thumb|left|upright|Lieutenant Colonel Georges Picquart dressed in the uniform of the 4th Algerian Tirailleurs Major Georges Picquart was assigned to be head of the staff of the Military Intelligence Service (SR) in July 1895, following the illness of Colonel Sandherr. In March 1896, Picquart, who had followed the Dreyfus affair from the outset, now required to receive the documents stolen from the German Embassy directly without any intermediary. He discovered a document called the "petit bleu": a telegram that was never sent, written by von Schwarzkoppen and intercepted at the German Embassy at the beginning of March 1896.Thomas, The Affair Without Dreyfus, p. 276. It was addressed to a French officer, Major Walsin-Esterhazy, 27 rue de la Bienfaisance – Paris.On the personality and life of Walsin-Esterhazy, see: Reinach, History of the Dreyfus Affair Volume 2, chapter 1 and all of the first part of The Affair Without Dreyfus by Marcel Thomas. In another letter in black pencil, von Schwarzkoppen revealed the same clandestine relationship with Esterhazy.Bredin, The Affair, p. 142. It was Marcel Thomas who discovered this letter at the beginning of the 1970s. V. the annexes in The Affair Without Dreyfus.
thumb|left|upright|Lieutenan,t Colonel Georges Picquart dressed in the uniform of the 4th Algerian Tirailleurs Major Georges Picquart was assigned to be head of the staff of the Military Intelligence Service (SR) in July 1895, following the illness of Colonel Sandherr. In March 1896, Picquart, who had followed the Dreyfus affair from the outset, now required to receive the documents stolen from the German Embassy directly without any intermediary. He discovered a document called the "petit bleu": a telegram that was never sent, written by von Schwarzkoppen and intercepted at the German Embassy at the beginning of March 1896.Thomas The Affair Without Dreyfus, p. 276. It was addressed to a French officer, Major Walsin-Esterhazy, 27 rue de la Bienfaisance – Paris.On the personality and life of Walsin-Esterhazy, see: Reinach, History of the Dreyfus Affair Volume 2, chapter 1 and all of the first part of The Affair Without Dreyfus by Marcel Thomas. In another letter in black pencil, von Schwarzkoppen revealed the same clandestine relationship with Esterhazy.Bredin, The Affair, p. 142. It was Marcel Thomas who discovered this letter at the beginning of the 1970s. V. the annexes in The Affair Without Dreyfus.