Auguste Mercier

Auguste Mercier (born with Arras on December 8th 1833, died with Paris on March 3rd 1921) was a French general and a Minister for the War.

Military career

He enters to the Polytechnic school at 19 years, in 1852, 4th on 106, and in fate second in 1854. He chooses artillery.
He is used for the Mexico during the war of 1863-1867. He takes then share with the battles against the Prussians under Metz in 1870. He is named Brigadier general in 1884, director of the administrative services to the War in 1888, Major general in 1889 then ordering 17 {{E}} Corps in 1893.
It is found principal pyrotechnics of Bourges where it specializes out of projectiles, of which the shell with grapeshot.

Political career

Draper is charged with the wallet of the War in December 1893 in the cabinet Casimir-Perier after the resignation of Charles de Freycinet. Its reputation is that of an intelligent and reflected officer, who passes for republican. It is Catholic, which married an English Protestant woman, who does not go to the mass, but also opened with the liberal ideas. It courteous, not very talkative, very energetic, is endowed with an astonishing memory.
It preserves its station in May 1894 in the cabinet Dupuy, which probably gives him the feeling to be essential: “It sliced of all, dry, haughty, of a infatuation provocante, infallible and sure of its star. ”
In August 1894, Mercier makes release by anticipation part of the quota what is worth an abusive line press campaign to him which shows it to cover “the Jews and the spies”.

In January 1900, Mercier will be elected nationalist senator of Loire-Inférieure, seat which it preserved until in 1920.

Draper in the Dreyfus business

At the summer 1894, Mercier is advised that the “section of statistics” had intercepted what was going to become the “Bordereau”. It orders an internal survey in order to discover the traitor and, also seems it, to regild its blazon near the line. It is then named ordering 4th Area and passes in the reserve in 1898.

In I show , Emile Zola did not include/understand the importance of his role and simply showed it “to be itself made accessory, at least by weakness of spirit, one of greatest iniquities of the century. ” Quoted with the lawsuit Zola in February, “haughty, phlegmatic, precise, contemptuously cut off in the conscience from its infallibility, he declared that Dreyfus was a traitor who had been precisely and legally condemned” and refused to answer on the existence of secret parts.

Auditioned in November 1898 by the Court of criminal appeal of the Court of appeal, within the framework of the procedure of revision of the lawsuit of 1894, Mercier reaffirms the culpability of Dreyfus. He declares in this respect the Court of criminal appeal was bought by the “Trade union” supporter of Dreyfus. In June 1899, the stop of the Court of appeal places Mercier at the edge of the committal for trial by the Room (228 votes against 277) but it does not give up: “I am not an defendant, I remain an indicter…”

To the lawsuit of Rennes, it is presented as leader of the Antidreyfusard S. It announces decisive revelations to come in the nationalist press, like the existence of an original of the form annotated by the Kaiser (Guillaume II of Germany). Its deposition in front of the Council of war does not bring any new element and he declares:

My conviction since 1894 did not undergo the lightest attack; it deepened by a more complete study of the cause; it was strengthened finally by the inanity of the results obtained to show the innocence of condemned, in spite of the enormous figure of the million madly spent

An serious incident opposes it August 14th to Casimir-Perier, who was President of the Republic at the time of the first Council of war. It treats the president of liar by supporting the thesis of the personal involvement of Kaiser and the imminence of a war with Germany in January 1895.
At the end of 1899, a law of amnesty is voted by the Parliament, against the savage oppositions of Clemenceau and Jaurès. “The first of the criminals” is from now on safe from any continuation.

In March 1904, in front of the Court of criminal appeal of the Court of appeal, Mercier still shows Dreyfus. The day before the stop without reference of the Court of appeal, it is unable to bring the least “irrefutable” proof in spite of supplications of the press Antisémite and nationalist.

The July 13rd 1906, with the Senate, it votes against the rehabilitation of Dreyfus and the Colonel Picquart in the army. He shows moreover the Court of appeal of irregularities. The June 29th 1907, in front of 6.000 people in the room Wagram, the French Action offers a gold medal to him to remember it this meeting in which it “had held head with the thrown into a panic members of Parliament”.

Draper dies in Paris the March 3rd 1921. To its last breath, right in its boots, it will never cease protesting the culpability of Dreyfus.

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