassador, Esterházy himself demanded a military trial against him. He was acquitted on 10.1.1898 in a secret procedure. As a result, Émile Zola published his famous J'accuse and was convicted of insulting the army. Esterházy subsequently fled to London. He was never convicted. In the newspaper Le Matin Esterházy admitted in July 1899, but he claimed to have acted at the direction of his superiors.
