To the students of war, the conflict seemed to vindicate Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan, an adviser to McKinley, who had in 1890 written a book preaching the importance of naval power.

ECONOMIST: THE WAR OF 1898

In 1894, Captain Alfred Dreyfus was secretly arrested, wrongfully convicted by a court martial of high treason, sentenced to life imprisonment, stripped of his military rank and shipped off in chains to solitary confinement in the sweltering heat of Devil's Island, a French territory off the coast of South America.

ECONOMIST: The Dreyfus affair

She was fought over by both the defenders and accusers of Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish captain wrongly found guilty of selling military secrets to the Germans at the end of the 19th century.

ECONOMIST: A maid for all reasons