Military Resistance in France

1940–1944

Matthew McDole
Charlottesville, Virginia

A Thesis Presented to the Faculty

of the University of Virginia in Candidacy for the Degree of
Bachelor of Arts

Corcoran Department of History

University of Virginia
April, 2005
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to use this space to thank everyone who has made this project possible. I
undoubtedly owe my deepest debt of gratitude Professor Stephen A. Schuker, my thesis
advisor, who first interested me in this subject and gave me an extraordinary amount of support
and guidance along the way. His extensive knowledge and high standards have helped to make
this paper what it is. I owe an incredible debt of gratitude to Professor Erik Midelfort, our
intrepid Distinguished Majors Program director, for encouraging me to carry on with this
project, and for providing constructive criticism over the past two years. I am grateful to the
venerable John Taylor at the U.S. National Archives in College Park, Maryland, for guiding my
research so well during my visit. His comprehensive knowledge of the OSS files contributed
enormously to my research. I would also like to thank Dean Gordon Stewart at the University
of Virginia, whose friendship, encouragement, and support sustained me for the duration of this
project, and whose handy letter of recommendation assured me relatively easy entrée into
French archives. I am grateful to Professors Timothy Naftali and Gerald Haines, whose
wisdom and experience helped guide my archival research. Many thanks are due also to Mr.
Louis Holland of the microfilm reading room at College Park, who directed me to the post-war
interviews of German officers transcribed by the U.S. Army’s Foreign Military Studies
Program. Mr. Dwight Strandberg, archivist at the Eisenhower Presidential Library in Abilene,
Kansas was exceptionally helpful and attentive. I would also like to thank Dr. Thomas J. Laub,
whose timely advice and expertise in the field were much appreciated. Finally, I owe a great
debt to Mr. Eric Coble, whose memorable lectures first sparked my interest in history seven
years ago. Without the others whom I have thanked above, this project would not have reached
fruition; without Mr. Coble it never would have begun.

Charlottesville
April 2005

i
 MILITARY RESISTANCE IN FRANCE, 1940–1944

NOTES ON ARCHIVAL CITATION

AN Archives Nationals, Paris

BAMA Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv, Freiburg

EPL Eisenhower Presidential Library, Abilene, KS

MAE Archives du Ministère des Affaires étrangères, Paris

PRO British Public Record Office

SHAT Service Historique de l’Armée de terre, Vincennes

USNA U.S. National Archives, College Park, MD

ii
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

NOTES, ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS, FRONT MATTER

Acknowledgements………………….i
Notes on Archival Citation………….ii

MILITARY RESISTANCE IN FRANCE, 1940–1944

Part I: Military Resistance in France

An Untold Story……………………………………………………... 1
De Gaulle’s Resistance Myth……………………………………….. 2
The Resistance as History…………………………………………… 7
Starting Over………………………………………………………… 9

Part II: Nadir of Resistance

Trentham Park………………………………………………………. 14
The Early Resistance………………………………………………... 16
“The Marshal Speaks”: Pétain’s Broadcast of the 17th……………... 17
The Armistice……………………………………………………….. 21
Back to Trentham…………………………………………………… 23
Resistance within France……………………………………………. 26

Part III: Seed Time of the Resistance

Barbarossa……………………………………………………………35
The Germans Become Concerned…………………………………... 38
Reprisals…………………………………………………………….. 40
The Nascent Resistance and the Link to London…………………… 43
Resistance at the Close of 1942……………………………………... 45

Part IV: Era of the Maquis

North Africa…………………………………………………………. 51
STO………………………………………………………………….. 56
The Maquis………………………………………………………….. 58
The Problem of Arms……………………………………………….. 65
Churchill Reconsiders……………………………………………….. 70

Part V: D-Day to Liberation

Proving Ground………………………………………………………75
Plan Vert and the Das Reich Division………………………………. 77
Guerre à la Tito: The Vercors……………………………………….. 84
The Liberation of Paris……………………………………………… 92

Part VI: The Resistance in Perspective

Final Evaluation……………………………………………………... 96

Bibliography…………………………………………………………………… 109

About the Author……………………………………………………………… 117

iii
 LIST OF MAPS & ILLUSTRATIONS

Plaque Commemorating the Armistice Day Protests of 1944……... 12

Marshal Pétain……………………………………………………... 18

General Weygand…………………………………………………...18

Occupied France…………………………………………………… 22

German Propaganda Poster………………………………………… 29

Otto von Stülpnagel………………………………………………... 39

Churchill, Roosevelt, Giraud, and de Gaulle at Casablanca……….. 54

Poster Advertising the Relève……………………………………… 57

The March of the Das Reich towards the Normandy Front………... 82

The March of the Das Reich through Central France…….………... 83

The Vercors………………………………………………………… 86

APPENDICES

Appendix I Text of the Franco-German Armistice………………………. 102

Appendix II Foreign Office letter regarding aid to the French resistance………. 108

iv
 I

MILITARY RESISTANCE IN FRANCE

AN UNTOLD STORY

Students of history who endeavor to study the French resistance will be surprised by

what they find – or rather, fail to find – on the library shelves. Although the whispered phrase

“la résistance” “conjures up the image of an armed struggle against the enemy; of sabotage

actions, assassinations, escape lines and secret agents,”1 a general study of these subjects is

strangely absent. Simply put, we have no military history of the resistance that assesses the

French struggle as a whole or attempts to incorporate it into the narrative of the wider war.

There is, on the other hand, a vast and diverse body of scholarship dedicated to particular

movements, regions, or social groups within the resistance, but only a handful of studies

examine the resistance in its entirety, and none concentrate primarily on its military aspects.2

One historian laments: “histories of the French resistance, even the best ones, seldom rise

above the anecdotal, and are much given to accounts of heroic exploits or the tragic decimation

of networks.”3 This historiographical vacuum regrettably precludes an answer to one of the

most obvious questions about the resistance: “was it militarily effective?” Military action lay at

1
Bob Moore, ed., Resistance in Western Europe (2000), p. 1. French historian Henri Michel echoes this notion:
“l’idée de Résistance évoque les maquis, les sabotages, les attentats, les combats des F.F.I., les aventures des
agents de réseaux, et la Résistance a été d’abord, et essentiellement, cela” (Michel, Les Ideés politiques et sociales
de la Résistance (1951), p. 1). American scholar John Sweets agrees: “the popular image of the Resistance in
France has been that of a paramilitary movement principally concerned with the sabotage of the German war
machine. Certainly most resisters desired above all a chance to fight the Germans” (John Sweets, The Politics of
Resistance in France, 1940–1944: A History of the Mouvements Unis de la Résistance (1976), p. ix).
2
The only single-volume study on the French resistance as a whole is François-Georges Dreyfus, Histoire de la
Résistance, 1940–1945 (1996). Comprehensive multi-volume works include Henri Noguères Histoire de la
Résistance en France de 1940 à 1945 (1967) and Henri Amouroux, La Grande histoire des Français sous
l’occupation, 1939–1945 (1977), but they lack interpretation, and serve more as chronicle than history.
3
Douglas Porch, The French Secret Services: From the Dreyfus Affair to the Gulf War (1995), p. 228.

1
the heart of the resistance, and most resisters saw themselves as fighters. Even in the

unoccupied southern or “free” zone, where resisters supposedly lacked the “purely military

conceptions of their northern comrades,” the two most prominent leaders – Henri Frenay and

Emmanuel d’Astier de la Vigerie – began their movements as military organizations.4 In Paris,

even Boris Vildé’s “group of intellectuals” at the Musée de l’Homme had “squads of

paramilitary young men in training” whose mission was to incite “the whole people to revolt

against the occupation.”5 If resisters themselves placed so much importance on military

operations, why then have historians largely ignored this quintessential aspect of the French

resistance?

DE GAULLE’S RESISTANCE MYTH

The extant scholarship on the French resistance is a remarkable example of the study of

history gone awry. Immediately following the liberation in 1944, Charles de Gaulle, France’s

self-proclaimed president, fashioned an exaggerated narrative of national heroism designed to

overcome France’s feelings of defeat and collaboration in the wake of the Second World War.

As historian Pieter Lagrou notes, “imagination was needed to turn the victory of 1945 into a

national victory.”6 Working in tandem, de Gaulle and the French historians who pioneered

resistance studies facilitated these historical acrobatics by employing a twofold strategy. First,

de Gaulle symbolically exorcized the years 1940–1944 from French history, heaping the shame

4
Frenay, whose “first thought was to build a secret military force,” organized his movement, “ COMBAT,” into units
of either six or thirty men (sixaines and trentaines) designed to form the nucleus of a larger guerrilla force that was
to play a role in France’s liberation. Before founding “ LIBÉRATION,” d’Astier set up the ill-fated “LA DERNIÈRE
COLONNE” in Lyons “pour les enterprises: attentats, rapts, sabotages,” intended to disrupt the supply of Italian
troops in southeastern France (John Sweets, The Politics of Resistance in France, pp. 22, 37, 35, 40; Emmanuel
d’Astier de la Vigerie, Sept fois sept jours (1961), p. 36).
5
Martin Blumenson, The Vildé Affair: Beginnings of the French Resistance (1977), p. 111.
6
Pieter Lagrou, The Legacy of Nazi Occupation: Patriotic Memory and National Recovery in Western Europe,
1945-1965 (2000), p. 2.

2
of collaboration entirely upon the Vichy government which had ruled France during the war.

He declared Vichy not only unconstitutional and illegal, but also “null and void” – somehow

alien to the true history of France.7

Secondly, in order to – as de Gaulle once put it – “convince the French they’d

resisted,”8 the General endeavored to redefine the resistance not as a distinct military episode

but “as an abstraction, an achievement not of the résistants but of ‘the nation as a whole.’”9 He

began to instill this myth the very day of his arrival in liberated Paris, when he famously

proclaimed at the Hôtel de Ville: “Paris! Paris humiliated! Paris broken! Paris martyred! But

Paris liberated! Liberated by herself, by her own people with help from the armies of France,

with the support and aid of France as a whole, fighting France, of the only France, of the true

France, France eternal.”10 De Gaulle’s efforts to re-assert French greatness led a nation which

had only recently recovered its own independence immediately to undertake colonial

adventures in Asia and Africa.11 In these days, the martial grandeur of a bygone France seemed

finally to awaken after a long and fitful slumber, and the French, notoriously proud, could be

proud once more. All Frenchmen, whether or not they had resisted (most had not),12 could now

take pride in the military accomplishments of the resistance, in the same way that civilians in

Britain and America felt it natural to take pride in the victories of their regular armies.

7
At the Hôtel de Ville in liberated Paris de Gaulle announced: “Le République n’a jamais cessé d’être. La France
Libre, la France Combattante, le Comité français de la libération national l’ont, tour à tour, incorporée. Vichy est
et demeure toujours nul et non avenu.” Jean-Louis Crémieux-Brilhac, La France libre: de l’appel du 18 juin à la
libération, p. 902. Of course, to American and British readers, the notion that Paris liberated itself with de
Gaulle’s help sounds absurd. Everyone in these countries knows that it was only with General Eisenhower’s
blessing that de Gaulle and his Free French 2nd Armored Division were able to enter Paris at all.
8
De Gaulle allegedly told André Gillois in London, “Il fallait convaincre les Français qu’ils avaient résisté.”
André Gillois, Histoire secrète des Français à Londres de 1940 à 1945 (1973), p. 101.
9
Henry Rousso, The Vichy Syndrome: History and Memory in France since 1944 (1991), trans. Arthur
Goldhammer, p. 71.
10
This portion of de Gaulle’s famous speech quoted in Rousso, The Vichy Syndrome, p. 16.
11
Some historians accuse de Gaulle’s resistance myth of leading France into postwar colonial quagmires (see
Rousso, The Vichy Syndrome, pp. 60, 75).
12
See note 15.

3
 De Gaulle’s vision captured the French imagination. Memories of collaboration quickly

faded as Frenchmen forgot their shame and embraced the pride inherent in legends of valiant

resistance. The state naturally helped by censoring films which depicted collaboration.

Censors cut images of a French policeman arresting Jews from Alain Resnai’s documentary on

concentration camps, Night and Fog, and removed scenes involving the French fascist militia,

the Milice, from the 1962 film Les Honneurs de la guerre.13 While collaboration was being

erased, resistance was being publicized. De Gaulle’s loyal coterie of historians coalesced in the

Comité de l’histoire de la Deuxième Guerre mondiale, headed by Henri Michel. Although

Michel and de Gaulle were not always of one mind about how to represent the history of the

resistance – Michel gave primacy to the interior movements while de Gaulle naturally favored

the Free French – both agreed to make it the dominant narrative of France’s Second World War

experience. Michel’s Comité published a quarterly journal (the Revue d’histoire de la

Deuxième Guerre mondiale), which concentrated overwhelmingly on the resistance.14 The

final words of Michel’s Histoire de la Résistance en France read like the closing of a fairy tale:

The path of the resistance was strewn with martyrs; its unselfishness, the
hardships that it demanded, the devotion that it inspired, are indisputable.
Morally, it was a great and noble cause….in annulling a temporary defeat,
in re-establishing France in her place among the great powers, in writing
some of the grandest pages of her military history, in inspiring a revival of
the most noble civic and patriotic virtues, in preparing the way for
sweeping reforms, the Resistance has contributed much to the Liberation
and revival of our beloved France.15

13
For more on censorship see Julian Jackson, France, the Dark Years, 1940–1944 (2001), p. 604.
14
Besides Michel, other historians affiliated with the Comité included Marcel Baudot, Marie Granet, Maurice
Lombard, and Jean Vidalenc. The scant few articles on Vichy published in the Revue downplay collaboration and
instead focus on “resistance” within the Vichy administration. See, for example, the two-part article by M.
Catoire, “La Direction des Services de l’armistice à Vichy,” in RHDGM Nos. 14 (April, 1954) and 17 (January,
1955). The Comité also published a series of books entitled “Esprit de la Résistance” that perpetuated the
resistance myth.
15
“Sa route a été jalonnée de martyrs; son désintéressement, les courages qu’elle a exigés, les dévouements qu’elle
a suscités, sont incontestables. Moralement, elle a été une noble et belle entreprise….en annulant la défaite
provisoire, en redonnant à la France sa place parmi les grandes nations, en écrivant quelques-unes des plus belles
pages de son histoire militaire, en provoquant un renouveau des plus belles vertus civiques et patriotiques, en

4
The virtues of resistance reached the younger generation through Albert Uderzo’s endearing

Asterix cartoons and the system of prizes awarded each year at every secondary school in the

country for the best essay on the Resistance.16 It is interesting to note that the official

government agency tasked with collecting historical source material on the resistance was

placed under the Ministry of Education.17 The result of all this was that the resistance came to

dominate French perceptions of the Second World War. It was difficult for a French person

wishing to read about his or her nation’s role in the global conflict to find publications on any

other subject.

In this climate, resistance credentials conferred hero status, and France became a nation

of resisters as people everywhere expanded the definition of resistance to include themselves.

Taxicab drivers who had overcharged their German passengers, barbers who had employed a

less than steady hand with their German clientele, and orchestra musicians who deliberately

played a few wrong notes before a German audience all called themselves heroes.18 Although

the French resistance never constituted more than a fringe movement comprising a small

percentage of the population,19 it is rare to find a French family today that does not claim a

préparant de vastes réformes, la Résistance a contribué beaucoup à la Libération et au renouveau de la Patrie”

(Henri Michel, Histoire de la Résistance en France, 1940–1944 (1972), p. 127).
16
Rousso, The Vichy Syndrome, p. 83.
17
Fred Hadsel, “Some Sources on the Resistance Movement in France during the Nazi Occupation,” The Journal
of Modern History, Vol. 18, No. 4 (December, 1946), p. 335, n. 7.
18
More examples of this innocuous type of “resistance” included carrying two fishing poles (“deux gaules”) in
public during the occupation, defacing city walls with orange Vs (for Victory), and booing audibly at the German
news shorts customarily shown before French films. The example of the recalcitrant orchestra musician is drawn
from Jean Anouilh’s satirical play, l’Orchestre (see Jean Anouilh, Monsieur Barnett: suivi de L'Orchestre, p. 134).
19
It is impossible to know exactly how many resisters there were. Any attempt at estimation is inevitably
undermined by the endless variety of definitions one could give to “resistance.” After the war an official
commission conferred the title “combattant volontaire de la Résistance” (CVR) upon people it deemed true
resisters. Only 260,919 cards were handed out (less than one percent in a population of 40 million). The
commission’s standards were very strict, however, and not all former resisters bothered to obtain a card. As
Michel Boivin and Jean Quellien have proven (at least for northwest Normandy), twice as many cards could
legitimately have been handed out (Boivin and Quellien, “La Résistance en Basse-Normandie: Définition et
sociologie” in Jacqueline Sainclivier and Christian Bougeard, eds., La Résistance et les Français: Enjeux
stratégiques et environnement social, pp. 163–73). Gordon Wright estimates that about 400,000 Frenchmen were

5
“resister” somewhere in its lineage. One American historian noticed this trend as early as

1946. He remarked:

In France today most Frenchmen claim to have participated in

organized clandestine opposition to the German occupying forces.
Some exaggerate their connections because of a desire to identify
themselves with a patriotic and successful movement, while others
attempt to make political capital of their role in the underground. And
more than a few seek to pose as members of the Resistance to conceal
their previous collaboration with the enemy. Shortly after liberation,
identity cards in the military organization of the movement, Forces
Français de l’Intérieur (F.F.I), could be secured almost as easily as a
membership card in a fashionable club. Likewise, the medal struck by
the government in honor of its underground leaders has been refused
by some of the prominent men in the Resistance, since so many
unworthy applicants have been granted the award.20

On the other hand, the real resisters had an opportunity to legitimately challenge

nationalist myth-making and present a responsible history of the resistance by publishing their

memoirs. And publish they did.21 Unfortunately, the reliability of these accounts was

undermined by what George C. Marshall liked to call “localitis” – they concentrated too

intricately on the trials and tribulations of their particular movements or cells and usually lost

sight of the larger picture.22 Resistance veterans also sabotaged their own credibility by using

their accounts to settle old scores with rival resisters or to “set the story straight.” These

ulterior motives led to distortion. When one leading resister sat down to read memoirs of his

resisters, about one percent of the total population, or slightly over four percent of adult males (Wright,
“Reflections on the French Resistance,” in Political Science Quarterly 77, no. 3 (September, 1962), p. 338).
François-Georges Dreyfus estimates 600,000 (Dreyfus, Histoire de la Résistance, p. 592). These last figures are
probably inflated. In any case, the number of active military resisters comprised an exceedingly small part of the
total population.
20
Hadsel, “Some Sources on the Resistance Movement in France,” The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 18, No. 4
(December, 1946), p. 333.
21
The most significant memoirs include: Henri Frenay, La Nuit Finira; Christian Pineau, La Simple Verité; Yves
Farge, Rebelles, soldats, et citoyens; Pierre Guillain de Bénouville; Le Sacrifice du matin, Emmanuel d’Astier de
la Vigerie, Sept fois sept jours; Georges Bidault, D’une Résistance à l’autre; and Claude Bourdet, L’Aventure
incertaine, as well as the extensive war memoirs of Charles de Gaulle and those of his intelligence chief, Colonel
Passy, entitled Souvenirs: 10 Duke Street, Londres and Missions secrètes en France.
22
For General Marshall’s use of the term “localitis,” see Harry Butcher, My Three Years with Eisenhower (1946),
p. 324.

6
comrades, he was shocked to discover that “events I had personally experienced, men whom I

had known and about whom I had thought it best to remain silent were often portrayed

unrecognizably.”23

THE RESISTANCE AS HISTORY

The next generation of historians had not lived through the war, and lacked the political

motives and lingering rivalries that tainted the memory of their predecessors. Moreover, the

post-war generation was committed to dismantling the nationalistic legends of the late 1940s.

They revolted against the conservatism of de Gaulle’s regime, protesting what they saw as his

fabrication of history and his false glorification of the resistance. That generation seemed

endowed with both the ability and the will to produce a responsible, non-partisan account of the

resistance, but instead it chose to contest de Gaulle’s myth with an equally excessive “counter-

myth”24 In the anti-authoritarian climate of the late sixties and early seventies – an era that

culminated in the violent student revolts of 1968 – French scholars became so eager to

concentrate on the darker side of their nation’s role in World War II that the resistance fell by

the wayside. It was popular for iconoclastic historians to expose the evils of collaboration and

uncover the shame of Vichy’s voluntary anti-Semitism.25 Thus the “generation of ’68” did not

repair the damage de Gaulle’s myth had done to the history of the resistance. On the contrary,

their obsessive fascination with Vichy and collaboration pushed the resistance to the fringe of

historical dialogue.

23
“En revanche, ici ou là, dispersés dans de nombreux ouvrages, des événements que j’avais vécus, des hommes
que j’avais connus et sur lesquels j’avais préféré me taire, y étaient dépeints sous des traits peu ressemblants, du
moins à mes propres yeux” (Henri Frenay, La Nuit finira, p. 11).
24
I have borrowed the term “counter-myth” from historian Henri Rousso.
25
Marcel Ophuls’ famous documentary film Le Chagrin et la Pitié (The Sorrow and the Pity) and Robert Paxton’s
book Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order were both heavily iconoclastic and caused sensations in France
when they appeared, in 1969 and 1973, respectively.

7
 In the 1980s, historians began writing about the resistance again, calling this time for a

more complex and diverse analysis. Here was a third opportunity to finally write a responsible

history of the resistance. When François Mitterand and the Socialists came to power in 1981

the “counter-myth” lost its force as political motives for attacking the Gaullist orthodoxy

disappeared. History also stood to benefit from the growing taste for diversity and openness

that manifested itself as the century drew to a close. In that climate, historians pushed for a

sociological understanding of the resistance, examining the participation of particular groups

within it, such as women, workers, or foreigners.26 Many also contended that our

understanding of the resistance had to expand beyond the military and political. It was even

put forth that the resistance’s military history was no longer a proper subject for historical

study, because the resistance, simply by existing, had embodied an “alternative legitimacy” and

therefore automatically challenged Vichy and the Germans in a significant way. Some

historians also suggested that “moral” and “spiritual” acts of non-violent resistance merited just

as much attention as violent maquis raids.27

These new directions of study, however, do not bring us any closer to understanding the

resistance. On the contrary, they take us further afield, because the historians who propose

them have inadvertently confused the question in unnecessary attempts to answer it too

creatively. In recent years, as Douglas Porch complains, “academics have rather outdone

themselves in discovering new ways to approach Resistance studies.”28 This unfortunate trend

has arisen because the discipline of history, like so many others, thrives on novelty. Scholars

26
Studies on particular groups include, for the communists: Stéphane Courtois, Le PCF dans la guerre: De
Gaulle, la Résistance, Staline (1980); for the Jews: Anny Lévy Latour, La Résistance juive en France (1970); for
women, Margaret Collins Weitz, Sisters in the Resistance: How Women Fought to Free France, 1940–1945
(1998); and for foreigners, Stéphane Courtois, Denis Peschanski, and Adam Rayski, Le Sang de l’étranger: les
immigrés de la MOI dans la Résistance (1989).
27
For example, Jacques Semelin in Sans armes face à Hitler: la résistance civile en Europe 1939–1943 (1998).
28
Porch, The French Secret Services, p. 558, n. 6.

8
are sometimes encouraged to come up with new and (preferably) controversial answers to

traditional questions before a publisher will invest in printing their work, and historical

investigations find themselves concluding not with balanced evaluations of the question they

started out to answer, but rather with artificially “original” approaches – many of which are

tangential to a well-grounded historical understanding of the eras they examine. While we

learn many important lessons from studies of women or foreigners in the French resistance, the

value of these works is undermined by the absence of a more general understanding of what the

resistance was. In other words, these works have moved on to more advanced and nuanced

studies before the basic questions have been answered. While recent scholarship, therefore,

has illuminated many nooks and crannies in the history of the French resistance, the greater part

of the room remains dark. A different approach to the history of the resistance is needed. But

if six decades of scholarship since 1945 haven’t produced the right results, what can be done?

STARTING OVER

This study presents the first step toward a more balanced history of the French

resistance – a history that not only incorporates the resistance into the narrative of the global

war from which it should have been inseparable, but also one that aims to understand the

significance of the resistance for France as a nation. As an attempt to understand the past, such

a history must naturally hinge on the aspect of resistance that embodied its importance in the

eyes of contemporaries: its military effectiveness. This seemingly essential topic is

conspicuously absent from the historiography of the resistance. The “wealth of historical

study,” according to Alan Milward, “has usually tended to dodge the issue of whether or not

9
resistance was effective.”29 It is true that scholarship which concentrates on previously

neglected subjects like gender issues or minority perspectives deserves respect, but ironically,

such topics reveal more about our own era than that which we propose to study, because they

are attempts to force an understanding of the past by imposing our own priorities upon in. As

such, they remain ultimately tangential to a concrete understanding of the resistance.

There is one other aspect of the resistance which could reasonably contest to be its most

important – politics. The character of France’s post-war government was naturally a fertile

ground for debate, and resisters espoused different views on the subject. Many resistance

movements had political orientations, and championed some idealized vision for a liberated

France. This study concentrates upon the military effectiveness of the resistance instead of its

political aspects for two reasons. Firstly, military effectiveness was a prerequisite for political

legitimacy. Even if France were to owe its liberation to the Allies, any French pretender would

need resistance credentials to rule. A record of failed or incompetent resistance would not

confer legitimacy. Instead, it would only take it away, just as the military failure of 1940 had

destroyed the legitimacy of the Third Republic in the eyes of most Frenchmen. A second

reason this study concentrates on the military history of the resistance is that we already

possess an excellent political history in John Sweets, The Politics of Resistance in France,

1940–1944, while no general military study yet exists.

By concentrating on military resistance, this study does not presume that military action

represented the only possible type of resistance to Nazism. But it does maintain that it was the

most important. Non-violent or non-military resistance, whose exemplar is Mahatma Gandhi,

has proven itself a significant and powerful political force, and its role in the French resistance

Alan S. Milward, ed., “The Economic and Strategic Effectiveness of Resistance,” in Stephen Hawes and Ralph
29

White, Resistance in Europe: 1939–1945 (1973), p. 186.

10
deserves mention. It is undeniable, however, that such techniques would ultimately have failed

against the Nazis in France.30 This is not mere speculation. Hitler understood non-violent

resistance and was prepared with his own solution to the problem. Recall his famous advice to

Lord Halifax for solving England’s troubles in India: “Shoot Gandhi…and if that does not

suffice to reduce them to submission, shoot a dozen leading members of [the Indian National]

Congress; and if that does not suffice, shoot 200 and so on until order is established.”31 Only

the reluctance of English aristocrats to employ such a distasteful solution permitted the success

of Gandhi’s non-violent resistance in India. But in German-occupied France, where the Nazis

harbored few qualms about brutality, non-violence collapsed. On November 11, 1940, during

the first year of the occupation, thousands of Parisian students gathered at the Place de l’Étoile

to celebrate France’s victory over Germany in the Great War by staging a protest, joining arms,

and singing the outlawed Marseillaise. The Germans so brutally repressed the demonstration

that on Armistice Day one year later, the entire country was quiet.32 Similar events unfolded in

Grenoble, where some citizens staged an Armistice Day protest in 1943. The Germans

surrounded the Grand Place and arrested 1,200 people, 400 of whom were ominously packed

into cattle cars bound for the east.33 Incidents like these quickly taught the French that only

organized, active, and armed resistance would work. The lesson was so clear that even

committed pacifists such as Albert Camus took up arms in the resistance.34 More than anyone

30
The famous successes of the Danes with nonviolent resistance came off because the Danish government
collaborated so well with the Germans and because Nazi ideology classified Danes as racial brothers, against
whom savage reprisals would be inappropriate. For more on the Danish resistance, see Hans Kirchhoff’s article in
Bob Moore, ed., Resistance in Western Europe, pp. 93–124.
31
Sir Ivone Kirkpatrick, The Inner Circle, p. 97.
32
Jackson, France, the Dark Years, p. 287). A commemorative plaque to this protest can be seen to one’s right
when emerging from the metro station at the north side of place de l’Étoile.
33
USNA RG 226 97 6, folder 45
34
Camus wrote: “Rien n’est moins excusable que la guerre et l’appel aux haines nationales. Mais une fois la
guerre survenue, il est vain et lâche de vouloir s’en écarter sous le prétexte qu’on n’en est par responsable. Les
tours d’ivoire sont tombées. La complaisance est interdite pour soi-même et pour les autres.” Albert Camus,
Carnets, v. i, p. 172.

11
plaque commemorating Parisian students who died in the non-violent Armistice Day protest in 1940.
author photograph

12
else, resisters like Camus understood the futility of non-violence in their situation. They gave

little thought to subjects that seem to preoccupy modern historians, such as gender issues or the

social composition of the resistance. To most of them, it didn’t matter whether there were

women, workers, or socialists in the resistance – all that mattered was removing the Germans

from France and re-establishing French self-government – the military objective being an

obvious prerequisite to the political. If we are really to understand the French resistance, then,

we must try to understand it as they did, with their priorities in mind. In the course of this

attempt, the question of militarily effectiveness necessarily predominates.

13
 II

NADIR OF RESISTANCE

TRENTHAM PARK

At Trentham Park in the British midlands, the boots of passing French soldiers ground

the summer mud into a viscous quagmire. It was still raining on the night of June twenty-first

when the broken remnants of yet another French unit staggered into the tent city. Trentham

was one of several camps set up in Britain to house French soldiers taken along during the

evacuation of Dunkirk, or those returning from the Allied expedition to Norway. Among the

sullen bodies lumbering through the muddy boulevards that night – many of whom still sported

cumbersome Nordic uniforms – was a young Captain and lecturer at St. Cyr by the name of

André Dewavrin.35 The men in his unit were demoralized and exhausted. Having left France

to join the Norwegian expedition in early April, they fought at Narvik, only to be evacuated on

June 7 during the Allied withdrawal. They then sailed to Glasgow and on to Brest, from which

they were forced in turn to retire the following evening in the face of the advancing German

army. After two aimless days at sea, they were compelled for lack of coal to disembark at

Southampton, whence they were dispatched immediately to Trentham.36

When France fell, nearly 30,000 French soldiers and sailors found themselves in similar

circumstances in England.37 Safe on this rainy island, they had somehow escaped the fate of

their countrymen, but it was unclear what to do next. They now seemed soldiers in the service

35
Dewavrin later became Charles de Gaulle’s intelligence chief, and is usually referred to as “Colonel Passy,” the
nom de guerre he adopted as a member of the Free French.
36
These events are described in Passy, Souvenirs I: 2e Bureau Londres, pp. 11–23.

14
of a lost cause. Fortunately, an opportunity to continue the war against Germany presented

itself. Shortly after their arrival in Trentham, rumors circulated among the men that a general

who had escaped from France was in London calling on French soldiers to join him in an effort

to carry on the war. Dewavrin himself only heard of General de Gaulle accidentally, while

listening to the radio in his tent.38 Some days later the general visited the camp, passing among

the rows of canvas and urging his countrymen to join a new French army-in-exile. This force,

he claimed, would continue the war on behalf of France alongside the British and, it was hoped,

the Americans. For the dispirited and itinerant soldiers of Trentham, de Gaulle’s offer must

have seemed a godsend, promising to alleviate the sting of defeat, restore hope for the future,

and revive a sense of purpose. Unlike those who later joined de Gaulle in London, these men

would never have to brave the stormy channel in a Breton fishing boat, risk betrayal at the

hands of a corrupt Spanish passeur, or wait in silence for the drone of a landing British

Lysander – they were already in England. Moreover, they were unlike many of the amateurs

and adventurers who came over in following years in that they were regular soldiers, many still

possessed of their weapons and equipment. In formulating his early BBC radio messages, de

Gaulle specifically targeted these men, and he was expecting them to join up in droves.39

To his shock and chagrin, almost none of the men joined him. One year later, the

number of French troops in Britain had dropped from almost 30,000 to 1,500.40 Instead of

37
The British evacuated more than 120,000 French soldiers from Dunkirk, but almost all of these were returned to
France via Brest or Cherbourg. Only the wounded (4,500 men) were taken to England (Crémieux-Brilhac, La
France Libre, p. 81).
38
Passy, 2e Bureau Londres, pp. 24–25.
39
It is a common misconception that de Gaulle’s famous message of June 18 called for civilian resistance within
occupied France. In reality, his appeal was directed primarily at French soldiers in England: “j’invite les officiers
et les soldats français qui se trouvent en territoire britannique ou qui viendraient à s’y trouver, avec leurs armes ou
sans leurs armes, j’invite les ingénieurs et les ouvriers spécialistes des industries d’armement qui se trouvent en
territoire britannique ou qui viendraient à s’y trouver, à se mettre en rapport avec moi” (Howard Rice, ed., France,
1940–1942: a Collection of Documents and Bibliography (1942), p. 135).
40
By the end of December, 21,000 sailors and between 7,000 and 8,000 soldiers had returned to France
(Amouroux, La Grande histoire des Français sous l’occupation, v. ii, p. 393).

15
rallying to the Free French in London, most of them had chosen to return to German-occupied

France or Vichy North Africa.41 This fact seems absurd and almost unbelievable to those who

have heard of the great French resistance, and de Gaulle’s famous “appeal of the 18th.” It

would seem that these loyal and patriotic Frenchmen suddenly and inexplicably decided to

betray their country, taking deliberate pains not to resist when a perfect opportunity to do so

presented itself. Would it not have been easier for them simply to join de Gaulle’s army in

London rather than secure transport all the way back to France via Morocco? Why did these

soldiers, who by virtue of their location and military training were perfectly positioned to

continue the fight for the liberation of France, go out of their way to avoid resisting?

THE EARLY RESISTANCE

Answering this question is essential to an understanding of the problems faced by the

French resistance in its first two years. This section seeks to explain why the resistance took so

long to come into being, and attempts to portray the climate that was initially so antithetical to

its growth – a climate that in many ways persisted throughout the occupation. Before 1943,

military resistance in France was nearly nonexistent and had almost no effect on the Allied war

effort or the global war. The reasons why this was so are closely tied to our story at Trentham.

The soldiers there and at the other French camps in England, who found themselves in the best

possible position to resist, and yet chose to return home, demonstrate the power of the forces

undermining resistance in 1940. If the men at Trentham, for whom joining the resistance

would simply have meant a train ride to London, could not even bear that commitment, how

little then would those within France – for whom resistance would entail much greater peril –

41
MAE Guerre 1939–1945 Vichy-Europe 360 39. The British shipped these French soldiers to Morocco, but
confiscated their artillery pieces, tanks, and most of their machine guns.

16
be inclined to join the nascent movements. The story of the early resistance, then, is more

properly one not of resistance but of its absence, and the reasons behind that absence. Such a

study is necessary before delving into the heyday of resistance in 1944, for an assessment of the

military effectiveness of the resistance at its peak must be predicated upon an understanding of

it at its very nadir.

“THE MARSHAL SPEAKS”: PÉTAIN’S BROADCAST OF THE 17TH

The event which had the most detrimental effect on France’s potential to resist in 1940

was the now famous radio message of Marshal Philippe Pétain, broadcast on June 17 from

Bordeaux, to which the French government had fled. Pétain was France’s vice-Premier, but he

had been working independently to undermine the Republic ever since France began to lose the

war. His partner in this endeavor was none other than the French Commander in Chief, general

Maxime Weygand.42 Both men were old soldiers and veterans of the First World War.

Pétain’s valiant defense of Verdun and his successful resolution of the 1917 army mutinies

granted him hero status, and in 1940 he was greatly revered throughout France. Like many

Frenchmen, he saw the war not as a global struggle but as a Franco-German conflict which

France had now lost. Both he and Weygand therefore opposed those in the French government,

including their Prime Minister, Paul Reynaud, who wanted to continue fighting. Pétain and

Weygand regarded Britain as quite the junior partner in the Anglo-French alliance, and

presumed she could not long continue the war without her continental ally. Weygand

42
There is little evidence of a concerted plot on behalf of Pétain and Weygand to overthrow the French
government. The two men came from opposing camps within the army, for Weygand had been the protégé of
Pétain’s ancient rival, Marshal Foch. What Weygand and Pétain did share was an intransigent conservatism, a
deep-rooted Anglophobia, and a parochial disinclination to understand the war on a global scale.

17
Marshal Henri-Philippe Pétain General Maxime Weygand

18
proclaimed: “within three weeks England would have her neck wrung like that of a chicken.”43

Both men were also united in their belief that French communists and leftists represented a

greater menace than Hitler or his armies. As soldiers, they saw in the prospect of an armistice

with Germany an opportunity to save the honor of the army and blame republican politicians

for France’s defeat. It is indicative of the deep divisions within French society that two of her

leading men would sooner deliver their nation to a foreign dictator than fight to defend their

own democratic government. In the summer of 1940, as the remaining armies of France

retreated southward, Weygand and Pétain succeeded in undermining all plans to continue the

struggle from England or the French colonies.44 When the government reached Bordeaux,

Prime Minister Reynaud realized he had been outmaneuvered and resigned in defeat, entrusting

the fate of the nation to his deputy, Pétain.45 The following day the Marshal went on the radio

to address the people of France. Anyone listening that day would have heard the ominous

words: “the Marshal speaks,” followed by Pétain’s now-famous statement: “it is with a heavy

heart that I tell you today that we must cease hostilities.”46

43
In a limited way, Weygand and Pétain were right. The French contributed 104 divisions on the Western Front in
1940; the British, only 15 (Ernest May, Strange Victory: Hitler’s Conquest of France (2000), p. 477). But they
overlooked geography and were rash in assuming that the British Islands would fall as quickly as France had.
Germany had lost much of her transport fleet during the assault on Scandinavia, and the distance that the
Luftwaffe’s short-range bombers were forced to fly to attack England was a great handicap. Weygand’s quote is
taken from Eleanor Gates, End of the Affair: The Collapse of the Anglo-French Alliance, 1939–40 (1981), p. 182).
44
After the French lines collapsed several plans were proposed. The first consisted of forming a “Breton
Redoubt” that would keep France in the war with English support. The second entailed the flight of the French
government to North Africa. This plan was subject to heated debate, and historians still argue over its feasibility.
The French Premier, Paul Reynaud, wanted to send 454,000 soldiers to North Africa from France, but his admirals
told him that only 60,000 could be ferried across with the limited time and transport available (Jackson, The Dark
Years, p. 121). As to whether a French military base in North Africa were feasible, Morocco and Algeria had
excellent naval bases, and North Africa had played host to some 400,000 French troops in 1939, but by June 1940
most had already been sent over to France (Jackson, The Dark Years, pp. 121–122).
45
There is evidence that Weygand and Pétain were preparing to stage a coup in Bordeaux if Reynaud proved
intransigent. Pétain had contacted the commander of the local garrison and had troops strategically placed in the
city. Weygand could appeal to his friend General Lafont, who ordered his troops to take charge of municipal
police activity in the area. For more on this subject see “The Possibility of a Coup in Bordeaux” in Gates, End of
the Affair, p. 416–418).
46
This phrase was apparently modified in subsequent broadcasts to: “It is with a heavy heart that I tell you today
that we must try to cease hostilities,” because the original message gave the impression that a ceasefire agreement

19
 Unlike de Gaulle’s message of the following day, Pétain’s broadcast was widely heard

among the population and by most of the army’s officer corps. Over the next twenty-four

hours word of it spread quickly to the enlisted ranks, and the Marshal’s address effectively

destroyed the will of the French army and people to fight on. One French lieutenant recalled:

“a whole country seems suddenly to have given itself up. Everything has collapsed,

imploded….I have only observed a sort of complacent relief (sometimes even exalted relief), a

kind of base atavistic satisfaction at the knowledge that ‘for us it’s over.’”47 Truckloads of

soldiers could be seen traversing the countryside shouting: “the war’s over!”48 Civilians

anxious to avoid German reprisals ridiculed and sometimes violently assaulted army units who

tried to fight on, accusing them of prolonging the war.49 One young French captain remembers

a woman yelling: “what are you waiting for, you soldiers, to stop this war? It’s got to stop. Do

you want them [the Germans] to massacre us all with our children?”50 In the army, discipline

eroded as the reality of defeat sunk in. Dewavrin, in Brest at the time of Pétain’s address,

recalls seeing drunk soldiers throwing their rifles recklessly into ditches as they stumbled

along, shouting: “the war is over… Pétain said it himself! Why should we go on killing? The

only thing to do now is go back home!”51 Seeing no reason to fight on, unit after unit began to

surrender. Henri Frenay recalls how he saw his men, “who had fought so well up until the last

minute, abandon their weapons, throw aside their rucksacks, and organize veritable folk dances

in the roads and forest clearings. Forgotten were the disaster, the surrender, self-respect, the

ending the war had already been reached, when in reality Pétain’s government had only requested an armistice
from the Germans (Jean-Louis Crémieux-Brilhac, Les Français de l’an 40, v. ii (1990), p. 682, n. 1).
47
Jackson, The Fall of France, p. 144.
48
Crémieux-Brilhac, Les Français de l’an 40, v. ii, p. 682.
49
Jackson, The Fall of France, p. 180.
50
Jackson, The Fall of France, p. 144. The captain was the journalist Georges Sadoul.
51
Passy, 2e Bureau Londres, p. 21.

20
dignity of the vanquished before the victor.”52 Half of the 1.5 million French soldiers taken

prisoner by the Germans during the western campaign, which began on May 10, were captured

in the five days between Pétain’s June 17 address and the signing of the armistice on June 22.

THE ARMISTICE

The Armistice put the final nail in the coffin of resistance. It if had been overly harsh it

would have discredited Pétain’s position that peace was preferable to continued resistance, but

because Hitler decided that he needed to resolve the still nebulous status of the French colonies

and Fleet in his favor to defeat England quickly, he offered a relatively lenient peace that

allowed the French to maintain a fictive sovereignty and to retain control over these assets.53

Hitler permitted the French army to remain in being – to Pétain’s delight – although restricting

its size to 100,000 men. Alsace and Lorraine were taken by Germany, but the entire southern

half of the country was spared occupation.54 This “moderate” armistice was seen in many

quarters as a triumph for Pétain, and served to legitimize his puppet regime.55 Collaboration

thus acquired in 1940 a sense of legality and authority that the concept of resistance did not

possess. Those few who had kept on fighting after the broadcast of the seventeenth were now

52
“Je vois alors nos hommes, qui s’étaient bien battus jusqu’au dernier moment, abandonner leurs armes, retirer
leurs équipements et organiser sur la route et dans les clairières de véritables farandoles. Oubliés le désastre, la
capitulation, l’amour-propre, la dignité du vaincu devant le vainqueur” (Frenay, La Nuit finira, p. 18).
53
Eleanor Gates writes: “though few would have guessed it, Hitler – for the sake of a cheap and quick victory –
had decided to offer the French relatively moderate armistice conditions. Using the time-honored formula “divide
and conquer,” he was astute enough to realize that if he hoped to bring England to terms in the near future he could
not afford to antagonize the already defeated French to the extend of driving them back into cooperation with the
British. Their national interest must be made to seem distinct. In short, a break with England would have to look
like a bargain” (Gates, End of the Affair, p. 276).
54
for the complete text of the Armistice, see Appendix I
55
Pétain sent General Huntziger and the French delegation to the armistice table with three goals: (1) no full
occupation of metropolitan France, (2) no German annexation of French colonies, and (3) no German seizure of
the French fleet. When Pétain received word from Huntziger that the Hitler’s proposed armistice already fulfilled
all three goals, he was elated (Ian Ousby, Occupation: The Ordeal of France 1940–1944).

21
 France after the Armistice of 1940

Brigitte Blanc, Henry Rousso, and Chantal de Tourtier-Bonazzi, La Seconde

Guerre mondiale: guide des sources conservées en France, 1939-1945

22
persuaded to lay down their arms. The French people, following the guidance of their revered

Marshal, returned to their factories and fields. Jean Cassou therefore observed: “everyone has

gone home.”56 As France struggled to resume the rhythms of everyday life, resistance was the

last thing on most people’s minds.

BACK TO TRENTHAM

Having surveyed events in France, let us now return to Trentham Park and our original

question: why did so few of the French soldiers stationed there choose resistance? The news of

Pétain’s broadcast – which caught up with Dewavrin’s unit in Brest – and the signature of the

Armistice certainly would have weighed heavily on the men. Furthermore, Pétain’s new

government at Vichy ordered the soldiers to repatriate themselves via North Africa, and many

would have considered it their duty to do so.57 If some entertained thoughts of staying in

England, they must certainly have faced the unsavory dilemma of conflicting legitimacies:

Pétain vs. de Gaulle. For most of the soldiers, however, Pétain won this contest handily. In the

words of Dewavrin, “No one had the right to waver between the brilliant champion of Verdun”

and de Gaulle, “this unknown little general ‘who presumed to lecture to the French.’”58 De

Gaulle was indeed seen as a renegade, a mere brevet colonel who had only been given two

general’s stars and a cabinet post as a temporary expedient during the calamity of 1940.59 He

only served in his cabinet position – Under-secretary of State for National Defense – for a mere

twelve days before fleeing to London.60 The widespread opinion that the English would soon

56
Quoted in Olivier Wieviorka’s article on France in Bob Moore, ed. Resistance in Western Europe, p. 127.
57
MAE Guerre 1939–1945 Vichy-Europe 321 7
58
Passy, 2e Bureau Londres, p. 25.
59
De Gaulle was given a wartime promotion to acting brigadier general (général de brigade à titre temporaire) on
June 1, 1940 (Cremieux-Brilhac, La France Libre, p. 45). In the French army of 1940 this rank wore two stars (as
opposed to one in both the British and American armed forces).
60
He took up his cabinet post on June 5.

23
lose the war also discouraged resistance, as did a certain degree of Anglophobia and the desire

to return home to rejoin families and loved ones. Many French soldiers had already left Britain

by the end of June, but those remaining were strongly prejudiced by the events of July third,

when the British, fearing that Pétain might turn his navy over to Hitler, destroyed the French

Mediterranean fleet anchored at the Algerian harbor of Mers el-Kébir. This affront compelled

many Frenchmen to regard England as more of an enemy than Germany, so that in December

1940 the German observer Friedrich Grimm was able to report: “Frenchmen respect a German,

despise an Italian, and hate an Englishman.”61 The effects of Mers el-Kébir cannot be

overestimated. To the 21,000 French sailors in England’s ports, this attack by a former ally

upon their beloved navy seemed more reprehensible than anything the Germans were doing.

Moreover, the dismal failure of de Gaulle’s attempt to seize the French West African port of

Dakar in late September – first major Free French operation of the war – further detracted from

his already dubious prestige.62

These events affected not only the French soldiers at Trentham Park, but the entire

French population. Pétain’s broadcast, the Armistice, a general feeling that the war was over

and the desire to resume normal life, the assumption that England would quickly capitulate, de

61
“Der Franzose liebt den Engländer nicht. Es ist etwas übertrieben, aber im wesentlichen richtig, wenn man sagt:
‘Der Fronzose achtet den Deutschen, verachtet den Italiener und haßt den Engländer’” (Friedrich Grimm,
Frankreich Berichte, p. 159). The French despised the Italians because they felt (correctly) that they had defeated
the attempted Italian invasion, and that Italy was only occupying France by virtue of her German alliance. For
more on French contempt for their Italian masters, see Henri Michel, Vichy, Année 40, pp. 416–417.
62
The Free French movement was also undermined by some in the British government. Worst of all was the
interference (much to Winston Churchill’s chagrin) of Sir John Dill, the British Chief of Staff, and the War Office
in de Gaulle’s efforts to recruit from the French camps. The Francophobic Dill viewed the prospect of a large, ill-
disciplined contingent of French soldiers residing in England with horror. He even thought they might constitute
into a fifth column in the event of a German invasion. To encourage the French to leave, War Office
representatives shadowed de Gaulle and followed up his speeches at camps like Trentham with stern warnings that
Frenchmen who stayed in England would be acting “at their own risk,” and could even be considered traitors by
their own government. The French were warned that the British reserved the right to recruit them all into His
Majesty’s army as privates, regardless of their current rank. Dill’s men also prevented French sailors at Falmouth
and Liverpool who had indicated their desire to join de Gaulle from contacting Free French liaison officers (Martin

24
Gaulle’s near-anonymity, the widespread hatred of the English after the “massacre” at Mers el-

Kébir, and the discredit which fell upon Free France after the Dakar disaster all served to stifle

resistance and promote an ambivalent attitude toward the war. The story of Trentham Park

serves to demonstrate the essential weakness of resistance in 1940 by observing how it proved

unappealing even to those for whom it would have been quite easy.

The Free French never again had the opportunity to rally under their banners anything

like the numbers of French soldiers and sailors leaving England from the camps at Trentham,

Arrowe and Aintree.63 After 1940, there was no good source of manpower for de Gaulle’s

movement. Only about 1,000 people came out of France per year to his London operation, and

most of these were not professional soldiers but amateurs and adventurers from the fringes of

society.64 De Gaulle had no air force, which meant that he had to rely on the British Special

Operations Executive (SOE) to airlift possible recruits out of France, but SOE was usually

inclined only to bring out men who were willing to work for them and not de Gaulle. On the

other hand, the regular French army under Vichy consistently avoided opportunities to aid or

rejoin the Allies, seeming to have thrown its lot in with the Reich for the duration of the war.

When the British invaded West Africa and Madagascar, Vichy troops did not welcome them as

liberators but fought them on the beaches. The same occurred when Anglo-American forces

landed in North Africa in 1942. In Syria, where the Free French comprised a large portion of

the invading forces, Vichy troops chose to fight their countrymen rather than join them and the

Allies. Following the failed British attack at Dieppe, an elated Marshal Pétain even offered

Mickelson, “Operation SUSAN: The Origins of the Free French Movement” in Military Affairs, Vol. 52, No. 4
(Oct., 1988), pp. 192–196).
63
At one camp, a mere fifty men joined the Free French; at another, only seven (Amouroux, La Grande histoire
des Français sous l’occupation, v. ii, p. 392).
64
Most of those who came out came out on Lysanders, not by Breton fisherman or Spanish passeurs.

25
Hitler the services of his 100,000-man army to help defeat future British landings on the

continent.65

The hostility of the regular army and the dearth of trained recruits for the Free French

forced de Gaulle to scrape together his fighting force from a variety of other places. Indeed,

only 600 of the roughly 5,000 Free French troops who participated in their greatest “victory,”66

the battle of Bir Hakeim in North Africa, were white. The British were shocked to find de

Gaulle recruiting Haitians and French convicts of “questionable desirability” imported from

Havana, not to mention Austrian refugees living in England, Chileans, and Uruguayans, none

of whom could speak French.67 Almost 70% of his army consisted of black territorial troops

from France’s African colonies, a few of which had rallied to him in 1940.68 Those men

naturally demonstrated a diminished eagerness to fight for the liberation of their imperial

masters, and did not usually make quality troops. Even de Gaulle admitted privately in 1943:

“At the beginning I was obliged to accept all kinds of Frenchmen in the Free French forces.

There followed the inevitable dirt, but these persons, who only joined me to save themselves

from hunger or the concentration camp, will be cleared out, as I am under no obligation to them

whatever.”69

RESISTANCE WITHIN FRANCE

Within France, the factors undermining resistance among the Trentham soldiers played

upon the population in an amplified form, and the early metropolitan movements withered in

65
ADAP, Ser. E, Bd. III, Nos. 205, 217.
66
So called even though they ended the battle by withdrawing.
67
PRO CAB 21 1456
68
Gabon, Chad, and the French Congo were the only French colonies to revolt against Vichy in 1940. They all
contained parts of the former German Cameroons, and local officials only rejected Vichy’s authority because they
had reason to suspect impending German annexation (Gerhard Weinberg, A World at Arms, A Global History of
World War II (1994), p. 160).

26
the infertile ground upon which they sought to grow. Denunciation became a threat as

resistance groups found themselves hedged in on all sides by a suspicious and hostile

population. Henri Frenay, who created the movement COMBAT, recalls that even his own

mother threatened to denounce him.70 This unfavorable environment created a situation in

which the early movements remained, in the words of Claude Bourdet, another of COMBAT’s

early members, “the work of a handful of isolated individuals, a minority that had no contact

with the masses and therefore utilized as a base small groups of comrades or friends.”71

Similarly, the small French networks initially set up by commandos working for Britain’s

Special Operations Executive, or SOE, were naturally limited in their scope and effectiveness

because “a large proportion of French citizens could not imagine how they could help activities

in networks where professionalism seemed to exclude all amateur support.”72

The surprisingly good behavior of the German army in France also prevented the

growth of an early resistance. After the defeat of 1940, the French expected countless atrocities

to follow in the wake of the conquering Goths. Recollections of “Boche savagery” in Belgium

during the Great War and rumors of unspeakable German horrors in Poland created a mass

hysteria as civilians fleeing the Teutonic host jammed roads in the northeast for weeks. The

anticipated horrors, however, never came. In the west, unlike in Poland, the German army was

conveniently concerned with maintaining standards of civilized conduct toward the conquered

populations. German soldiers did sporadically loot abandoned estates and farms during the

campaign of 1940, but in general their behavior was, as insisted upon by their superiors,

“Korrekt.” They mingled with civilians, boarded in French homes, frequented French

69
PRO FO 371 36047
70
Frenay, La Nuit finira, p. 117.
71
Sweets, The Politics of Resistance in France, p. 17.
72
Olivier Wieviorka in Bob Moore, ed. Resistance in Western Europe, p. 131.

27
restaurants, and rode the Paris metro. In the capital, the conquering heroes seemed almost like

harmless vacationers, touring the city in excited groups with their cameras. The German army

went to great lengths to portray the occupation as salubrious and inoffensive. Posters depicting

a smiling German soldier surrounded by French children and the words “abandoned

populations, put your trust in the German soldier!” were ubiquitous. Officers were ordered to

enforce the ideal of professional, soldierly Korrektheit, which almost became a cliché.73

Memoirs are littered with recollections of overly polite, gentlemanly German soldiers like the

one who boarded in François Mauriac’s house: “the captain came into the salon to present

himself…[he was] young, with a fairly sympathetic manner, distinguished, with a great desire

to be correct….He is certainly no less embarrassed than us, clicking his heels and bowing at

everything.”74 In Marcel Ophuls’ famous 1969 film Le Chagrin et la Pitié (The Sorrow and the

Pity), an innkeeper in Clermont-Ferrand recalls of his German boarders: “they were almost too

nice, yes, too nice, because they know we didn’t like them so they tried hard.” The novelist

Louis Guilloux remarks in his carnets how in his hometown, French policemen pass friendly

greetings to German Feldgendarmes, local villagers give German officers French lessons and

banter affably with them over the outcome of the war, and French children know which

German soldiers are likely to give them sweets.75 Friedrich Grimm termed this initial period of

occupation the era of “Euphorie,” when the French were overjoyed at the unexpected civility of

73
Henri Amouroux remarks on the idealized image of German soldiers: “courtois dans le métro avec les vieilles
dames ; amateurs de fruits et d’omelettes dans les auberges de campagne, mais respectueux de la propriété
privée… ; pleins d’admirations pour l’héroïsme des poilus de 1914 et se mettant spontanément au garde-à-vous
sous l’Arc de Triomphe ; conquis, et le faisant savoir, par leur conquête si bien que les Français, qui ont lu Horace
et qui veulent justifier intellectuellement la collaboration, murmurent parfois ‘La Grèce subjuguée subjugua son
farouche vainqueur…’” (Amouroux, La Grande histoire des Français sous l’occupation, v. ii, p. 153).
74
Jackson, The Dark Years, p. 284
75
Louis Guilloux, Carnets, 1921–1944 (1978).

28
A German poster advertising cooperation between the French population and the Wehrmacht.
Michel, Vichy année 40.

29
their new German masters.76 Needless to say, this harmonious environment did little to inspire

violent resistance.

The biggest problem for the early resistance within France, however, was that none of

the great organizations chose to espouse it. The Church, the army, the political parties, and the

unions all remained silent. The only group that might have been able to effectively coordinate

resistance was the French Communist Party, or PCF. Its members were already accustomed to

underground life because the French government had declared it illegal and arrested many

Communists following the revelation of Hitler’s non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union in

the late summer of 1939.77 Furthermore, the PCF boasted a small but experienced cadre of

officers from the Spanish Civil War and a fanatically loyal membership imbued with the

Leninist doctrine of armed struggle. However, the French Communists refused to resist. In

one of history’s ironic twists, they viewed the conquering Germans as liberators from their own

government. The Communists hoped that the Nazis, as allies of Soviet Russia, would consider

lifting the ban imposed on the PCF by the now defunct Third Republic and they approached the

German authorities with requests to resume printing their (then underground) newspaper,

L’Humanité. To garner favor with its new masters, the paper welcomed the Germans as

socialist brothers, printing the words “workers of the world, unite!” in German on the cover of

every issue.78 The party exclaimed: “It is particularly reassuring, in these troubled times, to see

many Parisian workers conversing amicably with German soldiers, either in the street or at the

local bistro. Bravo, comrades. Carry on, even if it doesn’t please certain bourgeois, who are as

76
Grimm, Frankreich Berichte, p. 155.
77
In August the French government banned the PCF’s newspaper, L’Humanité, forcing it underground. On
September 26, the Republic declared the Party illegal and began summarily arresting communist députés. Many
Communists went into hiding, and the Party leadership fled the country: Maurice Thorez fled to Moscow, while
Jacques Duclos and Maurice Tréand took refuge in Brussels, where they remained until France fell and the
occupying Germans allowed them to return.

30
stupid as they are pernicious. The brotherhood of peoples will not exist as a hope forever; it

shall become a living reality.”79 Although some French communists felt uneasy about their

newfound fascist bedfellows, few could ignore the strict orders emanating from the Comintern:

to regard the European conflict as an internecine and imperialist war among the capitalist

powers and not to choose sides.80 Armed resistance was out of the question.

Resistance had so little appeal in 1940 that even those most threatened by the

occupation – France’s 200,000 Jewish citizens – largely eschewed it. Any discussion of Jewish

resistance must first bear in mind the crucial fact that French Jews, true to revolutionary

tradition, tended to regard themselves as citizens of the Republic first and Jews second. They

did not deign to associate with the mass of over 100,000 foreign (mostly Eastern European)

Jews who streamed into France during the 1930s seeking refuge from the ravages of Nazism.

The affluent Jews of France felt they had little in common with what they regarded as an

uncivilized Slavic rabble.81 When Vichy began to persecute foreign Jews, therefore, most

French Jews joined the rest of their countrymen in turning a blind eye. Despite the fact that

Pétain’s regime issued anti-Semitic legislation on its own initiative82 and began to round up

foreign Jews, the Council of French Rabbis sent Vichy a declaration of allegiance. Jacques

Helbronner, a prominent Parisian Jew and personal friend of Pétain’s, even suggested to the old

Marshal that Vichy “attempt to eliminate from public life those ‘elements’ [foreign Jews]

78
Daniel Cordier, Jean Moulin: La République des catacombes (1999), p. 107. See also the discussion of
L’Humanité in Amouroux, La Grande histoire des Français sous l’occupation, v. ii, pp. 431–436.
79
Il est particulièrement réconfortant, en ces temps de malheur, de voir de nombreux travailleurs parisiens
s’entretenir amicalement avec des soldats allemands, soit dans la rue, soit au bistrot du coin. Bravo, camarades,
continuez, même si cela ne plaît pas à certains bourgeois aussi stupides que malfaisants. La fraternité des peuples
ne sera pas toujours une espérance, elle deviendra une réalité vivante” (Amouroux, La Grande histoire des
Français sous l’occupation, v. ii, p. 432).
80
Moscow officially conveyed these orders to the PCF on September 27, 1939.
81
Nothing like the feeling of international solidarity which arose among Jews after the Holocaust yet existed. On
French Jewish attitudes toward foreign Jews see André Kaspi, Les Juifs pendant l’occupation (1991).
82
Both Robert Paxton (Vichy France and the Jews) and Eberhard Jäckel (Frankreich in Hitlers Europa) have
decisively proven that Vichy initiated its own anti-Semitic legislation, without German pressure.

31
which cannot be assimilated to the national spirit.”83 This apathetic attitude continued up

through 1941, even though Vichy began to arrest thousands of Jewish aliens and intern them in

camps outside Paris (one of which was administered so negligently that the Germans ordered

the French to release its 900 starving inmates).84 The French Jews who administered the Union

générale des Israélites de France (UGIF), a Vichy relief organization established to look after

the Jews in these camps, demonstrated utter apathy towards the fate of foreign Jews. Although

the UGIF was often informed of round-ups in advance, it regularly failed to warn of impending

arrests and deportations.

To a world with knowledge of the Holocaust it seems unthinkable that French Jews

would choose not to resist. In 1940, however, many did so because they assumed that Vichy

would protect them.85 And it appeared for a time as if the regime would indeed reserve its anti-

Semitic fervor for outsiders. Admiral Darlan, Pétain’s deputy, was known to have remarked:

“the stateless Jews, who for the past fifteen years have invaded our country, do not interest me.

But the others, the good old French Jews, are entitled to all the protection we can give them.”86

During 1940 and 1941 Vichy gave its Jewish citizens reason to hope, even permitting Jews to

serve in its military. Exemptions to its anti-Semitic laws were made for French Jews who had

been of service to their nation in some demonstrable way. This favoritism provided only a

temporary reprieve, however, and harsh realties later surfaced as Vichy and the Nazis moved

toward the Final Solution. But 1940 afforded little indication of what was to come as Vichy

afforded its “good old Jews” the luxury of condescending to the Jewish foreigners it

83
Jackson, The Dark Years, p. 364.
84
Michael Marrus and Robert O. Paxton, Vichy France and the Jews (1981), p. 255.
85
Some authors even accuse French Jews of complicity in the Holocaust – this may be going a bit far. For a
balanced evaluation, see Richard Cohen, The Burden of Conscience: French Jewish Leadership during the
Holocaust (1987).
86
Jackson, The Dark Years, p. 364.

32
persecuted. To their embarrassment and shame, it was a luxury from which they declined to

refrain.87

Even to those Frenchmen – Communist, Jewish or otherwise – who in 1940 fully

understood the horrid implications of Nazi occupation, resistance to Hitler’s juggernaut seemed

both impractical and futile. One Frenchmen featured in Ophuls’ Le Chagrin et la Pitié

remembers his impressions of the German army in 1940:

Germany was triumphant, and there wasn’t a single front from which it
failed to come home victorious – there’s no denying that the German
army made quite an impression on the youth in France. Seeing that army
of young men, stripped to the waist… After all, I’m the son of a soldier
and I was a soldier myself. A sense of responsibility, hierarchy and
discipline mean a lot. A well-0disciplined army was important to people
like us. This was the first time we had seen such an ideal army. The
French army was nothing compared to this army that could put the fear of
God into an entire people.88

Germany indeed appeared invincible, and was thought to be mere weeks away from winning

its war against Britain.89 The indifference of the great organizations and the hostility of society

within France meant that a potential resister would have to plan and act alone. The example of

those who did so was far from encouraging. Etienne Achavanne, a young farm worker who cut

telegraph cables between the Feldkommandantur at Rouen and a German airfield, was caught

and hastily executed.90 A Polish Jew in Bordeaux was shot for assaulting a German military

87
After 1942, when the Vichy began rounding up more Jews of French citizenship, and especially after the
infamous Vel d’Hiver roundup that took place in July of that year, most French Jews realized that collaboration
would no longer protect them. A Zionist Jewish resistance organization was founded, the Armée juive, but at its
peak it could boast only 400 members. Most Jews who wanted to resist joined the MOI, the PCF’s foreign section
(Jackson, The Dark Years, p. 365–368).
88
The man was Christien de la Mazière, a French aristocrat and former Nazi.
89
In his biography of Werner Best, the historian Ulrich Herbert writes: “Bis zum Sommer 1941 war die politische
Situation im besetzten Frenkreich immer als sehr ruhig beschrieben worden; der wichtigste Grund dafür lag
zweifellos in der schier unüberwindlichen militärischen Stärke des ‘Reiches,’ die jeden Widerstand als von
vornherein aussichtslos erscheinen liess. Zudem war die französische Linke, und insbesondere die
kommunistische Partei, durch das deutsch-sowjetische Abkommen paralysiert und galt sogar als ausgeprochen
kollaborationsbereit” (Ulrich Herbert, Best: Biographische Studien über Radicalismus, Weltanschauung und
Vernunft, 1903–1989 (1996), p. 300).
90
Noguères, Histoire de la Résistance en France, v. i, p. 30.

33
band leader and his troupe of musicians with a stick.91 Parisian students who staged anti-

German protests by celebrating the armistice of 1918 were gunned down in the streets. A

nineteen-year-old boy who cut German telephone lines between La Rochelle and Royan was

apprehended and summarily executed. Even small acts of resistance were punished harshly. A

young French sailor found tearing German posters was sentenced to three months in prison for

sabotage.92

All these factors combined to stifle resistance in France before it could begin in earnest.

The sporadic sabotages and individual attacks that occurred during the first summer of

occupation became less and less frequent as the year drew to a close. In the words of historian

Julian Jackson, “these brave but futile acts,…rather than anticipating what came to be ‘the

Resistance,’…represented desperate final skirmishes in the battle of France.”93 To the

satisfaction of the German authorities, France would remain largely quiet until the summer of

1941, when faraway events would begin to change everything.

91
Amouroux, La Grande histoire des Français sous l’occupation, v. ii, p. 154.
92
Jackson, The Dark Years, p. 286.
93
Jackson, The Dark Years, p. 402.

34
 III

SEED TIME OF THE RESISTANCE

BARBAROSSA

In the wee hours of June 22, 1941 the inhabitants of Polish border towns, many of

whom had been up late drinking, experienced a strange epidemic of malfunctioning radios: in

lieu of the usual broadcasts, a German voice was heard repeating: “Dortmund! Dortmund!

Dortmund!” on every station.94 After several minutes’ confusion, bemused listeners were

relieved when the irritating repetition finally ceased and regular programs picked up again. By

the time the last lamps went out for the night, the unexplained interruption had been entirely

forgotten, and Russia slept. The next morning, the German army surged over the border and

down the Moscow highway toward Minsk. Operation BARBAROSSA had begun.

Its repercussions were felt across the continent. During the first week in July, the

Comintern ordered party cells throughout occupied Europe to commence partisan warfare.

After eleven months of silence the French communists could now devote the full range of their

talents to resistance. Several days later, PCF guerrillas inaugurated the communist resistance in

France by derailing a train near Épinay-sur-Seine.95 Other sporadic acts of terrorism followed,

but the PCF soon discovered that it was in no condition to carry out serious organized

resistance. Two years of persecution by their own government had weakened the French

Communist party severely. Moreover, the German police wasted no time in moving against the

unprepared PCF once BARBAROSSA began. In one départment, they arrested over 600

94
In the middle ages, Dortmund had been home to the Holy Roman Emperor Friedrich I Hohenstaufen, also
known also as ‘Friedrich Barbarossa,’ who became a hero in German nationalist lore. Hitler dubbed his invasion
of the Soviet Union “operation Barbarossa” after him and made the radio codeword for its initiation “Dortmund.”

35
Communists in one hour.96 Thus, the Communists resistance in France was faced with a

conundrum: while Leninist doctrine abhorred militarily ineffective acts of individualistic

terrorism, the PCF soon found that such acts were all it was capable of achieving. The

Communists therefore decided to sacrifice doctrine to necessity and began planning small-scale

sabotage actions and assassinations. Like the Anarchists of the nineteenth century, they hoped

that these acts would both create publicity for their cause and destabilize the ruling

establishment. On the second count they surely failed. German army reports from the early

summer of 1941 classify acts of sabotage as non-threatening, spontaneous crimes committed by

social delinquents acting alone, and note that the French population was in general well-

behaved and orderly.97 In truth, neither the Germans or the French had yet experienced the

harsh realities of occupation. Thus far the Germans had felt no need for repression, and the

French population had given them no excuse to engage in it. If the French remained largely

passive and the Germans could maintain their image of Korrektheit, this pleasant arrangement

would continue.

The recent string of communist attacks, however, worried the Vichy government that

France’s honeymoon with her occupier was about to end. French officials feared that terrorist

acts perpetrated by extremists and communists might provoke harsh German reprisals against

the entire population, generating tension between the population and the regime and

undermining collaboration.98 They were therefore anxious to quash resistance before it became

an embarrassing problem. Dr. Jean-Pierre Ingrand, Vichy’s diplomatic representative to the

German administration in Paris, pressed the issue with his German counterparts on several

95
The sabotage took place on July 18 (Jackson, The Dark Years, p. 423).
96
This took place in the départment of the Aube on July 14 – Bastille Day (Noguères, Histoire de la Résistance en
France, v. ii, p. 32).
97
Wolfgang Geiger, L’image de la France dans l’Allemagne Nazi, 1933–1945 (1999), pp. 217–236.

36
occasions. It is interesting to note that the topic of resistance only enters the minutes of two of

the five meetings between Ingrand and the head of the German civil administration, Werner

Best, held in at the Hotel Majestic between April and August 1941 – and it is not Best but

Ingrand who broaches the subject both times.99

At a meeting held on August 13, Ingrand insisted that departmental prefects and

municipal police were not strong enough to repress Gaullist and communist terrorism, and

suggested a police reform giving local authorities more liberty to use heavy-handed measures.

Best disappointed Ingrand by dismissing his suggestions and telling him that the German

administration had no desire to undertake a police reform in France. On August 20, during a

larger joint meeting, Ingrand again brought up the resistance problem. This time he thought the

French railroads needed to be better protected. Ingrand had already sidestepped Best and

voiced his concern to General Kohl, the head of German army transportation in France, but

Kohl was loath to waste military manpower guarding endless stretches of track. At this

meeting, however, Ingrand’s frequent prodding finally compelled Best to take some action. He

ordered Kohl to cooperate with the French in the creation of a “Bahnschutz” to guard against

rail sabotage, but seemingly only to stop Ingrand from pestering him about it. Like his

colleagues in the military administration, Best was not seriously preoccupied with the prospects

of a French resistance in 1941. He thought little of the threat of sabotage to the rail network.100

The German military administration in this period assigned priority to concerns other than

dealing with what in their view appeared to be a few amateur terrorists. They made almost no

preparations to deal with organized resistance, which they correctly viewed as nearly

nonexistent.

98
USNA RG 242 T-77 1614, folder 75 353, nfn: “Position du Gouvernement Français”
99
AN F1a 3663

37
 THE GERMANS BECOME CONCERNED

The day after Ingrand’s meeting, this situation changed when two attacks on German

soldiers were committed that immediately caught the attention of top officials in the occupation

government, including Otto von Stülpnagel, the military governor of France.101 Alphonse

Moser, a German sailor, was shot in a Paris metro station by two strangers while he was on his

way to work, and several hours later, a German corporal named Schölz was attacked in another

metro station. Schölz eventually recovered from his wounds, but Moser died hours after being

shot.102 These nearly simultaneous attacks clearly constituted a political statement and required

some kind of punitive response from the administration. When high German officials in Paris

met to discuss the crimes, they decided that this assassination was the work of communists and

as such necessitated severe punishment.103 However, the perpetrators could not be found. The

Vichy government was horrified that this incident might lead to horrendous German retaliation

and initiate a vicious cycle of resistance and reprisals. In an attempt to break this cycle before

it began, Vichy officials offered to carry out the necessary repression themselves. Dr. Ingrand

even proposed setting an example to the population by staging public executions in the squares

of Paris with a guillotine.104

100
AN F1a 3663
101
Militärbefehlshaber in Frankreich, often shortened in official documents to “MBF.”
102
Thomas J. Laub, “Resistance, Repression, and Reprisals: The German Military Administration in France,
1940–1944.” PhD diss., University of Virginia (2003), pp. 191–192.
103
The German administration habitually assumed that all resistance and partisan activity was of communist
origin. In an order sent to German military commanders throughout Europe, General Wilhelm Keitel explained
that “since the start of the campaign against Soviet Russia, communist insurrections have broken out everywhere
in areas occupied by Germany…Here is a mass movement, uniformly directed by Moscow which must be charged
with the responsibility even for separate incidents of seemingly minor importance in areas heretofore quiet….In
every case of rebellion against the German occupying power, no matter what the individual circumstances may be,
communist origins must be assumed to be present” (USNA RG 242 T-501 196 frames 1072–1074).
104
“Staastrat Ingrand…[erklärt], dass die Exekution der vom Sondergericht auszusprechenden Urteile in
demonstrativer Weise durch öffentliche Guillotinierung auf einem Platz von Paris erfolgen werde” (USNA RG
242 T-77 1614, folder 75 353, nfn: “Betr.: Attentat gegen einen deutschen Marineoffizier,” August 22, 1941).

38
Otto von Stülpnagel (at right) talks with Otto Abetz, the Francophile German ambassador in Paris.
Bleyer, Nestler, et al., Die faschistische Okkupationspolitik in Frankreich (1940–1944)

39
 Otto von Stülpnagel, however, was a traditional soldier, practical administrator, and

aristocrat who abhorred theatrical excesses. He decided on moderation for now.105 Enacting

no punishments himself, von Stülpnagel gave the French free reign to summarily convict and

execute six communists – sans the guillotine. More importantly, though, the MBF decided to

announce a policy of reprisals by which any further terrorist acts would lead to the execution of

previously selected French prisoners, termed “hostages,” who were being held in German jails.

This new policy was publicized in the newspapers and broadcast over the radio.106 Stülpnagel

hoped he would not have to employ it.

REPRISALS

He hoped in vain. On September 3, twelve days after the Moser murder, another

communist attack occurred. This time the victim was a German non-commissioned officer,

Sergeant Ernst Hoffman.107 In accordance with his policy, Stülpnagel ordered three “hostages”

executed. By now, however, the communist assassinations taking place in Paris had caught the

attention of the Führer, who sent Stülpnagel a harsh telegram via General Eduard Wagner. It

read:

The reprisal against the three communists (hostages) is much too mild!
The life of one German soldier is worth more to the Führer than three
French communists. He expects that such cases be answered with the
strictest reprisals!108

Hitler insisted that “shooting three hostages should only be the first measure taken,” and “if the

murderers are not delivered to the authorities at once, at least 50 more executions should be

105
According toWalter Bargatzky Stülpnagel was “kein Anhänger Hitlers, sondern stockkonservativ” (Herbert,
Best, p. 253).
106
USNA RG 242 T-77 165, frames 371–374
107
Noguères, Histoire de la Résistance en France, v. ii, p. 128.
108
“Die Vergeltungsmaßnahme an den drei Kommunisten (Geiseln) ist viel zu milde! Ein deutscher Soldat sei
ihm mehr wert als drei französische Kommunisten. Der Führer erwartet, daß in solchen Fällen mit den schärfsten
Vergeltungsmaßnahmen geantwortet werde!” (BAMA RW 35 543 18).

40
carried out, and those only of foremost communist leaders!” Furthermore, Hitler demanded

that Stülpnagel immediately arrest 300 more hostages and prepare to execute hostages at a ratio

of at least 100 for every one German soldier killed. The telegram closed with the solemn

reminder: “Ohne solche drakonischen Vergeltungen werde man der Dinge nicht Herr” –

without such draconian reprisals you will not bring the situation under control.109 This

telegram inaugurated a struggle between Stülpnagel’s efforts at practical administration and

Hitler’s will to brutally force the French population into submission. Sporadic but ongoing

communist attacks did not increase Stülpnagel’s credibility in the eyes of the Führer, and the

General gradually lost out to his harsher master. He was slowly forced to increase the severity

of his policy, executing more and more hostages every time the communists struck.110 With

attacks on the rise, reprisals became the order of the day in France, and many innocent

Frenchmen were killed. The most flagrant incident occurred on October 21, 1941, when

communists assassinated of a German colonel, the Feldkommandant of Nantes. This was the

first resistance assassination to take place outside Paris, and the first to target Wehrmacht

officer of considerable rank and position. Hitler and his military chief of staff, General

Wilhelm Keitel, were incensed and ordered the shooting of 100 to 150 hostages, but Stülpnagel

only condemned fifty of Nantes’ citizens to death.111 Forty-eight were executed.112

Some authors, such as M.R.D. Foot, argue that the initial communist assassinations and

the resultant German reprisals ultimately strengthened the resistance because German brutality

109
BAMA RW 35 543 18.
110
See Laub, “Resistance, Repression, and Reprisals: The German Military Administration in France, 1940–
1944.” PhD diss., University of Virginia, for a detailed study of the exchange between Stülpnagel and Berlin.
Thomas Laub reaches a slightly different conclusion in his study than that presented here – he argues that
Stülpnagel was able to delay and fend off for a time the harsher intentions of the Führer.
111
Ahlrich Meyer, Die deutsche Besatzung in Frankreich 1940–1944: Widerstandsbekämpfung und
Judenverfolgung (2000), pp. 62–63.
112
M.R.D. Foot, SOE in France: An Account of the Work of the British Special Operations Executive in France,
1940–1944 (1966), p. 117.

41
alienated the French population and broke down the image of German Korrektheit. Indeed, the

reprisals seemed to usher in an entirely new attitude on behalf of the French people, which

Professor Friedrich Grimm in his study of the occupation termed “Okkupationsmalaise.”113 For

some, the Nantes shootings took on a symbolic nature akin to the British execution of Irish

Republican Brotherhood leaders in 1916.114 Like the Irish rebels, the Nantes victims were

martyrs, and if the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church, some argue, the blood of

these men was the seed of the resistance. It could just as well be said, however, that the first

communist resistance was sporadic and ineffectual, only serving to inspire increased German

repression, which made it even harder for the early resisters to survive. Even after the Hoffman

murder, Stülpnagel reported that current resistance activity did not represent a real threat to

France’s domestic security, and assured Berlin that the French underground was too weak and

sporadic to effectively challenge the German occupation.115 If resistance was growing, the

effects were not yet apparent. In either case, one thing is certain: after the summer of 1941, it

became ever more difficult for Frenchmen not to take sides. The increasingly brutal nature of

the German administration and its mounting encroachment into everyday life created the

situation described by Camus in his Carnets: “The ivory towers have fallen. Complacency is

forbidden for oneself and for others.”116

113
Grimm, Frankreich Berichte, p. 158.
114
These harsh and unexpected executions turned many Irish people against the British who had originally
opposed the rising. In 1908 election, Sinn Féin was unpopular, and proved unable to secure even a single seat, but
in 1918 they roundly defeated their rivals, the Irish Parliamentary Party. The 1916 executions were partially
responsible for this sea-change in public opinion (John Ellis, From the Barrel of a Gun: A History of Guerilla,
Revolutionary and Counter-Insurgency Warfare, from the Romans to the Present (1995), p. 159).
115
Stülpnagel reported on September 11, 1941: “Die innere Sicherheit des Landes und die Sicherheit der
Besatzungsmacht sind nach wie vor z.Zt nicht bedroht” (BAMA RW 35 543 23).
116
Camus, Carnets, v. i, p. 172.

42
 THE NASCENT RESISTANCE AND THE LINK TO LONDON

The early non-communist resistance within France took two very different forms:

movements and networks. The movements were indigenous organizations usually created by

Frenchmen opposed to Vichy or the Germans, or both. The three main movements in the

southern zone were “COMBAT,” headed by ex-army officer Henri Frenay, “LIBÉRATION,” under

the social deviant Emmanual d’Astier de la Vigerie, and “FRANC-TIREUR,” founded by the

Jewish businessman Jean-Pierre Lévy.117 These movements eventually merged to form the

MUR, or Mouvements Unis de la Résistance. The prominent underground movements in the

occupied zone included “LIBERATION-NORD,” “CEUX DE LA LIBERATION,” “CEUX DE LA

RESISTANCE,” “L’ORGANISATION CIVILE ET MILITARE,” and “DEFENSE DE LA FRANCE.” These

organizations grew up in an ad-hoc and gradual manner. Some movements established

clandestine newspapers, while others set about trying to find recruits for the Armée Secrète, an

underground paramilitary organization theoretically comprising fighter from all of the

movements. In the occupied zone resistance usually took on a more militant character; in the

south it was naturally less constrained and free to be more political. Lyons became known as

the “capital of resistance,” where leading resisters would “go about openly, meet in cafés and

busy restaurants, not making the slightest effort to hide.”118 However, until the end of 1941 the

movements all faced a common problem: none was in touch with London. It was as well

known then as it is today that resistance movements require the support and succor of an

outside power in order to survive. In 1941 only Britain was in a position to be that power.

The networks established by the British Special Operations Executive were originally

the only link between the metropolitan resistance and London. One of Churchill’s infamous

117
Sweets, The Politics of Resistance in France, p. 34.
118
Christian Pineau, Le Simple vérité, p. 99, quoted in Sweets, The Politics of Resistance in France, p. 21.

43
brainstorms, SOE was created in the summer of 1940 after the fall of France and placed under

Hugh Dalton’s Ministry of Economic Warfare. Churchill ordered Dalton to “set Europe

ablaze” with partisan warfare in the absence of any other means of striking at a seemingly

invincible Germany. SOE and later the American OSS (Office of Strategic Services) infiltrated

agents into France to set up networks designed to carry out sabotage operations. At this time it

was dreamed that European resistance movements might constitute a “fourth arm” (as opposed

to the traditional three: army, navy, air force) in the war against Germany.119 These

organizations were small, usually involving less than 100 people. They were often given

curious code names such as AUTOGIRO, DONKEYMAN, PIMENTO, WHEELWRIGHT, and DITCHER.120

Their missions included intelligence, sabotage, and the repatriation of downed pilots or

prisoners of war. The SOE and OSS networks were led by professional agents and trained

commandos suspicious of amateurs, and therefore usually remained separate from the activities

of the larger movements. They were not therefore in a position to provide the link to London

which the wider resistance sought.

The real foreign connection came in October of 1941 when the former prefect of

Chartres, Jean Moulin, turned resister and traveled from France to London to meet with

General de Gaulle. This was a fateful event, for after this meeting the general began slowly to

realize the potential political asset the resistance presented. He eventually sent Moulin back

into occupied France as his official representative with the title, Délégué Générale du Général

de Gaulle en France.121 Moulin was charged with setting up a unified council of the resistance

119
David Stafford, Britain and European Resistance, 1940–1945: A Survey of the Special Operations Executive,
with Documents (1980), p. 29).
120
Foot, SOE in France.
121
Henri Michel, Histoire de la Résistance en France, 1940–1944 (1972), p. 44.

44
movements that, through him, would tie them to de Gaulle’s organization in London.122 In this

difficult task he succeeded, and from 1942 on, de Gaulle began to exercise ever more control

over, and demand more centralization within, the interior resistance. De Gaulle strove to

centralize the movements in France because he saw them as potential political rivals, and

wished to bring them all under his control. Centralization and obedience to his orders became

the condition for his aiding the resistance. In any event, by 1942, two tenuous links had been

established between London and the interior resistance, that of de Gaulle and Moulin on the

one hand, and that of the SOE networks on the other.

RESISTANCE AT THE CLOSE OF 1942

One cannot yet speak of military effectiveness in the French resistance at the close of

1942. Although some isolated sabotage operations were carried out by SOE – the spectacular

destruction of the electrical station at Pessac, for example – by and large the resistance was

without arms or support from the general population.123 If contemporaneous German reports

are any indication, organized resistance was virtually nowhere to be found in France before

1943. The stir that the assassinations of Midshipman Moser and Sergeant Hoffman created in

higher circles serves to demonstrate the unusual nature of such incidents. The fact that the

murder of a mere naval cadet in Paris came to the attention of Hitler and Keitel, who were busy

running an enormous war in the east, reveals how uncommon resistance activity was.

Paris was not a dangerous place for a German soldier. Official reports classify sabotage

as infrequent and “not particularly preoccupying for the troops.”124 Franz Halder reminisced

122
For a brief description of Moulin’s mission see Jackson, The Dark Years, pp. 449–456. For more detail, see
Daniel Cordier, Jean Moulin: La République des catacombes (1999), pp. 127–196.
123
Bob Moore, Resistance in Western Europe, p. 129.
124
Cordier, Jean Moulin, p. 108.

45
after the war about how, during this time, “single motor vehicles could be driven without

encountering difficulties even at night.”125 Germans stationed in occupied Paris describe the

city as enchanting, not fearful. Lothar Tank, a German author in Paris at the behest of

Goebbels, wrote: “Le charme de Paris est difficile à effacer.”126 The general commanding the

German XIII Division, the army unit officially stationed in Paris, attempted to monopolize the

city’s pleasures for his own men, forbidding soldiers from other units to reside in his city. All

of the Wehrmacht’s officers were so eager to be in Paris, however, that the army as a whole

ignored this order. Every conceivable administrative organization in the Reich fought to

establish an office in the ville de lumière – even the headquarters for governing the occupied

English Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey located itself in Paris! In the Wehrmacht it

became common to hear: “Jeder einmal in Paris” – everyone should get to Paris once.127 Some

German occupiers enjoyed themselves so much that einmal simply wasn’t enough, and many

returned to France after the war – a certain Café Tournon was apparently frequented by former

Luftwaffe officers well into the 1950s.128

The German security services, the Gestapo and Sicherheitsdienst, also found the

resistance exceedingly easy to penetrate, especially after German police functions in France

were transferred from the Wehrmacht to the SS in the spring of 1942.129 The resistance’s

endemic lack of security was due in large part to widespread amateurism, prevalent even

among its élite. The Gestapo was able to repeatedly decapitate the entire organization by

arresting high-ranking resisters. General Delestraint himself, head of the Armée Secrète, was

125
USNA RG 338 MS C-037
126
Geiger, L’image de la France, p. 358.
127
Ian Ousby, Occupation: The Ordeal of France 1940–1944 (1997), p. 57.
128
Richard Cobb, French and Germans, Germans and French, p. 74.
129
The SS gave responsibility for policing in France to Carl Oberg, whose prior post assignment had been to
police occupied Poland.

46
taken when he absent-mindedly registered for a hotel room using his real name.130 The German

occupation of the southern zone at the end of 1942 led to a shocking number of arrests among

top resistance leaders the following year, and some movements nearly collapsed. Moulin

himself was arrested in June. After his arrest de Gaulle appointed two successors, only to see

one, Jacques Bingen, arrested (he later killed himself in prison) while the other, Claude

Serreulles, had his apartment raided and narrowly escaped arrest himself.131 After the Gestapo

discovered Serreulles, de Gaulle’s chief representative in France became Emile Bollaert, who

held the post for only three months (November 1943–February 1944) before he too was

arrested.132

A network in the southern zone was entirely destroyed when a German agent snatched a

briefcase from a courier who had nodded off on a train. Inside were papers listing the names of

200 leading members, all of whom were promptly arrested.133 The resistance had no counter-

intelligence service whatsoever. A British observer lamented: “counter espionage intelligence

is practically a one-way traffic from the field to London.”134 It was the absence of counter-

intelligence that permitted such fiascos as the case of agent “Brown,” a Gestapo spy who

infiltrated FRANC-TIREUR in Nice, Marseilles, Toulon, and Grenoble, then went on in the same

area to round up members of COMBAT, whose frequent plenary meetings gave him the chance to

identify leading resisters.135 In the Côtes-du-Nord, the Gestapo exerted itself even less: it was

able simply to arrest much of the Armée Secrète in the area when many members dutifully

responded with their names and addresses to a false chain letter which claimed to be from the

130
Sweets, The Politics of Resistance in France, p. 94, n. 99.
131
Foot, SOE in France, p. 242.
132
Michel, Histoire de la Résistance, p. 44.
133
This was the famous Carte network, whose downfall caused such scandal at SOE (Stafford, Britain and
European Resistance, p. 92).
134
PRO HS 6 329 No. 85
135
PRO KV 6 17

47
Free French and demanded registration of loyal Frenchmen who would join the Allies when

they landed.136

Besides amateurism, however, the centralization that de Gaulle’s organization began to

impose upon the resistance after Moulin’s return to France in March 1942 greatly undermined

its military security. While the communist resistance wisely remained cellular in its operational

nature, de Gaulle forced the movements which came under his control to act in a dangerously

exposed manner. The general had no mandate from the French people, nor any legal basis to

rule the country after the war, and thus seized upon the resistance as a tool he hoped would

generate some desperately needed legitimacy to secure his rule when France was liberated by

the Allies. He saw in the resistance not a military force to use against the Germans, but a

political asset to employ against the British, Americans, and rival French pretenders in his quest

for the rule of postwar France. For de Gaulle, being a good ally was a secondary concern

which came after securing his own political power. While in London the general once

remarked:

I have now become a political man, and as a politician I am frequently

obliged to say the exact opposite of what I actually think or feel; thus
when speaking on the B.B.C., I pretend to be a good friend of Britain in
order to create a good impression abroad and keep going the Resistance
in France. You all remember how, when you joined me, you were told
by my Secret Service that England was no friend of ours, and that
England, like Germany, is our hereditary enemy. This you must always
keep in mind. Russia will undoubtedly win the war in the field, so I am
obliged to keep on good terms with that country….When I am in power
in France after the war, I shall ask Russia for time to reorganise without
her intervention. Russia will agree to this as she needs a strong France
to balance the power in Europe. I shall then have accomplished what
Hitler failed to do – become master of Europe.137

136
AN F1a 3782
137
De Gaulle made these comments in 1943, after drinking too much at a luncheon (PRO FO 371 36047).

48
It was with this mindset that de Gaulle deliberately assigned priority to centralization under his

control (rather than operational security) within the resistance. His determination to impose his

will on the underground movements is embodied in the words of advice he gave his last

Délégué Général, Alexadre Parodi, in a telegram dated July 31, 1944: “While the multiple

formations and action of our admirable interior resistance are the means by which the nation is

struggling for its salvation…the State is above all these formations and actions….You are the

representative of the Government. That is to say that in the last resort your orders must be

imposed.”138

The general’s insistence upon a dangerous centralization combined with already

prevalent Gestapo infiltration to further sap the strength of the movements. Attrition increased.

Between May 1942 and May 1943 the French police – to whom the Germans delegated the task

of hunting down and eliminating the resistance – arrested 16,000 resisters.139 All of the ten

departmental leaders de Gaulle appointed in the Toulouse region in 1943 were arrested within

twelve months.140 In October of the same year, de Gaulle produced a list of prefects he

intended bring into his government at the liberation, but by the spring of 1944 he was forced to

remake the list – 55 of the original 100 men he had appointed had been arrested by the

Gestapo.141 Leaders who defied the general’s command to centralize and those who demanded

more military security were often removed. A captain in the Haute Savoie who refused the

“stream of delegates and interdepartmental inspectors” sent by the de Gaulle and declined, for

obvious security reasons, to attend mandatory weekly meetings with other regional leaders in

Lyons was predicted by SOE to be sacked and replaced with someone more “politically

138
Jacques Soustelle, Envers et contre tout, v. ii, pp. 420–421, quoted in Sweets, The Politics of Resistance in
France, p. 112.
139
According to the Bousquet-Oberg agreement of August 8, 1942, Berlin granted the French police near-
autonomy but also made them responsible for dealing with the resistance.

49
minded.”142 De Gaulle cared so little for security that he sent his own intelligence chief,

Colonel Passy, into France on a mission!

Despite these enormous problems, 1941 remains the seed time of the resistance. While

no militarily effective resistance yet existed, the nucleus of what could one day become one

was present in the movements and SOE networks. Liaison with a foreign power, Britain, had

been established, and arms might be forthcoming. A significant commitment on behalf of the

British to arm and supply the resistance definitely had the potential to transform the French

underground into an effective military force. The population, confronted with the reality of

German reprisals, also found it more difficult to treat the war as a matter of no concern.

Additionally, Russia and America had now joined Britain. Germany’s chances for victory were

looking slightly smaller than in 1940, and it only remained to be seen how England’s new allies

would perform.

140
Sweets, The Politics of Resistance in France, p. 67, n. 135.
141
Sweets, The Politics of Resistance in France, p. 108.
142
PRO HS 6 329 No. 38

50
 IV

ERA OF THE MAQUIS

NORTH AFRICA

On the morning of November 8th 1942, British and American troops hit the beaches of

Algeria and French Morocco. This amphibious assault opened a campaign that would drive

Rommel’s Afrika Korps back to Tunis and then across the sea to Sicily. The initial

repercussions of this Allied triumph, however, only seemed to bring more misery on the French

resistance. When the Allies landed, they entertained hopes that the French army in North

Africa would regard them as liberators and facilitate their arrival.143 Instead, the French

military remained staunchly loyal to Pétain, welcoming the Allies on the beaches with deadly

artillery and machine gun fire. The few French commanders who instructed their units not to

fight were surrounded, disarmed, and put under arrest.144 In the end, the French managed to

delay the Allied advance long enough for the Germans and Italians to rush 68,000 men and

hundreds of fighters and bombers into North Africa (at the invitation of the Vichy governor)

through the port of Tunis, which the Allies had originally planned to capture within several

143
Eisenhower wrote to Marshall on August 15, 1942, “the operation has more than fair chances of success
provided Spain stays absolutely neutral and the French forces either offer only token resistance or are so badly
divided by internal dissension and by Allied political maneuvering that effective resistance will be negligible”
(The Eisenhower Papers, I, p. 471, No. 430).
144
Allied hopes that the French would prove sympathetic were misplaced. The British and Americans should have
entertained more realistic expectations of the prevailing mood at Vichy and in the French army, since they had
access to the diplomatic traffic of Vichy’s embassy in Washington (the United States, unlike Britain, had opened
diplomatic relations with Vichy) and were deciphering the communications of its naval attaché there (Weinberg, A
World at Arms, p. 432, n. 61). The U.S. Consul-General in Algiers, Robert Murphy, and his team of vice-consuls
had worked in Vichy North Africa for eighteen months and were well informed about political realities there.
General Eisenhower, however, was taken aback by what he saw as the Gordian Knot of French politics, and was
totally unprepared for the negative French reaction in 1942 (Arthur Funk, The Politics of TORCH: The Allied
Landings and the Algiers Putsch, 1942, pp. 181–182).

51
days.145 This failure gravely disillusioned the British and Americans about the French potential

for resistance. Support for the metropolitan movements fell off precipitously as the Allies

resolved not to be taken for fools again when they invaded France proper.146

On top of this military setback, the Allies in North Africa faced an unsavory political

imbroglio as they searched for someone in the French establishment with sufficient prestige

who would side with them against the Germans and order the Vichy troops to stop fighting.

The Allies had deliberately left de Gaulle’s organization out of the planning for the invasion of

North Africa, code-named TORCH, because they were aware that the regular French army and

Navy detested de Gaulle and regarded him as a deserter.147 Instead they employed General

Henri Giraud, who had recently escaped from a German POW camp. Giraud seemed the

logical choice because he far outranked de Gaulle, boasting five stars to de Gaulle’s provisional

two, and was thought to have much more support among the French troops in Africa.148 When

Giraud failed to deliver and the Vichy army resisted the Allied landings, the Americans began

to search for another French spokesman. They eventually settled upon Admiral Jean-Fraçois

Darlan, Pétain’s deputy Premier and Commander-in-Chief of Vichy’s armed forces. Darlan

proved to be a success. After his conversion to the Allied side, the Admiral worked loyally

with the Americans and brought over the bulk of the French Army, a feat at which de Gaulle

had consistently failed. The Gaullists, however, regarded Darlan as a quasi-fascist parvenu to

resistance and despised him all the more for his successes with the army. On Christmas Eve of

1942, Darlan was assassinated. It is not entirely clear who was behind the assassination, but de

Gaulle stands out as a likely candidate. There is irrefutable evidence that he was at one time at

145
Gerhard Weinberg, A World at Arms, p. 434.
146
General Eisenhower’s Naval Aide wrote in 1944 that recent intelligence made him “wonder if we are hoping
too much for French resistance. Will it not be more like the attitude of the French in North Africa?” (Harry
Butcher, My Three Years with Eisenhower, pp. 522–523).

52
least planning to have Darlan killed, but whether he was ultimately behind the deed itself is as

yet unproven.149 Darlan’s assassination forced the exasperated Americans to bring in Giraud a

second time. Yet more problems occurred when de Gaulle refused to subjugate himself to

Giraud, despite the later’s greatly superior rank. The Americans, eternal democrats, naturally

preferred Giraud because he was a general without political ambitions (in stark contrast to de

Gaulle, whom Roosevelt saw as a potential demagogue). In an act of open defiance, de Gaulle

refused to attend the inter-allied conference at Casablanca because of his differences with

Roosevelt and Giraud. Churchill finally compelled de Gaulle to come by insisting that if the

Free French leader forced him to chose between his friendship and Roosevelt’s, the Prime

Minister would always chose Roosevelt’s. Nevertheless, de Gaulle and Giraud continued to

squabble at Algiers, the new headquarters of the Free French. All this internecine scheming

drove the Allies, and especially General Eisenhower, to intense frustration and cast further

doubt on the possibilities of cultivating a meaningful French resistance.

Even more tragic for the resistance was the German occupation of southern France.

Vichy’s apparent inability to defend her empire, and the threat posed by Allied forces in North

Africa, prompted the Wehrmacht to invade the hitherto unoccupied zone libre. This action was

in direct violation of the 1940 armistice,150 but it inspired no immediate resistance from

officials at Vichy or the generals in the French army. German occupation of the south

eliminated the haven which resisters seeking refuge from the Feldgendarmerie or Gestapo had

previously found there. Lyons, for so long known as the capital of the resistance, became

147
Funk, The Politics of TORCH, 1942, pp. 38–41.
148
Funk, The Politics of TORCH, 1942, pp. 45–47.
149
For a summary of the conspiracy theories see Jackson, The Dark Years, pp. 447–448.
150
see Appendix I

53
Churchill and Roosevlet force de Gaulle to
meet with General Giraud at Casablanca

Admiral Jean-François Darlan

54
“capital of the Gestapo.”151 In 1943 a horrendous string of arrests plagued the exposed

resistance, devastating its top leadership.152 Finally, the remainder of the French navy scuttled

itself in Toulon harbor rather than submit to the Germans or sail across the Mediterranean to

join the Allies.153 As the once-proud French fleet sank to the bottom of the sea, so too did the

Allies’ last hope that at least one of the many resistances present in 1942 – de Gaulle’s,

Giraud’s or Darlan’s – would obtain a respectable naval force for future use against Nazi

Germany.

Despite these reverses, the Allied invasion of North Africa would ultimately inspire the

formation of militarily significant resistance in France. After 1943 the resistance ceased to be

the exclusive domain of marginalized urban cliques and expanded rapidly to embrace a wider

cross-section of society. Several factors prepared this monumental shift. The entry of Russia

and the United States into the war increased the growing possibility of Allied victory, and made

resistance seem less futile. The German occupation of Vichy France, while initially

disadvantageous to the resistance, eventually increased popular support for it by gradually

discrediting Pétain’s regime. Germany’s blatant aggression made a sham of the 1940 Armistice

and ended all illusions about Berlin’s respect for French sovereignty in the new European

order. All this combined to create a climate ripe for resistance within France by late 1942.

Only a catalyst was needed. It came in the form of a German labor program called the Service

du Travail Obligatoire.

151
Doulas Porch, The French Secret Services, p. 236.
152
This series of arrests convinced the resistance movements to move their headquarters from Lyons to the relative
safety of Paris in the late summer of 1943 (Sweets, The Politics of Resistance in France, pp. 63–64).
153
The French did however allow the Germans to take their ships in Tunisia (Weinberg, A World at Arms, p. 374).

55
 STO

During the Second World War, all industrialized countries faced the problem of

replacing factory workers mobilized for military service. In Russia, Stalin simply enslaved or

conscripted into the factories every man, woman, and child not already in the military. The

United States, without such methods at its disposal, encouraged women to work in war

industries, giving rise to popular images of “Rosie the Riveter.” Nazi Germany, on the other

hand, undertook to spare its Aryan women this undignified task by importing forced laborers

(Zwangsarbeiter) from occupied countries like France.154 It was with this purpose in mind that

Fritz Sauckel, Hitler’s “Plenipotentiary of Foreign Labor,” arrived in Paris during the summer

of 1942, demanding 250,000 men be drafted for work in the war factories of the Reich.155 The

Vichy government countered with an alternative suggestion to which Sauckel proved amenable.

They called it the Relève, or “relief.” Rather than be conscripted, French workers would

volunteer to work in German factories with the understanding that for every three men so

employed, one French prisoner of war would return from a German camp.156 The results of

Vichy’s attempt to make collaboration patriotic were disappointing, however, as French

workers proved understandably hesitant to displace across the Rhine. Sauckel barely fulfilled

his quota. After the German occupation of the south, therefore, he abandoned the Relève and

insisted instead upon open conscription with the goal of forcing 250,000 more French men to

work in Germany. In response to his demand Pétain’s government enacted the Service du

154
Because Hitler wished to spare his subjects the burdens of total war, he deliberately kept the German economy
in a peacetime footing until 1942, when he was finally forced to mobilize it for industrialized warfare. The Führer
was determined even then to use foreign slave labor in the factories instead of German women so that his people
could experience a foretaste of the benefits that accruing to the master race (Weinberg, A World at Arms, p. 477).
155
Saukel’s title was “Generalbevollmächtiger für den Arbeitseinsatz” (Eberhard Jäckel, Frankreich in Hitlers
Europa: die Deutsche Frankreichpolitik im Zweiten Weltkrieg (1966), p. 223).
156
Under the terms of the Armistice (Article 20), French POWs taken during the campaign of 1940 were still
being held in German prison camps (see Appendix I).

56
 Poster advertising the Relève
Henri Noguères, Histoire de la Résistance en France de 1940 à 1945

57
Travail Obligatoire, or STO, on February 16, 1943. It was a labor draft, and stipulated that all

males born between 1920 and 1922 register for work in Germany. STO affected an enormous

number of Frenchmen, and made France Germany’s largest supplier of foreign male labor in

1943.157 However, those who had so far managed to avoid conscription naturally wished to

continue to do so, and those who had experienced work in Germany had no wish to return.158

Such men often went into hiding to avoid the labor draft. They became known as

“réfractaires.”159 Circumstances compelled many of them to leave their native towns, where

local police were often familiar with their relatives and probable whereabouts, and turn to the

open country in search of some other, more practicable hiding place. This demand for rural

sanctuary generated what became known as the maquis.

THE MAQUIS

The dramatic effects of the Relève and STO on the relationship of the French population

to resistance are difficult to underestimate. Labor conscription shattered the insular lives many

people had been able to lead since the Armistice. For some, STO became their first personal

contact with the realities of the war. As historian H.R. Kedward points out, Vichy’s labor draft

“brought the language of deportation and the facts of authoritarianism into village squares and

rural towns which had existed since 1940 in relative isolation from the German Occupation and

157
France provided even more foreign labor than Russia that year. Nine months after the advent of STO,
1,344,000 Frenchmen were toiling in German factories (Robert Paxton, Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order,
1940–1944 (1972), p. 366).
158
This first batch of workers was permitted to return to France on leave, but when 72,000 deserted, the Germans
revoked this privilege (EPL, Walter Bedell Smith: Collection of World War II documents 1941–1945, Box 30,
SHAEF G-2 Weekly Intelligence Summaries, Summary No. 3).
159
Vichy originally branded these men “défaillants” or “insoumis,” but these terms were soon replaced with the
“réfractaire,” which had positive connotations, at least among Catholics who remembered the refractory priests
who would not adhere to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy in 1790 (Roderick Kedward, In Search of the
Maquis: Rural Resistance in Southern France, 1942–1944 (1993), p. 21).

58
from state interference.”160 With the advent of STO, then, the French resistance began to

meander its way out of the confines of the urban centers and into the broader reaches of rural

France.

By 1942 some French farmers and peasants had grown weary of the Vichy regime, and

many took in the workers who came wandering out of the cities in defiance of the Relève.

Arrangements to support these men developed in an ad-hoc fashion as bemused farmers

struggled to accommodate their new guests. One farmer in the Lot not only sheltered and fed

the transient workers, but even provided them with a stipend of 15 francs per day from

collections taken up among neighbors.161 When peasants proved hostile, as they often did, or

shelter could not be found on a farm, many workers turned to the woods, where the German

demand for French lumber had generated a proliferation of small timberland camps. The

lumberjacks who ran these camps usually asked few questions, and often proved willing to

employ as well as feed men dodging the Relève.162 To avoid police, workers-in-hiding were

often forced to move from camp to farm and back again. In any event, it was not usually

difficult to locate some form of shelter in the country. “So many outbuildings, farms, and even

whole hamlets were disused or depopulated in the upper regions of the southern zone,”

Kedward remarks, “that a dry, solid stone building as a hiding-place was not a luxury.”163

In the French countryside, therefore, a curious infrastructure of hiding gradually took

root. Workers formed tenuous networks of safe houses, and groups of counterfeiters equipped

incoming men with false ration cards and identity papers, which after the occupation of the

zone sud were necessary even in rural areas, where encounters with members of a German

160
Kedward, In Search of the Maquis, p. 7.
161
Kedward, In Search of the Maquis, p. 15.
162
Kedward, In Search of the Maquis, p. 15.
163
Kedward, In Search of the Maquis, p. 17.

59
garrison could never be entirely ruled out. Some groups managed to scrape together small

caches of arms, composed usually of hunting weapons and museum pieces, to defend

themselves. Gradually, these loose organizations became somewhat professionalized as

“would-be resisters became aware of what was required to maintain successful networks and

began to understand more clearly the nature of the enemy they faced.”164 By the end of 1942,

the small, disorganized rural resistance that had formed in reaction to the Relève was slowly

maturing and becoming more efficient at its task of hiding réfractaires.

This all changed with the advent of STO. After February, 1943 the trickle of urban

workers entering the countryside became a flood. Men attempting to evade the clutches of

Sauckel’s labor draft surged into the mountains, farms and woodland camps, and were

inevitably channeled into the networks of hiding established during the previous year. With the

enormous influx of new men, these small networks clumsily transformed and evolved into large

units called maquis, after the Corsican word for brushland. Veteran resisters imagined that in

these burgeoning groups lay the potential to someday wage large-scale guerrilla warfare

resembling that taking place in Yugoslavia and Greece. M.R.D. Foot remarks, “essentially, it

was from the maquis that the national uprising was to find its bases. For these groups of

outliers were ideally placed to collect and hide stores of parachuted arms, and could be trained

to use them in reasonable conditions of security; much more securely in fact than people could

be trained in villages, where elaborate cover was needed to deceive the Germans and none

could deceive the gossips.”165 Here then was the first grand opportunity for the French

resistance to have significant effects on the wider war.

164
Bob Moore in Bob Moore, ed., Resistance in Western Europe, p. 252.
165
Foot, SOE in France, p. 283.

60
 Unfortunately, many weaknesses undermined the effectiveness of the maquis as

guerrilla organizations. Not least of these, ironically, was the very thing that had created them

in the first place: the great surge of workers from the towns following STO. Like the old guard

of the Russian Bolshevik party after the revolution of 1917, the original “maquis,”

professionalized resisters who had fashioned the hiding networks in the countryside and knew

how to carry on clandestine life suddenly found themselves a minority in their own

organization. The quaint structure of early rural resistance began to overflow and crack under

the strain of so many new men. A French officer who started a maquis group in the Isère

complained after STO about the strain imposed on his organization by the attempt to

accommodate groups of “young men who keep arriving, usually exhausted, with their shoes

worn out and without either ration cards or blankets.”166 One maquis captain was forced to turn

away 50% of the men who came to him.167 This overflow problem was never quite alleviated.

In the spring of 1944, a B-17 pilot shot down over France was surprised to stumble upon 180

men living in the woods near Sarlande crammed into two houses and a few small tents.168

Some maquis units were even burdened with the task of absorbing recruits flooding in from

faraway regions. Four hundred men in Brittany, for example, finding no organization capable

of hiding them in their area, migrated all the way to Provence before they found suitable

refuge.169 All of the réfractaires from Paris could not be hidden in the suburbs and usually had

to be given false papers and sent out in small groups by rail to rural areas in the south.170 It

became impossible to counterfeit identity papers for so many new réfractaires, and many

maquis units only provided papers to those men whom they could afford to feed and house in

166
PRO HS 6 329 No. 89
167
PRO HS 6 329 No. 32
168
PRO HS 6 329 Nos. 12–13
169
These men ended up in the département of Vaucluse (PRO HS 6 329 No. 18).

61
their camps during the wintertime. All others were compelled to leave the maquis temporarily

and work on farms or in lumber camps where they could at least be fed, returning once a week

for military training. These men were not given false identification and were thus at the mercy

of the first German patrol they met.171

The influx of so many men also led to a breakdown in the tenuous discipline of

clandestine life that had been established before STO. Leaders found it difficult to control their

new recruits, many of whom came from the cities and quickly grew tired of the slow pace of

rural life. One British officer reports that, in the later half of 1943, the Germans and Italians

were having a difficult time rooting out the maquis camps in the southeast owing to the

mountainous terrain, but that they were nonetheless able to arrest many maquis because “they

become bored and go down to the villages, though instructed not to do so.”172 Our B-17 pilot at

Sarlande was shocked at the cavalier manner in which the maquis would go into town and

participate in dances and festivities fully armed, attempting to impress local women with tales

of their resistance bravery.173 To prevent his men from “drinking and boasting and running

after girls,” one maquis captain made a policy of confiscating his men’s money on arrival.174

Needless to say, these impudent, drunken, and frequent forays into the villages broke down the

already weak system of security, which stood, as one historian comments, “certainly below

women and tobacco” on their list of priorities175 Some captains attempted to alleviate the

endemic boredom by promoting random sabotage and raids on neighboring farms, but it

quickly became evident that these actions alienated the local populations upon which the

170
PRO HS 6 329 No. 18
171
PRO HS 6 329 No. 18
172
PRO HS 6 329 No. 58
173
PRO HS 6 329 No. 13
174
PRO HS 6 329 No. 89
175
Foot, SOE in France, p. 283.

62
maquis relied for support in the countryside.176 Conditions were harsh, especially during the

winter months. The MUR tried to alleviate these circumstances somewhat by setting up a

“service maquis” to aid and provision the réfractaires, but its resources were severely limited,

and life in the maquis was never glamorous. Two French officers admitted that many of the

men in their maquis had spent the winter of 1943–44 barefoot.177 Under such conditions,

desertion became prevalent. Most captains announced a death penalty for deserters, but rarely

carried it out – unless the accused was found to be a double agent.178

This circumstance was not entirely rare, as the Gestapo found the maquis even simpler

than the urban movements to infiltrate. By 1943 the Germans had decided that defensive

measures were insufficient to counteract resistance sabotage, and that “the only effective

countermeasure lies in actively attacking them – seeking them out and rounding them up.”179

To this end the Gestapo poured out into the countryside. One resister told SOE: “the Germans

penetrate even the smallest French villages and plant or recruit informers there. In one village

with only 400 inhabitants, the garde-champetre, two young prostitutes, and a young woman

employed at the prefecture are all German-paid informers.”180 The Gestapo, however, was not

the main German arm against the rural maquis. The Germans sometimes employed their

Feldgendarmerie, but overwhelmingly preferred to call out the Milice française, or French

Militia. Even though the SS had taken over police functions in France from the Wehrmacht,

they were glad to delegate anti-maquis activity to the French – they only needed to find a

competent French organization they could trust. The Milice fit the bill. It was a paramilitary

176
PRO HS 6 329 No. 20
177
PRO HS 6 329 No. 90
178
PRO HS 6 329 No. 66
179
See the “Inquiry into the Prevention of Rail Sabotage” prepared by General Günther Blumentritt at OB West
and sent to the German construction firm Organisation Todt on February 19, 1944 (Bleyer, Nestler, et al, Die
faschistische Okkupationspolitik in Frankreich (1940–1944) (1990), pp. 303–304, No. 213)
180
PRO HS 6 329 No. 53

63
organization founded at the beginning of 1943 by the French fascist Joseph Darnand. When

Darnand decided to become an SS officer himself and swore an oath of personal fealty to Adolf

Hitler, the SS was impressed, and began to supply his militia with arms and money.181 Like

their foes in the resistance, the men of the Milice saw themselves as patriots. They

consequently saw the maquis as traitors and therefore had no qualms about carrying out

atrocities against them, especially since Article 10 of the Armistice declared resisters outside

the protection of the Geneva Convention.182 Because of its cruelty and eagerness, Darnand’s

private army became an implacable foe of the maquis. The two forces often did savage battle,

fighting a small-scale civil war in the French hinterland. The Germans naturally smiled upon

this development, for it meant they were able to deal with the maquis simply by throwing

expendable French bodies at the problem. Gestapo reports from February and March 1944

indicate that more Frenchmen were indeed perishing as a result of resistance activity than

Germans.183

The maquis encountered another dramatic problem at the end of 1944, just as the

réfractaires seemed to be overcoming their amateurism and adapting to life in hiding: Vichy

announced an amnesty for réfractaires. This official pardon allowed them to return home

without fear of legal prosecution, and Pétain guaranteed that no new workers would be sent to

Germany until after the New Year. Moreover, the regime promised any réfractaires who

reported before the end of the year that if they were ever called up for STO again, they would

be assured placement not only in France rather than Germany, but even somewhere in the

181
Julian Jackson, The Dark Years, pp. 230–231.
182
See Appendix I.
183
For example, in March 1944, numbers killed as a result of terrorist attacks were: 74 Germans, 243 Frenchmen.
See Gestapo reports at AN 72 AJ 260. These figures are also cited in a French intelligence synthesis sent to de
Gaulle’s organization, which can be found at AN F1a 3782.

64
vicinity of their hometowns.184 This measure severely undermined the strength of the maquis

as young men who they had trained and provisioned suddenly left in droves. Local historians

in the Corrèze wrote of the amnesty: “[it] brought about a spectacular reduction in the number

of maquis effectives for the AS [Armée Secrète] in the Haute-Corrèze. In particular, the young

men of the region took advantage of it to get themselves hired by local businesses.”185

THE PROBLEM OF ARMS

For all of its difficulties, the maquis still had a chance to recover and evolve into an

effective fighting force. It would be fallacious to assume that any organization with serious

problems is necessarily ineffective. Even the most highly successful organizations – and

especially armies during wartime – are constantly grappling with unexpected difficulties.

Entire volumes could be written about the severe problems plaguing the US Army in North

Africa at the close of 1942, for example. That army was, nonetheless, victorious. But the

French maquis faced one problem that would lead to certain failure if not overcome: a

devastating dearth of arms. All guerrilla armies require steady supply from an outside power in

order to survive, and resistance leaders were aware by early 1943 that their failure to secure

such assistance would constitute a fatal setback.

Until the summer of that year, when de Gaulle was able to set up his own organization

in Algiers, the French resistance had to rely solely upon SOE for supply. This was not

immediately forthcoming. The fetish for partisan warfare Churchill had entertained in 1940

when he ordered Hugh Dalton to “set Europe ablaze” quickly faded as Britain fought for her

very life against the Blitz and the threat of invasion. Despite the pleas of SOE and Lord

184
Kedward, In Search of the Maquis, pp. 74–75.
185
Kedward, In Search of the Maquis, p. 75, n. 9.

65
Selborne, Minister of Economic Warfare186 since February 1942, Whitehall habitually paid the

interior resistance little mind. This situation changed in March 1943, following the release of

an informal committee report on resistance movements in Europe.187 The report claimed that

“sabotage material and weapons in the hands of Resistance Groups within the enemy’s lines are

likely to pay a relatively big dividend and could make a large contribution to the enemy’s

military defeat” but advised that “unless present delivery facilities are considerably increased,

full value will not be obtained from Resistance Groups at the crucial moment.” The “crucial

moment” was of course the anticipated landings in northwest Europe, termed “D-Day,” by

which time the EPF Committee urged the resistance must be prepared to act. It estimated that

by the time the Allies were ready to land, the strength of French resistance groups would be

approximately 225,000.188

Lord Selborne seized upon this report, offering it the Prime Minister as evidence that

SOE’s operations were worthwhile and required more backing from on high. Selborne’s

problem was that while SOE had equipment and agents ready to aid the resistance, it lacked the

planes to deliver them. Moreover, the Royal Air Force was ill-disposed to relinquish any of its

precious bombers to SOE just as it appeared to be reaching a critical point in its life-and-death

aerial offensive over the Reich. Arthur Harris, head of Bomber Command, and Sir Charles

Portal, Chief of the Air Staff, were in no position to yield to SOE, which they regarded as an

ungentlemanly institution. Portal noted in a private letter: “I think that the dropping of men

dressed in civilian clothes for the purpose of attempting to kill members of the opposing forces

186
At the cabinet level, SOE was represented by the Ministry of Economic Warfare (MEW).
187
This committee responsible for the report was the Equipment of Patriot Forces Committee, or “EPF
Committee.”
188
Foot, SOE in France, p. 234. The numbers and conclusions laid down in this report are highly suspect. Foot
comments that they “can have been based on nothing but inspired guesswork” (Foot, SOE in France, p. 234). In a
copy of the EPF report in British archives, one finds “ROT” written and underlined in the margin next to the
figures (PRO AIR 8 1749).

66
is not an operation with which the Royal Air Force should be associated.”189 Selborne

disagreed and continued to put pressure on Churchill throughout the summer.190

The Prime Minister had by this time decided that the resistance movement in

Yugoslavia was indeed a great asset to the Allied war effort,191 but he reserved doubts about the

potential of the French resistance. Sir Charles Portal reinforced these doubts and countered

Selborne’s requests for bombers by reporting to Churchill that, in his view, supplying the

French resistance would be of little strategic value. In a letter to the Prime Minister, he

admitted that SOE’s support of the Yugoslavian partisans “should give us good and immediate

results,” but questioned the wisdom of supporting the French resistance at all. He concluded:

the real value which we shall obtain from these Groups will be an up-
rising. If such an up-rising is to be successful – and it can only succeed
once – it will demand conditions in which German resistance in the
West is reaching the point of disintegration….The most likely cause of
this accelerated collapse is the bomber offensive which must not be
handicapped by diversion to an operation whose value is obviously
secondary….I feel that it would be a serious mistake to divert any more
aircraft to supply Resistance Groups in Western Europe which will
only be of potential value next year, when these aircraft could be of
immediate and actual value in accelerating the defeat of Germany by
direct attack.192

Selborne and Portal continued to clash over this issue throughout the summer. On August 2nd

Churchill finally made a decision. Ironically, Selborne’s constant petitioning for more flights

to France resulted in the Prime Minister reducing the number of bombers available for that

purpose, because the Churchill decided to increase support for SOE operations in Yugoslavia

189
Foot, SOE in France, p. 153.
190
See Selborne’s report to Churchill entitled “SOE Requirements of Aircraft” dated July 21, 1943, in which he
argues that “the contribution that [French resisters] are now making in sabotage and subversion is a powerful
auxiliary in the softening of German resistance. The contribution they could make to the operations of our regular
forces on “D” day is very considerable….It is important that deliveries to Resistance Movements should be
continuous not only in order to achieve required figures, but also to maintain resistance” (PRO AIR 8 1749).
191
See Churchill’s statement during a Chiefs of Staff meeting held on June 23, 1943: “the delivery of the increased
amount of supplies was a small price to pay for the diversion of Axis forces caused by resistance in Yugoslavia,
and every effort must be made to increase the rate of delivering supplies” (PRO AIR 8 1749).

67
by borrowing the necessary planes not from Bomber Command, but from SOE’s own French

operations.193 Churchill attempted to placate Selborne by ordering Bomber Command to assist

SOE with extra flights to Western Europe when it was able, but as M.R.D. Foot remarks, this

promised aid rarely came – Arthur Harris successfully “fended off for several months more any

extensive participation by his squadrons in SOE’s work.”194 Churchill’s decision, therefore,

fatally limited the supply of arms Britain would send the French resistance in 1943.

Small arms could be acquired from within France by operating on the black market,

but prices were usually prohibitive, especially for impoverished and overcrowded maquis

struggling to make in through the winter. Simple pistols usually went for 30,000 francs, and

machine guns – if available – sold for an incredible 500,000.195 The Americans and the Free

French figured as two other possible sources of supply, but both proved highly reluctant to give

it. Washington made clear at the inter-allied conference held in Quebec in August that it

considered aid to the French resistance a purely British commitment. President Roosevelt

remained particularly reluctant to provide arms to the French resistance, as he harbored

suspicions of communist tendencies within it, and viewed de Gaulle as a potential

demagogue.196 De Gaulle’s establishment in Algiers and London initially lacked arms itself,

and then withheld them after receiving substantial amounts following the takeover of Giraud’s

organization in late 1943.197 Until he had asserted his firm control over the metropolitan

resistance, the general remained hesitant to arm it, for he feared he would only create private

armies for potential rivals in the anticipated struggle for the political leadership of postwar

France.

192
PRO AIR 8 1749
193
See extract from minutes of Defense Committee meeting held Monday, August 2, 1943 (PRO AIR 8 1749).
194
Foot, SOE in France, p. 236.
195
PRO HS 6 329 No. 101.

68
 The excessive costs associated with the black market and the reluctance or inability of

the United States, Britain, and the Free French to arm the metropolitan resistance combined to

exacerbate desperate situations in many maquis as they faced a harsh winter and increased

German repression. The dispirited chief of one service maquis section estimated that in

January 1944 less than 10% of the maquis units he assisted were armed. Lack of ammunition

was in his opinion an even more pressing concern – in one region which he reported “fully

armed,” the men nevertheless had at their disposal only two rounds per rifle.198 This situation

was a marked improvement over late 1943, however, when he remembered encountering a

wretched band of thirty men sharing one rifle and ten rounds between them.199

The tale of one maquis captain from the Isère who took decided to take the arms

problem into his own hands is quite telling. He initially tried to work out a deal with a

sympathetic officer in the Vichy French army, who promised to deliver an arms dump

containing 40 rifles and 8,000 rounds, but when the Germans occupied the southern zone in late

1942 the officer got cold feet and turned his stash over to the Feldgendarmerie. The maquis

chief, not one to be discouraged, immediately got in touch with a neighboring resistance group

which he had heard was in wireless contact with London. He promised to protect their radio

operator, whom the Gestapo were hunting, in exchange for an expected arms delivery from the

British. The promised arms, however, never materialized. Either the British had failed to come

through, the arms had been intercepted, or the neighboring resisters had decided to keep them

for themselves. After this disappointment, the intrepid captain contacted an arms merchant in

Lyons who promised to sell him two machine guns. His maquis was able to scrape together the

196
Foot, SOE in France, p. 236.
197
See Jackson, The Dark Years, p. 459 for de Gaulle’s deposition of Giraud.
198
AN F1a 3717
199
PRO HS 6 329 No. 45

69
requisite cash, but the merchant, like the Vichy officer, got cold feet and imposed endless

delays upon the transaction. In desperation, the chief ordered his men to begin manufacturing

homemade grenades. This project failed, however, because there was no British plastic

explosive available – the captain complained that he had never even laid eyes on the stuff – and

his men instead attempted to make grenades by extracting gunpowder from sticks of dynamite

donated by miners doing blasting work in the nearby mountains. After the failure of this

attempt the frustrated captain resolved to cross the Pyrenees, traverse Spain, and sail from

Portugal to London, where he would petition personally for arms. Perhaps his via dolorosa

ended when he arrived there in October, 1943 and gave this report, which now rests in the

Public Record Office.200

CHURCHILL RECONSIDERS

In early 1944, the situation finally changed in favor of the despondent maquis when

circumstances conspired to draw Churchill’s interest back to the French resistance. De Gaulle

had consolidated his control over the movements, and his Algiers organization formally

petitioned the British Chiefs of Staff for arms. At the same time, SOE put forth another

proposal for more planes to use in Western European operations. Most importantly, Emmanuel

d’Astier, now working as de Gaulle’s Interior Minister in Algiers, took the initiative to

personally petition Churchill for more arms as the Prime Minister recuperated at Marrakech,

Morocco from the strains of the Cairo Conference. Churchill’s discussion with d’Astier

inspired him to suggest that the Allies use a resistance uprising in the south of France there as

an alternative to ANVIL, their planned invasion there, which Churchill opposed in favor of a

200
The report does not indicate what happened to the man after his arrival in London (PRO HS 6 329 Nos. 87–91).

70
landing in the Balkans.201 This plan would require increased supply to the resistance in that

area. To discuss a renewed British effort at supply Churchill invited d’Astier to London and

held a “meeting of ministers” which included d’Astier, Selborne, Portal, and representatives

from the foreign office, including Robert Speaight.202

At this meeting Churchill informed his subordinates that he wished them to do all in

their power to increase aid to the maquis in southern France. He demanded that deliveries of

arms in March double those planned for the rest of February.203 Selborne tried his best to step

up deliveries, but was hindered by poor weather and lack of aircraft, so that by the end of the

month he could report only 53 successful missions (out of 186 planned), which had delivered a

mere 690 rifles and 4,625 grenades.204 This disappointment inspired Churchill, who had

become temporarily infatuated with the maquis – he cabled President Roosevelt that he was

eager to begin guerrilla warfare in France “à la Tito”– to order Harris and Portal to surrender

some of their precious bombers for supply drops to the French resistance.205 Bomber

Command’s continued recalcitrance, however, meant that Selborne had to siphon off some of

the aircraft required for new operations in France from SOE’s Balkan operations, just as he had

been forced to shift bombers from France to the Balkans in 1943! 206 In any case, SOE did

have more bombers for France, and was able to increase supply slightly in March and make

major improvements from April on into the summer.207 The total number of arms sent to the

201
Arthur L. Funk, “Churchill, Eisenhower, and the French Resistance,” in Military Affairs, Vol. 45, No. 1 (Feb.,
1981), p. 29.
202
The minutes of this meeting can be found at PRO FO 371 41904 and PRO PREM 3 185 1.
203
PRO PREM 3 185 1
204
Averaging about 13 rifles per drop (Funk, “Churchill, Eisenhower, and the French Resistance,” in Military
Affairs, Vol. 45, No. 1 (Feb., 1981), p. 32).
205
For Churchill’s comment to Roosevelt, see PREM 3 181 10.
206
This unplanned rearrangement of forces caused great turmoil in the Mediterranean. SOE Cairo sent an angry
cable to London complaining that “recent sweeping demands for the diversion of air sorties to France…have
reduced the Balkan programme to something near chaos” (Stafford, Britain and European Resistance, p. 151).
207
See table in Foot, SOE in France, Appendix C, “Air Supply,” p. 473.

71
resistance remained small, however, and most observers (French, British, and German)

reported a continuing dearth. Arms were also seized by the Germans and Milice at drop sites or

uncovered in secret caches. One British sergeant returning from France claimed to have seen

French Waffen SS men armed with British Sten guns.208 In the end, the long-term British

motivation for supplying the resistance was political rather than military. It was primarily

designed, as the Foreign Office informed the military, to “ensure that when D day comes the

Resistance Groups (and the French Committee [the CFLN], which increasingly follows their

lead) have confidence in the Allied High Command and are willing to cooperate with it.”209

This mentality unfortunately never produced the results the French needed to transform the

maquis from a disorganized rabble into a guerrilla army.

After the Normandy invasion the Americans greatly increased their aid to the resistance.

Their motivation was also political rather than military. Initially they attempted to court French

public opinion by claiming that Allied aid to the resistance, which they had disavowed at the

Quebec conference in August as a purely British responsibility, had been a joint effort all

along. De Gaulle, however, relishing an opportunity to catch the Americans in an awkward

moment, promptly corrected them in a press conference, during which he claimed that almost

all aid had come from Britain.210 This embarrassment led Roosevelt and Secretary of State

Cordell Hull to demand a formal report on the matter from the military.211 Eisenhower was

then put in the awkward position of having to report to his Commander-in-Chief that General

de Gaulle was right – there was in fact nothing approaching parity between the British and

American efforts to supply the resistance. Incensed by this public humiliation, and suspicious

208
PRO HS 6 329 No. 27
209
PRO FO 371 41904. See Appendix II for the full text of Speaight’s letter.
210
Funk, “Churchill, Eisenhower, and the French Resistance,” in Military Affairs, Vol. 45, No. 1 (Feb., 1981), p.
32.

72
that the British were courting the French politically at American expense, the Eisenhower

decided to nip the problem in the bud and “correct [the] unfortunate French impression” that

the Americans weren’t doing anything to help by ordering massive supply missions to the

resistance during the summer of 1944.212 These operations, code-named ZEBRA, CADILLAC,

BUICK, and GRASSY took place on June 25, July 14, August 1, and September 9, respectively. 213

Though they supplied the resistance with large quantities of arms, these daylight drops were

designed largely for show – the Bastille Day drop on July 14 featured tricolor-painted

parachutes – and came too late to have a real effect on the war.

The endemic lack of weapons and supplies in the maquis not only limited their battle

effectiveness, but also undermined vital support from the rural communities in which they

operated. French farmers did not take kindly to starving réfractaires raiding their chicken

coops, and many eventually contacted the police, who usually called in the Germans, who in

turn inevitably summoned the local Milice to deal with the problem. A French officer who

joined the maquis in the Saône-et-Loire reported that the sorry state of their main form of

transportation – a few bicycles held together with string – had led to his group acquiring a bad

name for bicycle theft in the area.214 In January 1944 de Gaulle’s agents were still reporting

increases in maquis banditry and begging for more arms. One desperate telegram from

Moulin’s successor, Jacques Bingen, to Algiers reads:

If [no supply is sent] refractaires in order not to starve will have choice
between banditry and surrender repeat surrender which would equal

211
FRUS, 1944, III, 692–93.
212
The phrase is Eisenhower’s (USNA RG 226 M1642, roll 104 frame 312).
213
Operation ZEBRA involved 180 aircraft, CADILLAC an incredible 349, BUICK 192, and GRASSY 68 (USNA RG
226 190 741). Compare this to SOE’s total of 22 planes in July, 1943 (PRO AIR 8 1749). By March 1944 that
number had only increased to 73 (USNA RG 226 M1642, roll 104 frames 341–376).
214
PRO HS 6 329 No. 90

73
 massacre and entire country will feel deep bitterness and disaffection
toward Algiers repeat Algiers and Anglo Saxon allies215

Bingen at one point became so desperate that he cabled Algiers threatening to have the maquis

rob banks if arms and supplies were not promptly sent.216

Because the networks of hiding established after the Relève never successfully

incorporated the large numbers of réfractaires streaming into them after the advent of STO,

because the Germans were able to effectively counter the maquis with the Gestapo and Milice,

and because the Allies delayed in sending a significant amount of arms to the resistance until

summer 1944, the French maquis never constituted a large guerrilla army on the Yugoslav

model. The Allies should have anticipated this, since they consistently assigned priority to

Balkan operations. Even if one includes weapons sent to France as a result of their belated

enthusiasm for arming the resistance in 1944, the total tonnage of allied arms delivered to

France stands at roughly one-fifth the Yugoslavian figure.217 Although the resistance as a

whole was poorly armed, however, it remains to be seen whether those few maquis that had

received adequate arms and were operating in relatively safe mountainous terrain could play a

decisive military role when the Allies arrived.

215
The original French text of Bingen’s telegram reads: “si non refractaires pour ne pas mourir de faim auront
choix entre banditisme je dis banditisme et reddition je dis reddition qui equivaudrait a massacre et pays entier
ressentira profonde amertume et desaffection alger je dis alger et allies anglo saxons” (AN F1a 3717).
216
See telegram No. 69 of January 25, 1944 from CLÉANTE (Bingen) to d’Astier (AN F1a 3717).
217
Foot, SOE in France, p. 472–474.

74
 V

D-DAY TO LIBERATION

PROVING GROUND

On April 13, 1944, Colonel F. Thornton of the British War Office published a report he

had prepared on the military effectiveness of the French resistance for the Joint Intelligence

Committee. This report, which was agreed to by SHAEF, SOE, and the British Foreign Office,

concluded as follows:

The main value of resistance lies not so much in its day-to-day effects,
as in the building up of the means to strike on D. Day. Damage to the
German effort in resisting our penetration will be in proportion to the
means in the hands of resisters and their ability to withstand and evade
German action to suppress them both direct and through hostages.
Those in turn depend on unpredictable conditions and so, at the worst,
resistance cannot fail to be of value, and at the best may so derange the
German L.of C. as to be a major factor in the battle. Thus, from a
military standpoint, resistance will yield a result which can be
described as a bonus, as opposed to a certain fixed dividend. The size
of the bonus cannot be reckoned with certainty and could not therefore
be taken into account in operational planning.218

As we have seen, Allied assessment of the resistance as a mere “bonus,” and not a

“fourth arm” engaged in major warfare, dated from early 1942. In the days leading up to the

Normandy invasion, the Chiefs of Staff hoped simply for partial fulfillment of plan vert, or

“plan green,” by which the resistance would attack the road and rail network in France in order

to prevent German reinforcements arriving at the Allied bridgehead. While most in the Allied

councils of war hoped only for marginal results in this operation, a few entertained high

expectations. Those who believed dogmatically in the value of clandestine warfare held out

hope for a massive guerrilla rising in France. It was anticipated that this rising would take on

75
the proportions of Yugoslavian partisan warfare, and would liberate rear areas as the Germans

became locked in a life and death battle with regular Allied forces to the north. Charles de

Gaulle in particular anticipated for an insurrection of this type. His organization developed a

plan code-named VIDAL, after the nom de guerre of the resister General Delestraint, who had

been captured by the Gestapo in 1943. Plan VIDAL drew on the experience in Corsica, which

Free French troops had liberated in September 1943. This symbolic success inspired de Gaulle

to push for further liberation of French territory by Frenchmen. His primary motivation was

political. The General called for the maquis to liberate and hold defensible areas as a first step

to the creation of a new, liberated France under his rule.219 As we have already seen, this

vision differed greatly from the mainstream allied view. The Gaullist Claude Serreulles

remembers how Churchill’s aid, Major Morton, expressed this view to him: Morton noted that

resistance groups could be helpful if integrated into allied planning, but that they “caused

trouble each time they acted on their own initiative.” He told Serreules that once the plan vert

targets had been hit, “the [allied] High Command does not want the French Resistance, by

spontaneous and impetuous actions, to disrupt it plans; in a word, it hopes that it [the

Resistance] will disappear.”220 Their differences notwithstanding, SOE, the Joint Chiefs, and

de Gaulle all agreed on one point: the D-Day landings and the battle to follow would be the

proving ground of the resistance.

218
PRO HS 6 601 No. 14
219
Foot, SOE in France, p. 359.
220
Serreulles’ account of a conversation with Major D.J.F. Morton on March 17, 1944, quoted in Sweets, The
Politics of Resistance in France, p. 194).

76
 PLAN VERT AND THE DAS REICH DIVISION

Was either of these hopes realized? Did the resistance figure as a key factor in

impeding the movement of the German armies to Normandy and thus ensuring Allied victory?

Was it able to take and control territory on the Corsican model and thus contribute substantially

to the liberation of France? Such action would undeniably justify de Gaulle’s famous statement

upon entering Paris in 1944 that France had liberated herself.221 The attempt of the resistance

to delay anticipated German movement to the north will be analyzed first.

Prior to D-Day, SOE and the resistance planned out about 600 attacks on the rail system

in France. Many of these were carried out successfully, and the maquis in some areas came out

in force, vigorously harassing the Germans following the Allied landings.222 By the end of

July, these conditions forced the German military to order motor transport “in guerrilla

territory” to proceed only in armed convoys for protection.223 The Wehrmacht began to

complain about an inability to move by rail, and many armored divisions had to move by road,

consuming precious gasoline.224 This evidence seems to suggest the success of plan vert.

However, the problem is infinitely more complicated, for the resistance was not the only factor

interfering with the German ability to move troops to the front. The effects of Allied air

operations against the French rail network and the failure of the German High Command to

realize that the Normandy landings were the primary Allied effort also combined to slow

German reinforcements to the battle area. How did these two factors relate to the parallel

resistance effort after D-Day?

221
Rousso, The Vichy Syndrome, p. 16.
222
The Special Force Headquarters (SFHQ) intelligence report for June 1944 reported that approximately 500 cuts
had been made that month (PRO CAB 106 982).
223
PRO HW 1 3104
224
EPL Walter Bedell Smith: Collection of World War II documents, Box 30, SHAEF G-2 Weekly Intelligence
Summaries.

77
 Once the allied air forces realized that targeting the Wehrmacht’s transportation lifelines

would prove even more fruitful than destroying its petroleum production facilities, they carried

out a full-fledged air campaign to disable the French rail system.225 While the resistance also

attacked the rail network by cutting vulnerable sections of unguarded track, these cuts proved

easy to repair.226 In contrast, the allied air forces were able to annihilate entire railheads. The

Germans could not repair these vital hubs quickly, and the loss of detraining stations with their

heavy equipment and cranes, especially when tanks were involved, became a major problem.

Knocking out a crucial railhead effectively disabled all the lines running into it, whether or not

cuts in the track existed along those lines. A British report produced for SOE in 1945

concluded that “the dislocation of rail traffic was, in the greater part, due to air bombing…and

targets for sabotage were selected as being complimentary to air attack.”227 Not only did the

allied air effort severely impair the rail network, it also held up coal supply to France, making it

even harder to for the Germans to get locomotives moving. Moreover, after D-Day, the Allies

had almost 600 fighter-bomber sorties per day on permanent patrol over northern France with

orders to attack trains and motorized columns whenever they spotted them.228

If the Wehrmacht had rushed all available forces to Normandy after June 6, it would be

much easier to analyze the effectiveness of the resistance in impeding that effort. As it

happened, however, the Allies successfully deceived the German High Command – and most

importantly, Hitler – into thinking that the Normandy attack was a mere diversion. Operation

FORTITUDE, as the Allies dubbed their ruse, was arguably the most successful deception

operation in history. A false army set up under General Patton, who was being punished for his

225
For a discussion of the shift in Allied air targeting, see Alfred Mierzejewski, The Collapse of the German War
Economy, 1944-1945: Allied Air Power and the German National Railway (1988).
226
It would take at the very most thirty-six hours make a sabotaged rail line operational again (Dreyfus, Histoire
de la Résistance, p. 591).

78
famous misbehavior in Sicily, where he had slapped an enlisted man, encamped noisily at

Dover, just across the channel from Calais.229 By day, Patton supervised divisions of inflatable

tanks and cardboard soldiers; by night, he frequented the Dover pubs, where he boasted

flamboyant of his coming victory on the shores of Calais. The Germans concluded that the

main invasion force would land there, partly because this part of the English Channel offers the

shortest distance to traverse between Great Britain and the French coast, and also because

General Patton was thought to be the inevitable leader of an Allied drive into Festung Europa.

This crucial command mistake meant that many of the German reserve divisions within France

were not moved to the battle area until several weeks after the landings at Normandy, by which

time many of the rail cuts made by the resistance had been repaired. Tragically, the Allies had

ordered the French resistance not to undertake any rail demolitions that would take more than

eight days to repair, because they foresaw possibly having to use the French railroads

themselves within that time if the invasion went well.230 These instructions were later revoked,

but only after the Germans realized their error and began moving troops northwards on the

repaired rail network.231

The effectiveness of the allied air campaign, and the astounding success of Operation

FORTITUDE complicate an analysis of the resistance contribution to the Allied victory in France,

but a reasonable assessment is not altogether impossible. The story of one German division’s

experiences following D-Day serves to illustrate the degree to which each of these three

interrelated factors contributed to overall victory. The exploits of the 2nd SS Panzer “Das

227
PRO HS 8 423
228
Max Hastings, Das Reich: The March of 2nd SS Panzer Division through France (1981), p. 211.
229
Weinberg, A World at Arms, p. 680.
230
PRO HS 8 423
231
PRO HS 8 423

79
Reich” division are famous, or at least infamous.232 As early as 1944, the division’s journey

from southwest France to Normandy was used as an illustrative example of the resistance’s

success at slowing vital German reinforcements to the Allied beachhead. It is often cited that,

because of resistance harassment and rail interdiction, the division took almost two weeks to

make what should have been a two- or three-day trip to Normandy.233 This assessment

overlooks several crucial facts. First, the Das Reich was not ordered to proceed directly to

Normandy following the D-Day landings. It is clear from the diary of Gerd von Rundstedt, the

supreme German commander on the western front, that the German High Command intended

to use the 2nd SS Panzer division to mop up resistance in the south, not immediately to counter

the Allies at Normandy in the north.234 The Germans indeed ordered eight divisions (albeit

their worst eight) to fight the resistance following D-Day, instead of ordering them to

Normandy.235 This fact indicates the success of the FORTITUDE deception, and was not an

achievement of the resistance. The Germans were sure in early June 1944 that they still had

time to send divisions roving around the French hinterland fighting maquis bands before the

real allied landing was to take place. Had they known Normandy was the actual invasion, they

would most likely have ignored the resistance and thrown those eight divisions into the battle in

the north. The second important consideration is that only half of the Das Reich division’s

journey took place in “guerrilla territory,” and during that part of the trek, very few of its

232
The Das Reich division is probably best known for its massacre of the villages of Ourador and Tulle.
233
See for example Foot, SOE in France, p. 399 or Williamson Murray and Allan Millett, A War to be Won:
Fighting the Second World War (2000), p. 424.
234
Rundstedt’s Kriegestagebuch for June 7 reads: “Die immer deutlicher zu Tage tretende Bildung der Armée
Sécrète [sic] in Innerfrankreich und laufende Terroristenakte in diesem Raum verlangen beschleunigte und
durchgreifende Masßnamen. Ob. West beauftragt daher Gen.Kdo. röm. 66.Res.Korps mit 2.SS.Pz.Div und
189.Res.Div. unter der Leitung des Mil.Befh.i.Frkr. mit der Bekämpfung dieser Aufstandsbewegung (BAMA RH
19 IV No. 43).
235
Hastings, Das Reich, p. 217.

80
members were killed.236 The division suffered most and incurred more delays during the second

half of its voyage, conducted mostly in the open country north of the Loire, where allied air

power, not the maquis, figured as the principal threat. Allied fighter-bombers, or “Jabos,” as

the German called them,237 roved incessantly, forcing the men of Das Reich to disguise their

tanks as large bushes and leap under them for cover every time Allied planes were sighted.

Some of the men complained that they “couldn’t even step into a field for a crap.”238 The story

of the Das Reich division seems to indicate that the failure of German Command to recognize

Normandy as the main assault, and then the delays imposed upon road and rail movement by

allied air superiority, and finally, the harassing efforts of the resistance, were responsible – in

that order – for the division’s five-day delay.

236
Only about thirty-five of the unit’s 15,000 men were killed in action with the maquis (Hastings, Das Reich, p.
217).
237
short for Jagdbomber
238
Hastings, Das Reich, p. 212.

81
Hastings, Das Reich (1981)

82
Hastings, Das Reich (1981)

83
 GUERRE À LA TITO: THE VERCORS

If the efforts of the resistance were not the primary factor delaying the movement of

German reinforcements to Normandy, what of the aspirations of those such as de Gaulle who

envisioned a rapid proliferation of guerrilla activity culminating in the self-liberation of French

territory? Following D-Day, the maquis were actually able to seize several areas within the

French hinterland. The fate of the resisters who attempted to defend one of these areas, called

Mont-Mouchet, should have been a lesson to the resistance. On May 20 the maquis captain

there, whose nom de guerre was GASPARD, “mobilized” the region.239 6,000 men turned up.

The Germans tended to notice this (it was the largest single concentration of resisters ever) and

on July 10 the Wehrmacht – not the usual Milice – came in to clean them out. The resulting

battle shattered GASPARD’s maquis, and the Germans went on to destroy the local villages one

by one, with high civilian casualties.240 Sadly, the lesson of Mont-Mouchet was never learned.

It could have prevented the greater disaster that occurred ten days later at a place called the

Vercors.

The Vercors maquis began as many separate and independent camps, many of which

were established by Aimé Pupin, a rugby player, cafe owner, and member of FRANC-TIREUR’s

Grenoble branch. Pupin set out in November of 1942 to look for a place to hide the many

réfractaires streaming into his movement, and called upon a friend named Dr. Samuel (nom de

guerre: RAVALLEC), who headed a resistance group at Villard-de-Lans on the nearby Vercors

plateau. Dr. Samuel agreed that urban Grenoble was not ideal for hiding the réfractaires and

that the plateau might be just the place.241 At Pupin’s request, he made contact with farmers,

239
This man, whose real name was Émile Coulaudon, features in Marcel Ophuls’ 1969 documentary, Le Chagrin
et La Pité.
240
Jackson, The Dark Years, p. 545.
241
Pupin writes in November, 1942: “Puis c’est le S.T.O.: rein a faire, il faut sauver les gars. J’étudie la question.
Je convoque RAVALLEC et je lui dis: ‘Il faut que dans le Vercors tu me trouve un coin pour cacher les réfractaires

84
walking from farmhouse to farmhouse on the windswept heights in the dead of winter. He

finally happened upon a farm called Ambel, whose inhabitants agreed to house réfractaires.

Samuel descended into the city and told Pupin simply: “D’accord. Marchons et installons.”

Soon other farms were found for this purpose. When réfractaires in Grenoble got in touch with

Pupin, they were ferried up to the plateau in private cars or by the St. Nizier tramway, then

taken as far as Villard-de-Lans, where other agents would take over and guide them to Pont-en

Royans, whence they were sent to the relative comfort of the farmhouses, in which they could

eat and warm their hands for the first time in many days.242

Pupin’s small refugee camps were in desperate need of money, and the réfractaires

were forced to take up collections among their families. Jean-Pierre Lévy, FRANC-TIREUR’s

founder, eventually sent them 20,000 francs per week, but it was not enough to sustain them,

especially with more réfractaires arriving every day. As the camps in the Vercors grew larger

they drew the attention of local resisters. In January 1943, RAVALLEC hosted a meeting of all

the important resistance leaders in the Drome region “qui sont conquis par nos projets et se

joignent à nous.”243 In February 1943, the famous Yves Farge visited Grenoble, meeting with

Pupin and Dr. Martin at the latter’s home. Farge told them to hold on a bit longer in spite of

their financial difficulties and promised to send word of their valiant efforts all the way to

London in an attempt to secure funding. He did not disappoint. On March 1st, Farge returned

with what he promised was the first installation of cash from London, and a message from the

Free French: “Les Montagnards doivent continuer a gravir les cîmes.” This encouraging

message created great excitement among the Vercors maquis – it was their first official

et ou l'on puisse les avoir sous la main.’ RAVALLEC qui n’hésitait jamais me dit: ‘d’accord’ et il prospecta le
Vercors (AN 72 AJ 87, folder A.I, Item 4, pp. 4–6).
242
AN 72 AJ 87, folder A.I, Item 4, p. 6
243
AN 72 AJ 87, folder A.I, Item 4, p. 7

85
The Vercors Plateau
(AN 72 AJ 87)

86
recognition from a greater power.244 The maquis captains were now faced with the prospect of

supply from a sponsor nation. Knowing that this was the necessary prerequisite for any

guerrilla force to survive, they rose early and excitedly the following morning to make a tour of

the plateau, looking for a suitable place to lay out an airstrip.

Amid this excitement, however, came their first setback: while the leaders had been out

motoring around the plateau dreaming of airstrips, the Italian police arrested fourteen of their

men, including some key adjutants and liaison officers with knowledge of the organization.

Pupin's wife was also arrested. These arrests put everyone on edge and created a suspicious

atmosphere in the Vercors for the rest of the winter. Pupin realized that no security measures

whatsoever had been in place. His maquis resolved to be better prepared in future. The glut of

réfractaires had made enforcing security difficult, but the captains took minor precautions like

making newly arrived members use a password (which could be learned in the course of an

evening on the streets of Grenoble) and trying to keep them isolated in camps where their

letters were censored and had to be delivered by approved couriers.

Gradually, people began to return to the Vercors and calm was restored as springtime

approached. Pupin remarked: “the Vercors swarmed like a beehive. Rare were those who

hadn’t a job to do or a mission in the camps.”245 One of these “missions” was inevitably

raiding the local farms and villages for supplies. The maquis tried to stick to raiding Vichyite

Chantiers de Jeunesse, but inevitably struck innocent locals as well.

In April, the Vercors was bestowed a great honor when VIDAL, the famous General

Delestraint, paid a visit to their camps. He had been sent by General de Gaulle himself, and

244
Pupin recalls: “Ah! ce premier message spécialement adressé à nous, quelle explosion quand nous
l’entendîmes!” (AN 72 AJ, folder A.I, Item 4, p. 8).
245
“Le Vercors etait une vrai ruche. Rares étaient ceux qui n'avaient pas un emploi ou une mission dans les
camps” (AN 72 AJ 87, folder A.I, Item 4, p. 10).

87
encouraged the maquis that London supported their operations. In a private moment, he asked

Pupin, “why did you chose the Vercors?” Pupin’s response echoes eerily in the ears of those

who know the tragic fate of the Vercors: “for romanticism.”246 Delestraint then informed Pupin

of de Gaulle’s vision for the Vercors maquis. It was to function as an “air-head,” which, like a

railhead, would serve as a point of disembarkation for Allied and Free French paratroopers.247

It would be set up as a bastion of Free French territory from which the Liberation could

begin.248

The days following Delestraint’s visit were filled with excitement until another tragedy

occurred – this time the Italian police had arrested the head of FRANC-TIREUR in the area, Dr.

Martin, Grenoble’s socialist mayor. Martin’s arrest made everyone nervous, as he could give

up the entire movement if he talked. Desperation and insecurity mingled with boredom among

the men, many of whom had now been living in the wilderness away from their families for six

months. Rumors that General Delestraint had told Pupin during his visit that the Allies had

chosen to delay their landing in France until 1944 spread rapidly, and devastated morale. There

were still no arms. Pupin found himself obliged to undertake frequent visits to all of the camps,

encouraging his men, urging them to hold out for more supplies from London, and

downplaying the danger of arrest.249 On May 27, 1943, he himself was arrested.250

At this point we must pick up our story with the testimony of Pupin’s maquis comrades.

One of these, a Monsieur Malossane, had helped establish the original camp at the Ambel farm.

246
AN 72 AJ, folder A.I, Item 4, p. 11
247
AN 72 AJ, folder A.I, Item 7, p. 2.
248
AN 72 AJ, folder A.I, Item 4, p. 12 “Le Vercors avait un but bien défini qui lui était attribué par Londres. Il
devait être la plate-forme d'où partirait l'attaque au moment du débarquement. Des parachutistes français et allies
y arriveraient et la général De Gaulle lui-même parlerait aux résistants d'un point du territoire français” (AN 72
AJ, folder A.I, Item 4, p. 12).
249
AN 72 AJ, folder A.I, Item 4, p. 13
250
Aimé Pupin survived the war after spending two years in a concentration camp in Italy (AN 72 AJ 87, folder
A.I, Item 4, p. 14).

88
Following Pupin’s arrest, Malossane relates, the maquis strained to deal with the boredom of

the veteran réfractaires and the influx of so many new ones. The captains attempted to give

them some military training, but they were armed only with hunting rifles and revolvers and

lacked officers to guide them. As Malossane relates, the men were “organizés militairement,

sans militaries.”251 “It quickly became evident,” he writes, “that the réfractaires could easy

escape our direction.” They were ill-disciplined, and unsolicited raids on local villages

increased: “a raid on a tobacconist, on a store of the Chantier de Jeunesse, an act of sabotage –

all were diversions from their monotonous life and calmed their impatience.”252 Such

“diversions” naturally did not endear the Vercors maquis to the surrounding population.

This was how the Vercors maquis began. The situation persisted until March 1944,

when arms drops to the Vercors increased as a result of Churchill’s intervention on behalf of

SOE that February. On June 6, news reached the plateau that the Allies had landed in

Normandy. 4,000 guerrillas surged into the Vercors during the following days, and the Allies

sent a joint commando team to reinforce the guerrillas. This was the EUCALYPTUS mission,

headed by a British Major, Desmond Longe.253 It dropped into the Vercors on the 29th of June,

1944. It’s mission, as stated by Longe in a post-war court of inquiry, was:

to contact the leader of resistance in the Vercors and to act as a link

between the French Forces of the interior in the Vercors area and the
Allied High Command in England. To help organize and Arm the
resistance elements, to carry out acts of Sabotage, report all Military
intelligence. To prevent destruction of important targets, such as certain
bridges which would be required by the Allied Armies should they
operate in our area. To prepare to receive Airborne Troops and to
prepare landing grounds to “pick up” operations. In general so to

251
AN 72 AJ 87, folder A.I, Item 7, p.2.
252
“Un coup de main sur un entrepôt de tabac, sur un magasin des Chantiers de Jeunesse, un acte de sabotage,
constituaient un dérivatif a leur vie monotone et calmait leur impatience” (AN 72 AJ 87, folder A.I, Item 7, p.3).
253
The “Jedburgh” teams, as they were called (after the village in Scotland where they were trained) were dropped
into France after D-Day. They normally comprised one American, one British, and one Free French officer.

89
 prepare the Maquisards in our area that when the signal to “Set Europe
Ablaze” was given, they would be prepared to play their part.254

At the court of inquiry Longe also noted that his French counterpart, Lieutenant Colonel

Heuveux, had received orders “to mobilize and hold the Vercors Plateau at all costs.”255

London apparently intended to carry out at least part of de Gaulle’s plan to turn the Vercors

into an “air-head” and jumping-off place for the French liberation of their own country: Longe

received a cable “asking us if we could find a suitable place or places to receive up to a

Battalion of parachutists, and also to prepare to receive planes if we could find suitable

ground.”256 Longe and his team set about expanding the unfinished airstrip the maquis had

begun in early 1943, but German sorties from a Luftwaffe airfield at nearby Chabeuil, and a

shortage of arms hindered their work. Longe requested an arms drop and an attack on the

Chabeuil airfield, reporting that “Hun planes were over us daily, sometimes just on

reconnaissance missions and sometimes they would give us a squirt with their machine

guns.”257 His request was answered when the USAAF conducted an ostentatious daylight

supply drop as part of operation CADILLAC on July 14 – Bastille Day – in conjunction with an

RAF raid on the German airfield. These measures were more political than military however,

and only resulted in a setback for the Vercors maquis when “the full fury of the Hun was

unleashed upon us within about an hour after the ‘drop.’ The bombs on Chabeuil had not been

enough and every fighter and bomber got to work on us. They bombed and strafed us all day,

Vassieux was razed to the ground and La Chapelle [en Vercors] burned for 36 hours.”258

Longe spent the day driving around the plateau among the various maquis camps to reassure

254
PRO HS 6 361, No. 17
255
PRO HS 6 361, No. 36
256
PRO HS 6 361, No. 38
257
PRO HS 6 361, No. 40
258
PRO HS 6 361, No. 44

90
the men, but his driver constantly had to turn the car into gullies to avoid being strafed. In one

place, they dove “into the ditch four times before we reach the safety of the tunnel…where we

inspect the A.A. defenses. I am furious when I see these fellows blazing off guns at planes that

even a heavy A.A. gun would probably not reach.”259 The following day, the Germans began

to surround the plateau. The Wehrmacht seemed to be squeezing in on the resisters like a great

python strangling its prey. On July 21, a large column of 2,000 troops penetrated into the

Vercors, marching from St. Nizier toward Villard-de-Lans. More Germans encircled the

plateau from the southeast. The maquis became desperate and begged the Allies for heavy

arms over their wireless sets. Every day they searched the skies for the drone of a motor, the

sign of their salvation. Nothing came until July 21, when gliders were sighted over the airstrip.

The French were at first elated and then shocked when not Americans or British, but SS men

popped out of the gliders. These crack troops massacred the Vercors maquis from inside the

plateau while regular units surrounding the plateau closed a ring of death around the hapless

resisters. The final message from the Vercors to the outside world read: “If you do not take

immediate measures, we will be in agreement with the population in saying that those who are

in London and Algiers have understood nothing of the situation in which we find ourselves, and

we will consider you as criminals and cowards. We say indeed: criminals and cowards.”260

Help never came, and the maquis on the plateau were cleaned out by the 23rd of July. Just as at

Mont Mouchet, the civil population in the area was made to pay for their transgressions.

Houses were burned, women were raped, and innocent farmers were killed indiscriminately.

The story of the Vercors embodies all of the problems the French resistance faced when

attempting to engage in large-scale guerrilla warfare. First was the very nature of the maquis.

259
PRO HS 6 361, No. 45
260
Sweets, The Politics of Resistance in France, p. 193.

91
They constituted not guerrilla armies but rather groups of very young men trying simply to hide

from the authorities. They had no military training and almost no value as soldiers. Their

amateurism led to a chronic lack of security and many arrests, a second pervasive problem.

Third and most importantly, the Allies never adequately supplied the maquis with modern

arms. London, and especially de Gaulle, envisioned the resistance as a political asset, not a

military one. The Allies used arms drops to the Vercors as a publicity stunt to gain the favor of

the French population, but these only encouraged the maquis to be more aggressive, because

they were thinking in military, not political terms, and naturally assumed more Allied aid was

on the way. De Gaulle hoped that the Vercors maquis might provide him with a place to begin

his anticipated liberation of France if they somehow succeeded in holding the plateau. He

could then claim credit for their success, since he had sent them Delestraint and a token amount

of arms. When they failed, he had lost nothing.

THE LIBERATION OF PARIS

The liberation of Paris was anticipated to be the culmination of resistance efforts, but

the resistance once again failed to achieve its hoped-for martial glory because all of the key

actors seemed to have different agendas. The US Army abhorred the prospect of costly street

fighting in the French capital and saw Paris as a strategic obstacle best avoided during its race

to the Rhine. American logisticians were also loath to undertake the burden of provisioning the

city’s one million hungry inhabitants.261 General Eisenhower therefore planned to bypass the

French capital and then return to occupy it peacefully after allied troops had crossed into

Germany. On the other hand, Charles de Gaulle and his liaison to the interior resistance,

Alexandre Parodi, frantically urged allied intervention to prevent Communist resisters from

92
taking over the city before de Gaulle’s arrival. Within Paris, Communist leaders called for

open insurrection accompanied by strikes, while de Gaulle’s representatives and the non-

Communists panicked and attempted to buy time by signing a truce with the German

Commandant of Paris, Dietrich von Choltitz.262 For their part, the Germans realized that Paris

was being surrounded by the allied armies and attempted to extricate themselves. Sporadic

street fighting began. To his credit, Choltitz ignored Hitler’s orders to level the city.

The various chieftains of the resistance met in a plenary session on August 21, but

instead of deciding upon a unified course of action against the Germans, they continued to

argue over the timing of an insurrection. Tempers exploded in the blistering heat of August as

noisy shouting accompanied sounds of gunfire from the streets. Mutual recriminations and

accusations of treason were hurled across the room as the Communists called for unrestrained

urban warfare and the Gaullists struggled to delay until the arrival of American troops. The

meeting adjourned with an agreement to extend the truce into the next day, which the

Communists blatantly disregarded. All this squabbling, however, was invalidated by

subsequent allied and German actions. Choltitz succeeded in evacuating most of his troops to

the east, and Parisian resisters spoiling for a fight were disappointed to find themselves erecting

street barricades from which they could only watch the Germans departing. Eisenhower, after

hearing of the situation in the French capital, changed his mind and decided to send a Free

French armored division under general Leclerc into the city to ensure order. It arrived on

August 25 and was followed by the American 4th Division and a British contingent.

The liberation of Paris was in the end an anticlimax. The Communists failed to create

the mass insurrection they envisioned, partly because most of the workers who would have

261
Murray and Millett, A War to be Won, p. 436.
262
The truce was arranged through he Swedish consul, Raoul Nordling.

93
participated in a general strike were taking their August vacations. The citizens of Paris threw

up the paving-stones and created barricades as they had done in 1830, 1848, and 1871, but most

of these never served any purpose besides providing heroic backdrops for photographs.263 The

street fighting was not even sufficiently furious to dislodge the ubiquitous Seine painters and

“bouquinistes,” who lined the river in August 1944 just as they do today. One cynical foreign

observer of the resistance’s “liberation” of Paris remarked:

In a week people won’t even mention the Americans and British…All these
French cocks preening themselves in cafes and under porches…waiting for the
Americans, jam, and chocolate. But as soon as one of them hears the distant
noise of a German motorcycle the street is deserted in seconds, doors close, and
people fight to look through keyholes.264

If the liberation of Paris was not a military victory for the resistance, it was certainly a

political victory for de Gaulle, whose political agents occupied all of the key government

buildings, including the Hôtel de Ville, the Prefecture of Police, and the Palais Matignon

(residence of France’s Prime Minister). Despite the fact that the Communists had done most of

the fighting in Paris, de Gaulle had succeeded in seizing power. After his triumphant entry into

the city, the General’s attitude toward the metropolitan resistance suddenly changed. He wrote

to the leaders of the interior resistance, thanked them formally for their efforts, and tersely

informed them that their service to the state was now over. Rather than invite the resisters to

share a role in France’s postwar government, he recommended that they return to civilian life.

This condescension, made clear to many shocked resisters that the General had never seen

them as anything but pawns to deploy against the Germans, Allies, French pretenders like

Giraud, and Communists in his own struggle for power.

263
Indeed, the staggering number of “combat” photographs taken during the liberation of Paris seems to evince the
holiday atmosphere of much of the street fighting. Photographs taken during actual close combat are rare indeed,
and most of the Paris photos do not include German troops. If one remarks on the location of the photographer, it
becomes evident that if this were actual combat, he is usually standing in a dangerously exposed position.
264
The observer was the Polish journalist Andrzej Bobkowski (Jackson, The Dark Years, p. 566).

94
 VI
THE RESISTANCE IN PERSPECTIVE

FINAL EVALUATION

In the final analysis, the French resistance fell short of the mark set for it by its own

chiefs and those allied planners who had faith in it. It falls far short of the mark to which it

aspires in post-war French nationalistic legend. From 1940–1942 the resistance remained

ineffectual and dwelt only the fringes of French society. From early 1943 on, it was glutted

with an overflow of men seeking refuge from STO but deprived of the arms it needed to turn

these men into soldiers. On D-Day it had some effect on German movements toward

Normandy, but usually squandered many of its number in futile attempts at pitched battle.

Many of the plan vert targets were successfully attacked, but resistance efforts at sabotage

following June 6 apparently disappointed the Germans, who had been expecting more out of

the resistance.265 Rundstedt reported on June 13 that sabotage had not increased, but not as

much as he or his staff had anticipated.266 According to the research of historian Philippe

Buton, the resistance succeeded in liberating only 5 of France’s 212 urban centers – the rest

were freed by the Allies or simply abandoned by Germans troops.267 German historian

Eberhard Jäckel concludes that “nowhere did the resistance or the maquis have a decisive

effect, and whatever trouble they caused the German leadership must have seemed of

265
“Die französische Widerstandsbewegung setzte ihren Kampf natürlich fort und behinderte die immer
schwächer werdenden deutschen Kräfte im Inneren des Landes erheblich. Trotzdem war das Oberkommando
nicht sehr beunruhigt. Der Oberbefehlshaber West [Rundstedt] meldete am 13. Juni, die Sabotage sei zwar
angestiegen, ‘aber doch nicht in dem Ausmaß, mit dem gerechnet wurde’” (Jäckel, Frankreich in Hitlers Europa,
pp. 328–329; quote is from Rundstedt’s Kriegstagebücher, at BAMA RH 19 IV No. 315).
266
French historian François Georges Dreyfus concludes that Rundstedt over-estimated the resistance, and that this
was his reason for sending the Das Reich division to counter the resistance rather than dispatching it immediately
to Normandy (Dreyfus, Histoire de la Résistance, p. 590.)

95
secondary concern when compared to the situation in Normandy.”268 As we have seen, the

liberation of Paris proved farcical, as the Allies, Gaullists, Communists, and metropolitan

resistance all struggled at cross-purposes to achieve their own objectives.

One important question remains: could the French resistance have done better? It

seems that, given the conditions under which it was forced to operate, the resistance in France

could never have taken on a form resembling the intense guerrilla warfare occurring in places

like Yugoslavia and Greece. However, it could have performed much better militarily if it had

simply stuck to small, unromantic operations such as industrial sabotage. The plan vert rail

sabotage operations in conjunction with the Normandy invasion were diminished in their

effects by the German decision not to use the railways immediately, but they were still effective

in blocking up much rail traffic. The maquis did splendidly when they avoided pitched battles

and simply harassed German convoys and then faded away into the wood or mountains, as

guerrillas are meant to do.

In areas the Germans were not bent on defending, the maquis were able to come out

into the open and take control of territory. Brittany serves as a prime example. The French

Forces of the Interior, or FFI (another name for maquis who were supposedly under Gaullist

control after D-Day), were able to guard Allied flanks. The OSS claims that the FFI guarding

Patton’s southern flank were the reason his Third Army moved so quickly and took such an

impressive number of prisoners during its drive toward the Rhine. It is indeed true that the FFI

were guarding Patton’s right flank, but one must be skeptical in evaluations of this nature.269

Oftentimes after August 1944 the FFI claim to be deterring German armies that simply don’t

267
See Philippe Buton, Les Lendemains qui déchantent: le Parti communiste français à la libération (1993).
Buton does include Paris and Marseilles among the five cities liberated by the resistance.

96
exist, or aren’t interested in attacking. During the late summer of 1944 there was no last ditch

German effort to defend France. Berlin pushed to get as many divisions out of France as it

could manage in order to spare them for the future defense of the Fatherland, and were

therefore not interested in attacking either FFI or Allied troops except in rearguard actions.270

Although it had some successes – such as the demolition of the Livron bridge, which nearly

trapped the entire German Nineteenth Army in southeast France – the resistance did not stop

most of these German units from retreating to fight another day.271

One fascinating area in which French resistance might legitimately have had a large

effect on the war effort was the field of tactical intelligence. The SOE, OSS, and Gaullists all

sent special agents into France after D-Day to gather such intelligence, but much of the day-to-

day battle information that armies desperately needed was provided not by trained foreign

agents but by local resisters. Agents more often found themselves useful as compilers of this

valuable intelligence for the Allied armies in the area.272 Claude Boillot, head of one such

mission, found himself “with more information on my hands than I could possibly hope to send

to London, especially as facilities for comprehensive collating and encoding were non-

existent.” Boillot instead sent daily reports to the Americans with raw intelligence: “such

details as exact emplacements of gun positions, machine guns, A.A. Batteries, Pill boxes, anti-

268
“Einen kriegsentscheidenden Einfluß haben Résistance und Maquis nirgendwo gewonnen, und die Sorgen, die
sie der deutschen Führung bereiteten, mußten in der Tat zweitrangig erscheinen, wenn mann sie mit der Lage an
der Invasionsfront verglich” (Jäckel, Frankreich in Hitlers Europa, p. 329).
269
USNA RG 226 190 740
270
The only German troops ordered to fight to the end in France were those defending the major French ports,
which the Allies needed to ship adequate amounts of heavy equipment. The French resistance knew this. A Free
French intelligence report dated July 8, 1944, reads “Le Commandement allemand n’a pas l’intention de
s’accrocher dans le Sud-est…une quantité de matériel est évacuée chaque jour en direction du nord” (SHAT 1 K
374 Box 7, Folder III, “Rapport sur la situation militaire dans la zone alpine de R1”).
271
Jackson, The Dark Years, p. 555; Weinberg, A World at Arms, pp. 694–695.
272
See Claude Boillot’s papers for a description of this type of operation (EPL Claude Boillot Papers, 1934–1984,
Box 1, Operation “François”).

97
tank defenses, etc. all of which were passed as fast as possible to the most forward troops.”273

Henry Hyde, the chief of American OSS in the Mediterranean, had realized after the invasion

of Sicily that this type of intelligence would definitely have to come from locals, and not his

own trained agents. He writes:

Ground combat intelligence is by and large intelligence of a rather

crude kind. The questions the men were most often asked to find out
[in Sicily] were whether at a given emplacement the enemy had large,
medium or small caliber guns (i.e. 105, 75, or 37 mm.) or just machine
guns, and if so how many.

Just as the intelligence obtained is crude, so in the main is the

technique of obtaining it….A man from the locality has to make his
way under cover of night or in the day time over from our side of the
terrain to the enemy’s – find out as quickly as possible the answer to
the questions asked and return.274

Was the French resistance the main provider of this essential information to the U.S. and

British armies? This is a subject which requires much more investigation. Unfortunately, most

of the physical evidence of this intelligence was destroyed during the war, as the information

itself, unlike strategic intelligence, was applicable only for several days, if not hours.275

What about the appraisals of the American generals, or the Germans? Eisenhower is

famous for his claim that the resistance was worth fifteen German divisions, but this was pure

politics. In private, the general often fumed about problems with the French, especially de

Gaulle. He once wrote to George Marshall: “The French continue to be difficult. I must say

that next to the weather I think they have caused me more trouble in this war than any other

single factor. They even rank above landing craft.”276 Most of the German officers

interviewed immediately following the war by the U.S. Army’s Foreign Military Studies

273
EPL Claude Boillot Papers, Box 1
274
USNA RG 226 97 33
275
Boillot writes, “No written collation is available as the information was put straight on a map and on large scale
traces which I handed personally to the General during my liaison visits, which, in periods of fighting, often
occurred two, three and four times daily” (EPL Claude Boillot Papers, Box 1).

98
program claim that the resistance was not a high-profile problem until the late summer of 1944,

when they began their deliberate retreat from France. Lt. Colonel Fritz Ziegelmann, a supply

officer, concluded that the resistance “nowhere had any decisive influence within the battle

area,” but that it did increase the value of military victories the Allied armies achieved on their

own.277

Where did French resistance go wrong? In 1940, resistance had huge potential. If key

figures in the French military such as Marshal Pétain and General Weygand had pushed for

continued resistance instead of an Armistice, the entire French navy, colonies, and perhaps

some of the air force would have been at the service of the Allies. Moreover, the people of

France would have been much more disposed to resist in 1940 if a unanimous body of their

political leaders had exhorted them to do so and had supplied them, with British help, from a

base in North Africa or London. As it was, the most prominent French leaders in 1940 made

all of the opposite decisions, and two years later, resistance was just beginning. But the

resistance itself also made some crucial choices poorly.

Firstly, it overextended itself in an attempt to engage in large-scale guerrilla war. In

this respect the maquis figured as a dangerous temptation, because the influx of men after STO

seemed to present the resistance with a nascent guerrilla army, but in actual fact the necessities

of guerrilla warfare – support from the local population, operational security, steady supply of

modern arms, and a relatively safe haven or base – were never present. The men of the maquis

were largely untrained and simply got killed or invited reprisals upon the civilian population.

276
EPL Eisenhower Pre-Presidential File, Box 80, folder 7
277
USNA RG 338 MS B-022

99
As SOE agent MacDonald Austin remarks, “resistance is small business.”278 If only the French

had realized their limitations, there probably would have been less suffering on all sides.

The second major flaw of the French resistance was that it became the political

instrument of Charles de Gaulle to support his ambitious claim to rule France. De Gaulle saw

the resistance primarily as a convenient tool to use against the Anglo-Saxon allies and their

French pretenders (such as General Giraud and Admiral Darlan), rather than as a military tool

against the Germans. The fact that the resistance became so politicized might lead one to

question the value of military evaluations. However, the military history of the resistance is

important for two reasons. First, as discussed above, its military aspects were just as important

to contemporaries as its political aspects, if not more so. Most accounts of French life during

the war somehow revolve around or interact with the idea, if not the reality, of resistance.

Secondly, the military history of the resistance serves as the cornerstone of any politically

constructed memory of the Second World War in France. No matter the implications, anyone

seeking to employ the history of the resistance for political means must at some point respond

to the question of its military effectiveness. That is what makes this topic exceedingly

important. The coincidental fact that is also exceedingly interesting seems to have made it a

matter worth investigating.

278
Hastings, Das Reich, p. 218.

100
 APPENDIX I

TEXT OF THE FRANCO-GERMAN ARMISTICE279

The following Armistice Treaty [Waffenstillstandsvertrag] has been agreed upon by

Colonel General Keitel, Chief of the High Command of the Wehrmacht, appointed by the
Führer of the German Reich and Supreme Commander of the German Wehrmacht, on the one
hand, and Plenipotentiaries of the French Government who are vested with full powers,
General of the Army Huntziger, chairman of the delegation, M. Noël, Ambassador of France,
Vice Admiral Le Luc, General Parisot, Corps Commander, and General of the Air Force
Bergeret, on the other:

ARTICLE I
CESSATION OF HOSTILITIES
The French Government will order the cessation of hostilities against the German Reich in
France, in French possessions, colonies, protectorates, and mandated territories, and at sea. It
will order French units, already encircled by German troops, to lay down their arms
immediately.

ARTICLE II280
LINE OF DEMARKATION
In order to safeguard the interests of the German Reich, French territory north and west of
the line marked on the attached map will be occupied by German troops. In so far as the parts
to be occupied are not yet under the control of German troops, this occupation will be carried
out immediately after the conclusion of this treaty.

ARTICLE III
GERMAN-OCCUPIED TERRITORY
In the occupied parts of France the German Reich exercises all rights of an occupying
power The French Government obligates itself to support with every means the regulations
resulting from the exercise of these rights and to carry them out with the aid of French
administration. All French authorities and officials of the occupied territory, therefore, are to
be promptly informed by the French Government to comply with the regulations of the German
military commanders and to cooperate with them in a correct manner.
It is the intention of the German Government to limit the occupation of the west coast after
ending hostilities with England to the extent absolutely necessary.

279
An English translation of the Franco-German armistice can be found in Documents on German Foreign Policy,
Series D, Volume IX, No. 523.
280
See map on p. 22 for the line of demarcation.

101
 The French Government is free to choose its seat of government in the unoccupied territory,
or, if it so desires, to transfer it to Paris. In the latter case, the German Government promises
the French Government and its central authorities every necessary facility to enable it to
administer the occupied and unoccupied territory from Paris.

ARTICLE IV
SURRENDER OF FRENCH ARMED FORCES
The French armed forces on land, on the sea, and in the air are to be demobilized and
disarmed within a period still to be fixed. Excepted from this are only those units which are
necessary for maintenance of internal order. Their strength and armament will be determined
by Germany and Italy. Units of the French armed forces in the territory to be occupied by
Germany will be speedily withdrawn into territory not to be occupied and are to be discharged.
Before leaving, these troops shall lay down their arms and equipment at the places where they
are stationed at the time this Treaty becomes effective. They will be responsible for orderly
delivery to the German troops.

ARTICLE V
SURRENDER OF EQUIPMENT
As a guarantee that the armistice will be observed, the surrender, undamaged, of all those
guns, tanks, tank defense weapons, war planes, anti-aircraft artillery, infantry weapons, means
of conveyance, and munitions can be demanded from the units of the French armed forces
which are standing in battle against Germany and which at the time this agreement goes into
force are in territory not to be occupied by Germany. The German Armistice Commission will
decide the extent of delivery.
The surrender of military aircraft can be dispensed with, if all military aircraft still in the
possession of the French armed forces are disarmed and placed in safe custody under German
supervision.

ARTICLE VI
WAR MATERIALS IN UNOCCUPIED FRANCE
The remaining arms, munitions, and war apparatus of all kinds in the unoccupied part of
France – except those permitted for the equipment of the authorized French units – are to be
stored or placed in safe custody under German or Italian supervision. In this connection the
German High Command reserves the right to order all measures necessary to prevent
unauthorized use of this material. Further manufacture of war material in unoccupied territory
is to be stopped immediately.

ARTICLE VII
SURRENDER OF FORTIFICATIONS
In the territory to be occupied, all land and coastal fortifications, with weapons, munitions,
and apparatus and plants of every kind are to be surrendered undamaged. Plans of these
fortifications, as well as plans of those already conquered by German troops, are to be handed
over. Exact details regarding prepared blastings, land mines, obstructions, time fuses, barriers

102
for fighting, etc., shall be given to the German High Command. These obstacles are to be
removed by French forces upon German demand.

ARTICLE VIII
SURRENDER OF THE FRENCH NAVY
The French war fleet, with the exception of those units released to the French Government
for protection of French interests in its colonial empire, is to be assembled in ports to be
specified and is to be demobilized and disarmed under German or Italian supervision. The
choice of these ports will be determined by the peacetime stations of the ships. The German
Government solemnly declares to the French Government that it does not intend to use for its
own purposes in the war the French fleet which is in ports under German supervision, with the
exception of those units needed for coastal patrol and for mine sweeping. Furthermore they
solemnly and expressly declare that they have no intention of raising any claim to the French
war fleet at the time of the conclusion of peace. With the exception of that part of the French
war fleet, still to be determined, which is to represent French interests in the colonial empire,
all war vessels which are outside French territorial waters are to be recalled to France.

ARTICLE IX
CLEARING OF MINES
The French High Command must give the German High Command the exact location of all
mines which France has set out, as well as information on the other harbor and coastal
obstructions and defense facilities. Insofar as the German High Command may require, French
forces must clear away the mines.

ARTICLE X
PREVENTION OF FURTHER HOSTILITIES
The French Government is obligated to forbid any portion of its remaining armed forces to
undertake hostilities against Germany in any manner.
The French Government also will prevent members of its armed forces from leaving the
country and arms and war material of any kind, ships, aircraft, etc., being moved to England or
any other foreign country.
The French Government will forbid French nationals to fight against the German Reich in
the service of states with which Germany is still at war. French nationals who act contrary to
this provision will be treated by German troops as francs-tireurs [Freischärler].

ARTICLE XI
THE FRENCH MERCHANT MARINE
French merchant ships of all kinds including coastal and harbor craft which are now in
French hands, may not leave port until further notice. Resumption of commercial voyages will
require approval of the German and Italian Governments.
French commercial vessels will be recalled by the French Government or, if return is
impossible, the French Government will instruct them to enter neutral harbors.
All confiscated German commercial vessels are, on demand, to be returned undamaged.

103
 ARTICLE XII
FRENCH AIRCRAFT
All aircraft on French territory will be immediately prohibited from taking off. Every plane
making a flight without German approval will be regarded as an enemy by the German
Luftwaffe and treated accordingly.
In unoccupied territory, air fields and ground facilities of the air force shall be under
German and Italian control. Demand may be made that such air fields be rendered unusable.
The French Government is required to take charge of all foreign airplanes in the unoccupied
region to prevent flights. They are to be turned over to the German armed forces.

ARTICLE XIII
FRENCH MILITARY FACILITIES AND RAILROADS
The French Government obligates itself to turn over to German troops in the occupied
region all facilities and properties of the French armed forces in undamaged condition. It also
will see to it that harbors, industrial facilities, and docks are preserved in their present condition
and damaged in no way. The same stipulations apply to transportation routes and equipment,
especially railways, roads, and canals, and to the whole communications network and
equipment, waterways and coastal transportation services. Additionally, the French
Government is required on demand of the German High Command to perform all necessary
restoration labor on these facilities.
The French Government will ensure that in the occupied region necessary technical
personnel and rolling stock of the railways and other transportation equipment, to a degree
normal in peacetime, be retained in service.

ARTICLE XIV
FRENCH RADIO TRANSMISSION
All radio transmitting stations in French territory are forthwith forbidden to transmit. The
resumption of transmissions from the unoccupied part of France will be subject to special
arrangements.

ARTICLE XV
TRANSPORT OF GERMAN FREIGHT THROUGH UNOCCUPIED FRANCE
The French Government obligates itself to convey transit freight between the German Reich
and Italy through unoccupied territory to the extent demanded by the German Government.

ARTICLE XVI281
RETURN OF FRENCH CITIZENS TO THE NORTH
The French Government, in agreement with the responsible German officials, will arrange
for the return of the population into occupied territory.

281
This article deals with the many civilians from northern France who fled to the south in the face of the
oncoming German army in 1940. This migration was called the “Exodes.”

104
 ARTICLE XVII
ECONOMIC ASSETS
The French Government obligates itself to prevent any removal of economic assets [Werte]
and provisions [Vorräte] from the territory to be occupied by German troops into unoccupied
territory or abroad. Such assets and provisions as are in occupied territory may only be
disposed in agreement with the German Government.
In this connection the German Government will take into consideration the vital needs of
the population of the unoccupied territory.

ARTICLE XVIII
OCCUPATION COSTS
The French-Government will bear the costs of maintenance of German occupation troops
on French soil.

ARTICLE XIX
GERMAN PRISONERS OF WAR
All German prisoners of war and civilian prisoners in French custody, including detained
and convicted persons who have been arrested and sentenced for acts committed in the interest
of the German Reich are to be handed over immediately to German troops.
The French Government is obliged to surrender upon demand all Germans named by the
German Government in France as well as in French possessions, colonies, protectorate
territories, and mandates.
The French Government obliges itself to prevent removal of German prisoners of war and
civilian prisoners from France into French possessions or into foreign countries. Regarding
prisoners already taken outside of France, as well as sick and wounded German prisoners who
cannot be transported, exact lists with the places of residence are to be produced. The German
High Command assumes care of sick and wounded German prisoner of war.

ARTICLE XX
FRENCH PRISONERS OF WAR
French troops in German prison camps will remain prisoners of war until the conclusion of
a peace.

ARTICLE XXI
RESPONSIBILITY FOR ECONOMIC ASSETS
The French Government assumes responsibility for securing all objects and assets which,
according to this Treaty, are to be surrendered intact, or held at German disposal, or whose
removal of which outside the country is forbidden. The French Government is bound to
compensate for all destruction, damage or removal contrary to this Treaty.

105
 ARTICLE XXII
THE ARMISITCE COMMISSION
The execution of the Armistice Treaty will be regulated and supervised by a German
Armistice Commission acting under the instructions of the German High Command.
Furthermore the Armistice Commission will be called upon to ensure the necessary conformity
between the present Treaty and the Italian-French Armistice Treaty. The French Government
will send a delegation to the seat of the German Armistice Commission to represent French
wishes and to receive the executive orders of the German Armistice Commission.

ARTICLE XXIII
CONDITIONS FOR THE ARMISTICE TO TAKE EFFECT
The present Armistice Treaty will become effective as soon as the French Government has
also reached an agreement with the Italian Government regarding the cessation of hostilities.
Hostilities will cease six hours after the Italian Government has notified the Reich Government
of conclusion of its agreement. The Reich Government will notify the French Government of
this time by radio.

ARTICLE XXIV
This agreement is valid until conclusion of a peace treaty. The German Government may
terminate this agreement at any time with immediate effect if the French Government fails to
fulfill the obligations it assumes under the agreement.
This armistice agreement has been signed on June 22,1940 in the Forest of Compiègne at
6:50 p.m., German summer time.

HUNTZIGER
KEITEL

106
 APPENDIX II

FOREIGN OFFICE VIEWS ON AID TO THE RESISTANCE

January 15, 1944

“We [at the Foreign Office] realize that from the operational point of view the
Resistance Groups must remain an uncertain factor and that there is no guarantee that the arms
intended for them will all reach them; but we hope that, when considering S.O.E.’s request, the
Chiefs of Staff will give due weight to the important political considerations involved. The
recent debate in the Consultative Assembly (see Mr. Duff Cooper's telegrams Nos. 50 and 51)
shows how deep is the conviction amongst the Resistance Groups that we have let them down
over military supplies. The latest demarche of the French Committee has evidently been made
under strong pressure from the Resistance delegates. If we return a negative reply, the
Committee and the Resistance Groups alike will be convinced that the suspicions voiced in the
Assembly were justified and that we wish to withhold arms from the resisters because we do
not like their politics: we shall never succeed in convincing them either that aircraft cannot be
spared for the purpose of that the operations value of the resisters is too low to be worth
bothering about.
If on the other hand S.O.E.’s request can be granted, there should be no difficulty in
convincing those concerned on the French side that we are doing our best for the Resistance
Groups – especially as I gather that S.O.E. contemplate that the bulk of the additional supplies
that these aircraft could carry would go to them rather than to S.O.E.’s own organizations
which are already relatively better equipped. That is in our view the essential point, for we
shall immensely aggravate our difficulties unless we ensure that when D day comes the
Resistance Groups (and the French Committee, which increasingly follows their lead) have
confidence in the Allied High Command and are willing to co-operate with it. S.O.E. tells us
that their own relations with the French services which control the Resistance activities have
improved as a result of discussions here with General d’Astier, and that they are now satisfied
that, if the material is delivered, the groups can be expected to use it as we want. We have
suggested to S.O.E. that they insist on a firm undertaking from General d’Astier that the
Resistance Groups will be instructed by the Comite d’Action to perform whatever operational
role the Allied High Command may assign to them.”

SPEAIGHT

107
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

ARCHIVAL SOURCES

I. British Public Record Office, Kew (PRO)

ADM 116: ADMIRALTY: RECORD OFFICE: CASES (1852–1965)

4259 - Repatriation of French Troops to Casablanca and of Gibraltarian
evacuees from Casablanca to Gibraltar for re-evacuation elsewhere (1940)
4816 - France and the Free French: appreciation of conditions and personalities;
agenda and meetings of Committee on French Resistance (1941–1943)

AIR 8: AIR MINISTRY AND MINISTRY OF DEFENSE: DEPARTMENT OF THE CHIEF OF THE AIR
STAFF: REGISTERED FILES (1916–1982)
1749 - SOE: provision of aircraft (1943)

AIR 14: AIR MINISTRY: BOMBER COMMAND: REGISTERED FILES (1935–1980)

3474 - S.O.E. (Special Operations Executive): analysis (1943 Jan.–1944 Jan.)

CAB 106: WAR CABINET AND CABINET OFFICE: HISTORICAL SECTION: ARCHIVIST AND
LIBRARIAN FILES: (AL SERIES) (1939–1967)
982 - Basic notes for the report by the Supreme Commander to the Combined Chiefs of Staff
on operations in Europe of the Allied Expeditionary Force 1944 June 6–1945 May 8, by
Major F. D. Price; Part 6: French resistance (1945)

CAB 122: WAR CABINET AND CABINET OFFICE: BRITISH JOINT STAFF MISSION AND BRITISH
JOINT SERVICES MISSION: WASHINGTON OFFICE RECORDS (1940–1958)
780 - Resistance Groups in France (1943–1944) 282

FO 371: FOREIGN OFFICE: POLITICAL DOCUMENTS: GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE FROM 1906

(1906–1966)
41904 - Special operations in France: arming and maintenance of the Maquis (1944)

HS 6: SPECIAL OPERATIONS EXECUTIVE: WESTERN EUROPE (1936–1992)

329 - Main and local resistance and partisan groups: Maquis operations; interrogations
(1943–1944)
361 - EUCALYPTUS; communications with London on conditions and supply needs;
disruption of road and rail communications; court of inquiry findings (1944–1945)
601 - Appreciation of French resistance (1943–1944)

282
Matching file at Eisenhower Presidential Library: SHAEF General Staff Office of the Secretary, 370.64; 6 / 52 /
737–738

108
HW 1: GOVERNMENT CODE AND CYPHER SCHOOL: SIGNALS INTELLIGENCE PASSED TO THE
PRIME MINISTER, MESSAGES AND CORRESPONDENCE (1940–1945)
3026 - German battle order (06.29.44) from Oberbefehlshaber West related to rail transport of
271 and 272 INF divisions to Normandy
3038 - intercepted German report (06.25.44) from Oberbefehlshaber West re: difficulty of rail
transport and travel of 2.SS.Pz.div by road instead
3074 - captured German message (07.13.44) re: coal supply/sabotage/rail transport
3104 - German report (07.22.44) from Oberbefehlshaber Frankreich re: motor transport and
anti-guerrilla measures
3147 - intel report on Hitler's orders for (08.04.44) re: guerrilla action in Brittany
3161 - intel report (08.08.44) re: 2 SS.Pz.Div, Breton guerrillas

HS 8: MINISTRY OF ECONOMIC WARFARE, SPECIAL OPERATIONS EXECUTIVE AND SUCESSORS:

HEADQUARTERS: RECORDS (1935–1973)
423 - French resistance parts I and II; delays to German build-up in northern battle area from
6 June 1944 (1944 Jan 01–1944 Dec 31)

KV 6: THE SECURITY SERVICE: LIST (L SERIES) FILES (1933–1956)

17 - COMBAT organisation: file contains details of an enquiry into the security of a wartime
Free French resistance group COMBAT whose head, Henri Frenay, was interrogated in
London in 1943

WO 219: WAR OFFICE: SUPREME HEADQUARTERS ALLIED EXPEDITIONARY FORCE: MILITARY

HEADQUARTERS PAPERS, SECOND WORLD WAR (1939–1947)
784 - Order of battle of the German Army: troop movements and unit locations
1944 Feb.–July
2364 - Possible assistance by the French Resistance in the event of an invasion by Allied
Forces: study by the French Military Delegation in London 1944 Mar.

II. Bundesarchiv, abteilung Militaerarchiv, Freiburg (BAMA)

RH 3: OKH GENERALQUARTERMEISTER
204 - message from Goebbels to Otto von Stülpnagel (19.09.41) re: hostage executions

RH 19: HEERESGRUPPENKOMMANDOS
43 - OB West: Kriegestagebücher: Gerd von Rundstedt, Mai 1944
44 - OB West: Kriegestagebücher: Gerd von Rundstedt, Juni 1944
45 - OB West: Kriegestagebücher: Gerd von Rundstedt, Juli 1944
46 - OB West: Kriegestagebücher: Gerd von Rundstedt, August 1944

RH 31: VERBINGDUNGSKOMMANDOS UND -STÄBE

8 - Papers and correspondence of General von Neubronn, OB West’s representative in Vichy.
Contains reports sent to OB West and Berlin.

RH 36: KOMMANDATUREN DER MILITÄRVERWALTUNG

565 - Monthly situation reports from the Feldgendarmerie, 1940

109
RW 35: MILITÄRBEFEHLSHABER IN FRANKREICH
1 - MBF viewpoint on the hostage reprisal affair. Contains the warnings von Stülpnagel
published in the Pariser Zeitung.
45 - Sabotageabwehr: German assessment of the sabotage capabilities of the French resistance.
84 - Sicherheitsdienst reports on the Armée Secrète, FFI, BCRA, and FTP preparations for D-
Day.
543 - papers and correspondence from von Stülpnagel’s time as MBF, the majority concerning
the hostage reprisals of 1941
542 - lengthy report on “hostage procedures” (pages after p. 118 on “statistics” listed in
contents seem to be missing)
698 - SS and SD in France, almost exclusively related to the Einsatz Rosenburg, archive
seizures, and Best’s relations with the SS and SD regarding these operations
1221 - Situation reports and daily orders for August–September 1942 for
Militärverwaltungsbezirk A
1223 - Situation reports and daily orders for November 1942 for Militärverwaltungsbezirk A
1252 - account of the last months of German administration in SW France, written after the
fact. Covers July–September 1944
1353 K - large, detailed map of France with resistance “contaminated” areas in red and
German army in blue. Dated July 22, 1944.
1416 - reports from Befehlshaber Nordwestfrankreich on military situation re: resistance

III. Archives Nationales, Paris (AN)

72 AJ: SECONDE GUERRE MONDIALE

87 - the Vercors: testimony of local maquis leaders
89 - the Vercors: a history by Pierre Dalloz with maps, testimony, and newspaper clippings
257 - Occupied France and public opinion
260 - captured German police files on occupied France
545 - Roger Levy's personal papers re: UNION network

F1a: MINISTERE DE L'INTERIEUR: ADMINISTRATION GENERALE

3717 - BCRA283 Telegrams (March 1943–March 1944)
3719 - BCRA Telegrams (Sept 1943–June 1944)
3720 - BCRA Telegrams (March 25–July 21 1943)
3663 - Vichy Police file with minutes from Werner Best’s meetings with French authorities
3666 - Vichy Police file on resistance incidents involving the German army
3782 - Gestapo files sent to the CFLN284

F7: POLICE GÉNÉRALE

15142 - captured Gestapo files (June–October 1942) re: resistance activity
15155 - CFLN reports on resistance organization285

283
Bureau Central de Renseignements et d’Action – de Gaulle’s Free French intelligence service
284
Comité Française de Libération Nationale – founded by Giraud and de Gaulle in Algiers on June 3, 1943
285
documents seized by the Gestapo after the arrest of Pierre Kaan, secretary of the CNR, on December 29, 1943.

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IV. Archives du Ministère des Affaires étrangères, Paris (MAE)

GUERRE 1939-1945 VICHY

Sous-série: Z Vichy-Europe
321 - French soldiers interned in Great Britain, 1940
360 - repatriation of French soldiers from Britain

V. Service historique de l'armée de terre, Vincennes (SHAT)

SERIE 1 K: FONDS PRIVES

1 K 374: Fonds Ziegler
Box 7 - Mission reports on FFI in Brittany, general operation, liason with allies, and
Free French supplies to the metropolitan resistance (very large file)

VI. Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library, Abilene, Kansas (EPL)

DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER PRE-PRESIDENTIAL PAPERS (1916-1952)

Box 5 - letters from General Sir Kenneth Anderson re: Giraud; operation TORCH
Box 20 - letter from de Gaulle re: troubles with the French army in Italy
Box 22 - correspondence with Churchill re: de Gaulle and D-Day
Box 30 - record of conversation of General d’Astier with General Eisenhower
Box 47 - letter from General Giraud to General Eisenhower, June 3, 1943
Box 80 - letter from General Eisenhower to General Marshall, February 20, 1945
Box 168 - uncensored manuscripts of the Harry Butcher Diary (before publication)

SHAEF GENERAL STAFF, OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY

370.64 - French Resistance Groups (Guerrilla Warfare) [Reel 52, Nos. 375–1045]
381 - French participation in OVERLORD [Reel 52, Nos. 1205–1261]

WALTER BEDELL SMITH PAPERS (1921-1961)

Box 7 - Chief of Staff's Personal Papers

SMITH, WALTER BEDELL: COLLECTION OF WWII DOCUMENTS (1941-1945)

Box 30 - SHAEF G-2 weekly intelligence summaries (March–August 1944)
Box 41 - post-war interviews with high ranking German Generals

CLAUDE BOILLOT PAPERS

Box 1 – intelligence procedures tied to “Operation FRANÇOIS” in Brittany

VII. U.S. National Archives, College Park, MD (USNA)

RG 242 - CAPTURED GERMAN DOCUMENTS

T-77: Records of the Headquarters, German Armed Forces High Command (OKW)
T-78: Records of the German Army High Command (OKH)
T-501: Records of German Field Commands, Rear Areas, Occupied Territories, and others

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RG 338 - U.S. ARMY: FOREIGN MILITARY STUDIES PROGRAM
MS A-915 - Field Marshal Keitel, General Jodl: significance of the maquis
MS B-022 – Lt. Col. Fritz Ziegelmann: French resistance in the west
MS B-034 – OKW War diary: FFI in the west
MS B-378 – Maj. General Friedrich Dernen: French resistance in the Herault
MS B-448 - Col. Albert Emmerich: French resistance in S. France

RG 226 – OFFICE OF STRATEGIC SERVICES (OSS)

Entry 97, Box 6 - papers of Henry Hyde
Entry 97, Box 32 - papers of Henry Hyde
Entry 97, Box 33 - papers of Henry Hyde
Entry 190, Box 740 - Jedburgh Teams, OSS Missions, Papers of Dr. Norman H. Pearson
Entry 190, Box 741 - OSS Operations: ZEBRA, CADILLAC, BUICK, and GRASSY
Entry M1642 - Allied aid to French resistance (microfilm)

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JOURNALS

Journal of Contemporary History

The Journal of Modern History
Military Affairs
Political Science Quarterly
Revue d’histoire de la deuxième guerre mondiale (RHDGM)

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 BOUND SERIES

Akten zur deutschen auswärtigen Politik 1918–1945 (ADAP)

The Dwight D. Eisenhower Papers
The Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS)

UNPUBLISHED DISSERTATIONS

Laub, Thomas J. “Resistance, Repression, and Reprisals: The German Military Administration
in France, 1940-1944.” PhD dissertation. University of Virginia, 2003.

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 ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Matthew McDole graduated with Highest Distinction from the University of Virginia in 2005.

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