LONDON

--There have been many miscarriages of justice in human history, but few have brought a country to the brink of civil war. This is what happened in France when a campaign was launched for the retrial of Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish artillery officer who in 1894 had been found guilty by court-martial of selling secrets to the Germans.

In 1870 France had suffered a humiliating defeat in the Franco-Prussian War. Its eastern province of Alsace and a large part of Lorraine had been seized by the Germans. Both countries felt that sooner or later there would be another war.

French counterintelligence at the time was a relatively small and shady outfit called the Statistical Section. In 1894 one its agents, Madame Bastian, who worked as a cleaner in the German Embassy, delivered the contents of the wastepaper basket of the military attache, Col. Maximilian von Schwarzkoppen. In it was found an unsigned note that revealed that a French army officer was providing the Germans with classified documents.

A comparison of the handwriting of officers who were thought to have had access to such information came up with a high-flying officer who had served as an intern on the General Staff, Alfred Dreyfus. Dreyfus was Jewish and felt he had been denied a permanent posting to the General Staff because of the anti-Semitism of senior officers on the General Staff. Some historians think he was fingered as the traitor for the same reason.

Dreyfus was arrested but denied the charge. The investigators could find no other evidence to incriminate him, but pressed charges all the same. At his court-martial, held in secret, the slender proof based on the similarity of his handwriting was bolstered by scraps of other evidence that showed there was a spy in the officer corps, subtly doctored to make them point to Dreyfus. This dossier was shown to the judges but not to Dreyfus or his lawyer.

Dreyfus made a bad witness. He spoke in a dry, monotonous voice. He showed no emotion. Even the secular prefect of police thought he looked guilty. Dreyfus was duly convicted, and sentenced to a ritual degradation and life imprisonment in a penal settlement in French Guiana, Devil's Island.

LITTLE DOUBT