researchtopic

HISTORY NOTES

Section E: Research Topic

The Role of the French Resistance in the Liberation

The 6^th of June 1944, D-day or le Jour-J, marked the beginning of the Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe, which would ultimately lead to its liberation. In planning D-day the SHAEF, Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces, had to decide what role the French Resistance would play. Finally, on 20^th May 1944, it was decided that the Resistance’s role would be to create a diversionary threat to enemy forces and to distract enemy reinforcements from Normandy. (1) However no part of the Overlord plan was dependent on Resistance success.

The Resistance was mainly made up of the working class. The middle class tended not to get involved as, if caught, they had more to lose. Members of the army opposed to the signing of the Armistice also joined. Others were Communists who had experience of fighting a guerrilla war on and off for the previous 40 years. Others were ordinary people fleeing the STO, Service de Travail Obligatoire, which was introduced in August 1942. They took refuge with the Maquis. (2)

These Resistance groups were joined by agents from the SOE, Special Operations Executive, which had been set up by Churchill after the fall of France to pursue, with the help of the Resistance, clandestine attacks behind enemy lines. Approaching D-day they were joined by Jedburgh teams. These comprised American, French and British soldiers and carried out more open attacks. After D-day the ranks of the Resistance swelled with those willing to join in the fighting.

From the beginning the Resistance had had its problems. It wasn’t even one organisation. The two main factions were the Armée Secrète, who were Gaullist and tended to be more cautious, organising their attacks in such a way to limit the danger to the local population, and the Francs Tireurs et Partisans, who were Communists and tended to be more reckless than the AS. The two groups collaborated rarely and the wrangling between them over who would control France after the Liberation often distracted both them and the SOE from the job in hand. Other groups were formed spontaneously. They were urged to join existing groups. Others, such as the Coq Enchaîné, distributed clandestine newspapers. Those escaping the STO also created problems as they were ordinary civilians who were at first unwilling to fight, as under other circumstances, they would have had nothing to do with the Resistance.

The Resistance’s main role during the Liberation was in staging clandestine attacks such as ambushes and sabotage. They operated particularly on railway lines and other communications links, using mostly plastic explosives and fallen trees to put these links out lf action. These acts were sometimes carried out repeatedly on the same target. Factories supplying the German army were also targeted. Sabotage attacks were usually more accurate than bombing raids but less reliable. One such successful attack was at the Peugeot works, which supplied tank turrets for the German army. It was sabotaged by the SOE with the knowledge of the factory’s owner and the co-operation of the foreman. This achieved the same aim as an RAF bombing raid – stopping production – but without destroying the entire factory. (3)

Another example of the effectiveness of sabotage was an attack carried out on Das Reich 2^nd SS Panzer Division. When the Allied invasion began, they had been stationed in Southern France and soon received orders to proceed to Normandy. However SOE agents and local sub-agents cycled after dark to where they were camped, took all the axle oil from the tank’s transporter cars and replaced it with ground corborundum which seized up the transporter cars. The tanks had to travel nearly 100 miles to replacement cars, damaging their tracks in the process. Similar attacks and roadblocks plagued their journey to Normandy; they finally arrived two weeks later than had originally been planned. (4)

The Resistance primarily used guerrilla warfare, as this was most effective. When they embarked on proper military attacks these were doomed to failure as they were facing a larger, trained regular army. An example of this was the attempted liberation of Tulle. After some initial successes, FTP insurgents were defeated by SS reinforcements. 99 local men were hanged from the lampposts in Tulle as a reprisal and a warning against further similar attacks. (5)

The price paid by the Resistance and the civilian people during the Liberation was high. Most armies don’t recognise guerrilla warfare. Because of this the resistants weren’t treated as prisoners of war. If caught most were executed after being tortured or sent to a concentration camp. The German army often used reprisals as a method of turning local populations against the Resistance. As can be seen at Tulle above it was mostly innocent civilians who were the victims of these reprisals.

One particularly tragic reprisal occurred at Oradour–sur-Glane on 10^th June 1944. As a reprisal for the kidnapping of Major Kampfe, members of the SS arrived at the town of Oradour and ordered everyone onto the central square. They separated the men from the women and children. The men were then brought into barns where they were shot in groups and the bodies burned. The women and children were locked into a church, which was then set alight. Some of them tried to escape and were shot. In all 648 people were killed in this reprisal. (6) The AS was conscious of the likelihood of such reprisals and planned their attacks in such a way as to limit the danger to the local population.

The main role played by the Resistance in the Liberation was to maximise their ability to “make a mess” (Jacques Poirier). (7) Their main achievement was that they distracted German military from Normandy to less worthwhile attacks – precisely the role the SHAEF had planned for them. This can be seen above in the delays suffered by the 2^nd SS Panzer Division at a time when the German army at Normandy were losing between 2,500 and 3,000 men a day and needed reinforcements. Other divisions suffered similar delays. (8) This in itself wasn’t a decisive factor but it did help. It is difficult to say if the gains were worth the huge sacrifice of the lives of innocent civilians. However it was the role played by the Resistance that provided a means by which the French could play a part in the Liberation, thus restoring national pride.