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weeks. Instead, the British rejected all peace offers by the Germans and the French POWs remained in prison. Many of them escaped and joined the Maquis.


What started as a loose group of individuals ultimately became an extremely organized resistance group who were independent from other resistance groups.


The Maquisards, as the fighters in the Maquis were called, were politically diverse. Some of them, like the "Red Spaniards" who were former soldiers in the Spanish Civil War, were Communists, but in general, the Communists had their own resistance organizations, such as the FTP. This was a resistance group, formed by the Communist party, called the Francs-Tireurs et Partisans. The Communist party also formed the Front National which fought in the resistance.


The Maquis also provided aid and protection to refugees, immigrants, Jews, and others threatened by the Vichy and German authorities. They also helped Allied airman, whose aircraft had been shot down in France, to get back to Britain.


In the spring of 1942, communist militants, acting independently of the leadership of the French Communist Party, organized the first Maquis units in the Limousin and the Puy-de-Dôme. Maquis groups were established in other regions of France. As the Maquis grew in strength it began to organize attacks on German forces.


In 1943, the Germans started conscripting Frenchmen as workers in German factories. Many refused to go and escaped into the forests where they joined the Maquis. In the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, which were annexed into the Greater German Reich, former French citizens were conscripted into the German Army. Many Alsatians went into hiding and escaped into Vichy France where they too became part of the French resistance, fighting with the Maquis.


In March 1944, the German Army began a campaign of repression throughout France. This included a policy of reprisals against civilians living in towns and villages close to the scene of attacks carried out by members of the French Resistance. As one official wrote on 15th April, 1944 that the authorities "wanted to strike fear into the population and change their opinion by showing them that the evils they were suffering were the direct consequence of the existence of the Maquis and that they had made the mistake of tolerating them."


Immediately before the Allied invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944, the Maquis became particularly active. In preparation for the invasion, the British had dropped many weapons and millions of francs by parachute into rural areas. The weapons were stored in farm houses and villages, ready for the resistance fighters who would play an important part in the liberation of Europe. As a result, the Maquis was very effective in preventing German troops from reaching the Normandy area to fight the invaders. This included attacks on bridges, telephone lines and railway tracks.


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The wartime Resistance and the Maquis were very active in out-of-the-way regions, and the roadsides are dotted with tiny memorials to individuals or small groups of men, killed in ambushes or shot in reprisals.


Reprisals against the Maquis by German troops became more and more vicious. Innocent French civilians suffered, as for example in the village of Oradour-sur-Glane which was destroyed by Waffen-SS soldiers on June 10, 1944.


The resistance fighters continued to aid Allied invasion efforts after the allied forces had secured footings on continental Europe.


In northern France they aided the troops marching toward Paris. In Paris itself resistance groups, supported by the Paris police officers, began their fiercest resistance on 19 Aug 1944, attacking German forces with rifles and grenades while rounding up collaborators for execution. The fighting climaxed on 22 Aug. 1,500 resistance fighters and civilians lost their lives before Paris was finally liberated on 25 Aug 1944.


Three days later, General de Gaulle called for the disbanding of all resistance groups and encouraged them to join the new French Army under his direct control.


The extreme bravery of these courageous men and women who risked their lives to make France a free country must never be forgotten.


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