Editing French Resistance (section)

===1944: The height of the Resistance===
[[File:1944 French propaganda poster - 1939-1944.jpg|thumb|Resistance [[poster]] showing the increase in size of the resistance and [[French Forces of the Interior|French forces]] since 1939]]
By the beginning of 1944, the BCRA was providing the Allies with two intelligence assessments per day based on information provided by the Resistance.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=12}} One of the BCRA's most effective networks was headed by Colonel Rémy who headed the ''Confrérie de Notre Dame'' (Brotherhood of Notre Dame) which provided photographs and maps of German forces in Normandy, most notably details of the Atlantic Wall.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=12}} In January 1944, following extensive lobbying by the SOE, Churchill was persuaded to increase by 35 the number of planes available to drop in supplies for the ''maquis''. By February 1944, supply drops were up by 173%.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=54}} The same month, the OSS agreed to supply the ''maquis'' with arms.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=40}} Despite the perennial shortage of arms, by the early 1944 there were parts of rural areas in the south of France that were more under the control of the ''maquis'' than the authorities.{{Sfn|Ousby|2000|pp=282–283}} By January 1944, a civil war had broken out with the ''Milice'' and ''maquis'' assassinating alternatively leaders of the Third Republic or collaborators that was to become increasingly savage as 1944 went on.{{Sfn|Ousby|2000|p=270}} The ''Milice'' were loathed by the resistance as Frenchmen serving the occupation and unlike the Wehrmacht and the SS, were not armed with heavy weapons nor were especially well trained, making them an enemy who could be engaged on more or less equal terms, becoming the preferred opponent of the ''Maquis''.{{Sfn|Ousby|2000|p=268}} The men of the Wehrmacht were German conscripts whereas the ''Milice'' were French volunteers, thus explains why the ''résistants'' hated the ''Milice'' so much.{{Sfn|Ousby|2000|p=268}} On 10 January 1944, the ''Milice'' "avenged" their losses at the hands of the ''maquis'' by killing [[Victor Basch]] and his wife outside Lyon.{{Sfn|Ousby|2000|p=270}} The 80 year-old Basch was a French Jew, a former president of the League for the Rights of Men and had been a prominent ''dreyfusard'' during the Dreyfus affair, marking him out as an enemy of the "New Order in Europe" by his very existence, though the elderly pacifist Basch was not actually involved in the resistance.{{Sfn|Ousby|2000|p=270}} The ''milicien'' who killed Basch was an anti-Semitic fanatic named Joseph Lécussan who always kept a Star of David made of human skin taken from a Jew he killed earlier in his pocket, making him typical of the ''Milice'' by this time.{{Sfn|Ousby|2000|p=270}}

As the Resistance had not been informed of the details of [[Operation Overlord]], many Resistance leaders had developed their own plans to have the ''maquis'' seize large parts of central and southern France, which would provide a landing area for Allied force to be known as "Force C" and supplies to be brought in, allowing "Force C" and the ''maquis'' to attack the Wehrmacht from the rear.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=54}} The Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) had rejected this plan under the grounds that the disparity between the firepower and training of the Wehrmacht vs. the ''maquisards'' meant that the Resistance would be unable to hold their own in sustained combat.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=54}} The ''maquis'' unaware of this tried to seize "redoubts" several times in 1944 with disastrous results. Starting in late January 1944, a group of ''maquisards'' led by [[Tom Morel|Théodose Morel]] (codename Tom) began to assemble on the [[Glières Plateau]] near [[Annecy]] in the [[Haute-Savoie]].{{Sfn|Ousby|2000|p=283}} By February 1944, the ''maquisards'' numbered about 460 and had only light weapons, but received much media attention with the Free French issuing a press release in London saying "In Europe there are three countries resisting: Greece, Yugoslavia and the Haute-Savoie".{{Sfn|Ousby|2000|p=283}} The Vichy state sent the ''Groupes Mobiles de Réserve'' to evict the ''maquis'' from the Glières plateau and were repulsed.{{Sfn|Ousby|2000|p=283}} After Morel had been killed by a French policeman during a raid, command of the [[Maquis des Glières]] was assumed by Captain Maurice Anjot. In March 1944, the Luftwaffe started to bomb the ''maquisards'' on the Glières plateau and on 26 March 1944 the Germans sent in an Alpine division of 7,000 men together with various SS units and about 1,000 ''miliciens'', making for about 10,000 men supported by artillery and air support which soon overwhelmed the ''maquisards'' whose lost about 150 killed in action and another 200 captured who were then shot.{{Sfn|Ousby|2000|p=283}} Anjot knew the odds against his ''maquis'' band were hopeless, but decided to take a stand to uphold French honor.<ref name="Cerri">{{cite web|last=Cerri|first=Alain|title=The Battle of Glières|publisher=La bataille des Glières|date=March 1996|url=http://alain.cerri.free.fr/index20.html|access-date=2016-12-15}}</ref> Anjot himself was one of the ''maquisards'' killed on the Glières plateau.<ref name="Cerri"/>

In February 1944, all of the Resistance governments agreed to accept the authority of the Free French government based in Algiers (until 1962 Algeria was considered to be part of France) and the Resistance was renamed [[French Forces of the Interior|FFI]] (''Forces Françaises de l'Intérieur''-Forces of the Interior).{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=21}} The Germans refused to accept the Resistance as legitimate opponents and any ''résistant'' captured faced the prospect of torture and/or execution as the Germans maintained that the Hague and Geneva conventions did not apply to the Resistance. By designating the Resistance as part of the French armed forces was intended to provide the Resistance with legal protection and allow the French to threaten the Germans with the possibility of prosecution for war crimes.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=22}} The designation did not help. For example, the ''résistante'' Sindermans was arrested in Paris on 24 February 1944 after she was found to be carrying forged papers.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=27}} As she recalled: "Immediately, they handcuffed me and took me to be interrogated. Getting no reply, they slapped in the face with such force that I fell from the chair. Then they whipped me with a rubber hose, full in the face. The interrogation began at 10 o'clock in the morning and ended at 11 o'clock that night. I must tell you I had been pregnant for three months".{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=27}}

As part of the preparations for Operation Overlord, Resistance attacks on the rail system increased with the Resistance in the first three months of 1944 damaging 808 locomotives compared to 387 damaged by air attack.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=49}} Starting with the clearer weather in the spring, between April–June 1944 the Resistance damaged 292 locomotives compared to 1,437 damaged in air strikes.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=49}} These statistics do not completely tell the story as Resistance sabotage attacks on the rail system in the first half of 1944 were so pervasive that the Germans had to import workers from the ''Reichsbahn'' (the German state railroad) and put soldiers on trains as they no longer trusted the ''Cheminots''.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=49}} On 23 March 1944, General [[Marie-Pierre Kœnig|Pierre Koenig]] was appointed commander of the FFI and flew to London from Algiers to co-ordinate the operations of the FFI at the SHAEF commanded by General [[Dwight Eisenhower]] at a section known as ''État Major des Forces Françaises de l'Intérieur'' (General Staff, French Forces of the Interior).{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=21}} The American and British officers at SHAEF distrusted the Resistance with the OSS agent [[William J. Casey]] writing that many in the Resistance appeared more interested in post-war politics than in fighting the Germans.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=21}} Despite the mistrust, SHAEF planned to use the Resistance to tie down German forces. In April 1944, there were 331 drops of weapons by the SOE to the ''maquis'', in May 531 drops and in June 866 drops.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=32}} The most common weapon provided by the SOE was the [[Sten]] machine gun, which though inaccurate except at short ranges and prone to breakdown was cheap, light, easy to assemble and disassemble and required no special skills to use.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=40}} Other weapons dropped by the SOE were the [[Webley revolver]], the [[Bren machine gun]], the [[Lee-Enfield rifle]] and the [[PIAT]] anti-tank grenade launcher while the OSS provided the M3 "[[Greasegun]]", the [[Browning Hi-Power|Browning handgun]], the [[M1 Garand|M1 rifle]] and the [[bazooka]] anti-tank rocket launcher.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|pp=40–41}} In general, American weaponry was preferred to British weaponry, but the British-built Bren gun emerged as one of the favorite weapons of the resistance.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=40}} Reflecting the importance of weapons, organizing supply drops was the main concern for the Resistance in the spring of 1944.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=43}} [[André Hue]], a dual citizen of France and the United Kingdom serving in the SOE who parachuted into Brittany to lead the Hillbilly resistance circuit recalled his principal duty in the spring of 1944 was organizing supply drops and attempting to avoid the Wehrmacht and the ''Milice''.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=43}} Hue had been born in Wales to a French father and a Welsh mother, and like many other Anglo-French dual citizens had volunteered for the SOE. The Communist FTP often complained that they were being starved of arms by the BCRA with [[Charles Tillon]] noting that the BCRA had organized hundreds of supply drops, of which only six were for the FTP.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=44}}

The spring of 1944 is remembered in France as time of the ''mentalité terrible'', the period of ''la guerre franco-française'' when the ''Milice'' and the ''Maquis'' fought one another without mercy.{{Sfn|Ousby|2000|p=275}} The ''Milice'' and ''maquis'' were caught up in ever-escalating cycle of violence with Ousby commenting: "1944 had simply become the time for settling scores, any scores, for revenging grudges, any grudges. Agreed on this common imperative, the sides in the conflict blur and become almost indistinguishable from each other. The ''Milice'' hit squads pretended to be the ''Maquis''; the ''Maquis'' hit squads pretended to be the ''Milice''. Sometimes it was impossible to tell which was really which, and sometimes it hardly mattered".{{Sfn|Ousby|2000|p=272}} As it was starting to become more and more clear that the Allies were going to win the war, the ''Milice'' become more desperate and vicious as the knowledge that when the Allies won, the ''miliciens'' would be tried for treason if they were not killed first. This caused the ''Milice'' to engage in increasingly savage torture and killings of the ''maquisards''. They hoped that they could annihilate all of their enemies before the Allies won.{{Sfn|Ousby|2000|p=273}} For their part, some of the ''maquisards'' struck back in kind against the ''Milice''. In the town of [[Voiron]], close to [[Grenoble]], in April 1944, a ''Maquis'' assassination squad entered the home of the local ''Milice'' chief and killed him, his wife, their infant daughter, their 10-year-old son, and his 82-year-old mother.{{Sfn|Ousby|2000|p=273}} Outside the village of Saint-Laurent in the [[Haute-Savoie]], a mass grave was discovered in May 1944 of eight gendarmes known for their loyalty to Vichy kidnapped by the ''Maquis'' from [[Bonneville, Haute-Savoie|Bonneville]] who had been lined up and shot by their captors.{{Sfn|Ousby|2000|p=273}} The killing of the gendarmes was denounced by the chief collaborationist propagandist [[Philippe Henriot]] on the radio as the "French Katyn", who used the killings as an example of the sort of "Bolshevik terrorism" that he maintained was typical of the resistance.{{Sfn|Ousby|2000|p=273}} In the south of France, the ''Maquis'' had started to form an alternative government to Vichy, which still controlled the French civil service.{{Sfn|Ousby|2000|p=263}} [[Georges Guingouin]], the Communist ''maquis'' leader of the [[Maquis du Limousin]] in the [[Limousin]] region, styled himself a ''préfet'' and imposed his own system of rationing on the local farmers that flouted the rationing system imposed by Vichy.{{Sfn|Ousby|2000|p=263}} In the [[Auxois]] region, the ''Maquis Bernard'' had created its system of taxation with people being taxed on the basis of their willingness to collaborate with the authorities or support the resistance.{{Sfn|Ousby|2000|p=263}} When the British philosopher [[A. J. Ayer]] arrived in [[Gascony]] as a SOE agent in the spring of 1944, he described a power structure established by the ''maquis'' that placed power "in the hands of a series of feudal lords whose power and influence were strangely similar to that of their fifteenth-century Gascon counterparts."{{Sfn|Ousby|2000|p=263}}

Reflecting their weakening power, the authorities grew harsher in their punishments. At the village of [[Ascq]], close to [[Lille]], 86 people were killed in the [[Ascq massacre]] on April 1, 1944, by the 12th Waffen SS Division "Hitlerjugend" ("Hitler Youth"). This massacre was committed in reprisal for resistance attacks on the railroads, the first of many ''villages martyrisés'' of 1944.{{Sfn|Ousby|2000|p=288}} Starting on May 20, 1944, there occurred another major clash between the Germans and the ''maquis'' at [[Mont Mouchet]] when the ''maquis'' seized another "[[redoubt]]" which led to overwhelming force being brought to bear against them.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=55}} [[Émile Coulaudon]], the chief of the FFI in the [[Auvergne]], believed that continuing inaction was bad for morale and starting on May 20, 1944, began to concentrate the ''maquis'' at Mont Mouchet under the slogan "Free France starts here!" At Mont Mouchet, he gathered about 2,700 men, who formed the [[Maquis du Mont Mouchet]].{{Sfn|Ousby|2000|p=284}} German attacks forced the Resistance off Mont Mouchet by June, killing about 125 ''maquisards'' and wounding about another 125 with the rest escaping.{{Sfn|Ousby|2000|p=284}} The Germans burned down several small villages in the Mont Mouchet region and executed 70 peasants suspected of aiding the ''maquis''.{{Sfn|Ousby|2000|pp=283–284}} The "résistants" answered by waging a ferocious guerrilla war against the Germans.

Until the end of May 1944, SHAEF{{clarify|date=July 2020}} had a "Block Planning" policy for the Resistance under which the Resistance would lie low until Operation Overlord was launched and then afterwards, the Resistance was to launch a full blown guerilla war in all of the French provinces one by one.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=50}} At the end of May 1944, Eisenhower changed his plans and instead wanted a nationwide guerilla war launched in all of the regions of France with the start of Overlord.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=50}} The SOE had informed the Resistance leaders to listen to the BBC's "personal messages" French language broadcasts on the 1st, 2nd, 15th and 16th of every month for the messages telling them when Overlord was due to start.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=50}} If the phrase "''l'heure des combats viendra''" ("the hour of battle will come"), which was broadcast on 1 June 1944, that was the signal that the Allies would land within the next 15 days.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=50}} If a line from a poem by Verlaine "''Les sanglots longs des violons de l'automne''" ("The long sobs of the violins of autumn") was read on the BBC, that was the signal that the invasion was imminent and if the following verse "''blessent mon cœur d'une langueur monotone''" (wound my heart with a monotonous languor"), which was broadcast on 5 June 1944, then the invasion would occur the next day.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|pp=50–51}} In the spring of 1944, a number of uniformed American, French and British soldiers known as the "Jedburgh" teams as part of [[Operation Jedburgh]] were landed in France to make contact with the ''maquis'' guerillas.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|pp=21–22}} A Jedburgh team was a three men crew consisting of a commander, his deputy and a radio operator. One of the "Jeds" was always French with the other two being either British or American whose job was to maintain radio contact with Britain, to provide professional military training to the ''maquis'' and in the words of the British historian Terry Crowdy to "tactfully" give professional military leadership.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=22}} One "Jed", the British officer [[Tommy Macpherson]] observed that the FTP used rough methods to motivate people, writing:

{{blockquote|The leader of the FTP in the Department of [[Lot (department)|Lot]] was a very strong character who went under the name of Commissar Georges. He actually held indoctrination classes as well as his military operations and exercised a degree of almost forced recruitment among the young people of the area, threatening their families. But once he got them on board, he did operate against the Germans.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=46}}}}

The plans for the Resistance in Operation Overlord were:
* ''Plan Vert'': a systematic sabotage campaign to destroy the French railroad system.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=51}}
* ''Plan Rouge'': to attack and destroy all German ammunition dumps across France.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=51}}
* ''Plan Bleu'': to attack and destroy all power lines across France.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=51}}
* ''Plan Violet'': to attack and destroy phone lines in France.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=51}}
* ''Plan Jaune'': to attack German command posts.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=51}}
* ''Plan Noir'': to attack German fuel depots.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=51}}
* ''Plan Tortue'': to sabotage the roads of France.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=51}}

General de Gaulle himself was only informed by Churchill on June 4, 1944, that the Allies planned to land in France on 6 June. Until then the Free French leaders had no idea when and where Operation Overlord was due to take place.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=21}} On 5 June 1944, orders were given to activate ''Plan Violet''.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=51}} Of all the plans, ''Plan Violet'' was most important to Operation Overlord, since destroying telephone lines and cutting underground cables prevented phone calls and orders transmitted by telex from getting through and forced the Germans to use their radios to communicate.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|pp=51–52}} As the codebreakers of [[Bletchley Park]] had broken many of the codes encrypted by the Enigma Machine, this gave a considerable intelligence advantage to the Allied generals.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|pp=51–52}} During the [[Normandy]] campaign, the Resistance was so effective in blowing up telephone lines and cables that the Wehrmacht and Waffen SS largely abandoned the French phone system as too unreliable and used the radio instead, thereby allowing Bletchley Park to listen in.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|pp=51–52}} On 9 June 1944 Eisenhower reached an agreement recognizing the FFI was part of the Allied order of battle and that Koenig was to operate under his command.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=21}} On 10 June 1944, Koenig ordered the Resistance not to engage in ''insurrection nationale'' like those attempted on the Glières plateau or at Mont Mouchet, instead ordering: "Keep guerilla activity below its maximum level... Do not mass together... Form small separate groups".{{Sfn|Ousby|2000|p=284}} A statement issued by de Gaulle declared the FFI was part of the French Army and resistance leaders were now all Army officers with those ''résistants'' commanding 30 men becoming ''sous-lieutenants''; those commanding 100 becoming ''lieutenants''; those commanding 300 becoming ''capitaines''; those commanding 1,000 men becoming ''commandants'' and those commanding 2,000 men becoming ''lieutenant-colonels''.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|pp=21–22}} In a press communiqué issued on June 12, 1944, Field Marshal [[Gerd von Rundstedt]] declared that he did not recognize the FFI as part of the French Army and ordered the Wehrmacht to summary execute any Frenchman or Frenchwoman serving in the FFI.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=22}}

The other major Resistance operations were ''Plan Vert'' and ''Plan Tortue''.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=52}} In June 1944, the Resistance destroyed French railroads at 486 points and by 7 June 1944, the day after D-Day, the Wehrmacht complained that due to sabotage that the main railroad lines between Avranches and St. Lô, between Cherbourg and St. Lô and between Caen and St. Lô were now out of action.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=52}} As the Wehrmacht was forced to use the roads instead of railroads, ''Plan Tortue'' focused on ambushing the Wehrmacht and the Waffen SS as they travelled to the battlefields of Normandy.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=52}} The ''maquis'' were joined in their guerrilla campaign by the Jedburgh teams, SOE agents, the "Operational Groups" of the OSS and by teams from the elite British [[Special Air Service]] (SAS) regiment.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=52}} The SAS commandos had jeeps armored with machine guns that they used to travel across French countryside and ambush German convoys.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=52}} One SAS group, operating in Brittany, had an artillery gun flown in, which they used to destroy German tanks, much to the surprise of the Germans who were not expecting this much firepower to be used in ambushes.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=52}} A SAS officer, Ian Wellsted, described the ''maquis'' band which he operated with:

{{blockquote|It was hard to tell what they had been before German labour laws threw them all together in the depths of the wild woods. Some had been shopkeepers, artisans, young sons of wealthy parents. Others were scrum of the gutter and many were soldiers. Now, however, all were much the same. All wore the clothes, and many still the wooden clogs, of peasants. Some lucky ones had scraps of uniforms and British battledress, but predominantly their clothes consisted of drab colored shirts, blue overall trousers and German field boots, whose owners no doubt had ceased to require them for obvious reasons. They wore neither brassards nor regular uniform of any kind. The only distinguishable difference between the men of the ''Maquis'' and the men of the country from they had sprung was the pistol cocked aggressively from the trouser tops, the rifle on the shoulder, the Sten on the back or the string of grenades depending on the belt.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=31}}}}

Sometimes, the ''maquis'' wore armbands featuring the tricolor with either a Cross of Lorraine or the initials FFI stamped on them, so they could maintain that they had insignia and thus a sort of uniform, making them entitled to legal protection under the Geneva and Hague conventions."{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|pp=32–33}}

Usually, the ''maquis'' and their Anglo-American allies would cut down a tree to block a road in the wooded section of the French countryside, sometimes an anti-tank mine would be planted under the tree trunk and the Germans would be ambushed with machine gun and sniper fire when they attempted to remove the tree blocking the road.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=53}} Such operations seriously delayed the Germans, with the elite 2nd Waffen SS Division ''Das Reich'' taking 18 days to travel from [[Toulouse]] to [[Caen]], a journey that was expected to take only 3 days.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=53}} The "Jed" [[Tommy Macpherson]] who was attached to a ''maquis'' band of 27 French and Spanish communists taught the ''maquisards'' to fire their Sten guns with wet clothes wrapped around the barrels, which made the Sten guns sound like heavy machine guns to experienced troops. As such, when the ''maquis'' ambushed the men of the ''Das Reich'' division, the SS took cover and responded far more cautiously than they would have if they had known that they were only under fire from Sten guns.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=54}} In a typical ambush of the ''Das Reich'' division, Macpherson had a bomb planted on a bridge to knock out a half-truck while having the ''maquis'' fire on the SS. When a Panther tank came up to engage the ''maquis'', one of the ''maquisards'' threw a "Gammon grenade", which knocked out the tank tracks.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=54}} As more of the SS tanks began to shell the ''maquis'', Macpherson ordered his men to retreat, content to know he had delayed the ''Das Reich'' division by several hours and that he would do the same again the next day, and the next.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=54}} On 9 June 1944, the ''Das Reich'' division took revenge for ''maquis'' attacks by hanging 99 people selected at random in the town of [[Tulle]] from all the lampposts in the town.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=56}}

The next day, the ''Der Führer'' regiment of the ''Das Reich'' division destroyed the town of [[Oradour-sur-Glane]], killing 642 people including 246 women and 207 children.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=56}} SS ''Sturmbannführer'' [[Adolf Diekmann]], the commanding officer of the ''Der Führer'' regiment of the ''Das Reich'' division had wanted to destroy another French town Oradour-sur-Vayres, whose people were said to be providing food and shelter to the ''maquis'', but had taken a wrong turn on the road, which led him and his men to Oradour-sur-Glane, whose people had never supported the ''maquis''.{{Sfn|Ousby|2000|p=288}} One Wehrmacht division transferred from the Eastern Front to the Western Front took a week to move from the Soviet Union to the borders of France and another three weeks to move from the French border to the Battle of Caen as Resistance attacks slowed down its movement.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=54}} An estimate by SHAEF stated the Germans were moving at only 25% of their normal daily speed due to the constant attacks of the ''maquis'' all across France.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=54}}

Though the ''maquis'' caused the Germans much difficulty, the guerrillas tended not to fare well in sustained combat.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=55}} The SOE agent [[André Hue]] who was leading a ''maquis'' band in [[Brittany]] later recalled the Battle of Saint Marcel as the firefight on 18 June 1944 at a farmhouse outside [[Saint-Marcel, Morbihan|Saint Marcel]] he was using as his base:

{{blockquote|Now every weapon that the enemy possessed was brought to bear on our front line in a cacophony of shots and explosions which could not drown an even more sinister noise: the occasional crack of a single bullet. A man within feet of me slumped to the ground with blood spurting two feet into the air from the side of his neck ... We had anticipated an infantry assault-possibly backed up with light armour, but snipers, a threat we had not met before, were difficult to counter. Within minutes of the first casualty, another seven of our men lay dying within the farm complex: all had been shot from long range.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=55}}}}

As the snipers continued to cut down his men while he could hear the sound of panzers coming up in the distance, Hue ordered his men to retreat into the woods under the cover of darkness while using his radio to call in a RAF airstrike that disorganized the Germans enough to make escape possible.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=55}}<ref>{{cite web|last=Freer|first=Fiona|title=A great read, ''The Next Moon''|publisher=Fiona Freer, Writer, Historian, Speaker|date=1 February 2016|url=http://fionafreer.co.uk/2016/02/01/a-great-read-the-next-moon-by-andre-hue-and-ewen-southby-tailyour/|access-date=2017-02-13|url-status=usurped|archive-url =https://web.archive.org/web/20170215125106/http://fionafreer.co.uk/2016/02/01/a-great-read-the-next-moon-by-andre-hue-and-ewen-southby-tailyour/|archive-date=15 February 2017}}</ref> Summarizing up the Battle of Saint Marcel, Hue wrote:

{{blockquote|The majority of the younger men had never been in battle, and seeing their friends' brains and guts oozing on to the grass and mud made them sick in the head and stomach. Just as terrifying to the young Frenchmen was the sight of those who were wounded and who yet had to die without help. I was not surprised that so many had enough. I was perhaps astonished that the number of defectors were so low.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=55}}}}

All over France, the ''maquis'' attempted to seize towns in June 1944, expecting the Allies to be there soon, often with tragic results.{{Sfn|Ousby|2000|p=274}} For instance, in [[Saint-Amand-Montrond]], the ''maquis'' seized the town and took 13 ''miliciens'' and their associated women prisoners, including the wife of Francis Bout de l'An, a senior leader of the ''Milice'' who intervened to take personal charge of the situation to get his wife back.{{Sfn|Ousby|2000|p=274}} A joint German-''milice'' force marched on Saint-Amand-Montrond, causing the ''maquis'' to retreat and when the Axis forces arrived, eleven people were shot on the spot while a number of hostages were taken.{{Sfn|Ousby|2000|p=274}} The ''Milice'' chief of Orléans and the archbishop of Bourges were able to negotiate an exchange on 23 June 1944, where the ''maquis'' released their female hostages (except for one woman who chose to join the ''maquis'') in exchange for the ''Milice'' releasing their hostages, though the Germans refused to free any of their hostages and instead deported them to the concentration camps.{{Sfn|Ousby|2000|p=274}} As for the ''miliciens'' taken hostage, the ''maquisards'' knew if they were freed, they would reveal their hideout and their names as both the ''miliciens'' and ''maquisards'' had grown up in the same town and knew each other well (men on both sides had once been friends) while at the same time food was in short supply, making their hostages a drain on their food supplies; leading to the ''maquisards'' to hang their hostages (shooting them would make too much noise) out in the woods.{{Sfn|Ousby|2000|pp=274–275}} Bout de l'An decided to seek revenge for his wife's captivity by sending a force of ''miliciens'' under Lécussan to round up the surviving Jews of [[Bourges]] and buried 36 Jews alive out in the woods, as Bout de l'An believed that the Resistance was all the work of the Jews.{{Sfn|Ousby|2000|p=275}}

On 23 June 1944, Koenig began to operate, giving orders to all the SOE and OSS agents via the Special Forces Headquarters.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=22}} By this time, the ''maquis'' had formed assassination squads to kill collaborators and on 28 June 1944, a group of ''maquisards'' disguised as ''miliciens'' were able to enter the apartment of the radio newscaster [[Philippe Henriot]], who was serving as Minister of Information and Propaganda in the Vichy government, and shot him down in front of his wife.{{Sfn|Ousby|2000|p=271}} Darnard had the ''Milice'' go on a rampage after Henriot's assassination, massacring ''résistants'' in Toulouse, Clermont-Ferrand, Grenoble, Lyon and other places. For example, seven ''résistants'' were publicity shot by the ''Milice'' in the town square of [[Mâcon]].{{Sfn|Ousby|2000|pp=272–273}} All over France, the Germans lashed out against the Resistance in an spree of killings, of which the massacre at Oradour-sur-Glane is merely the most infamous.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=57}} Speaking of an atrocity committed outside of Nice in July 1944, one man testified at Nurnberg:

{{blockquote|Having been attacked ... by several groups of ''Maquis'' in the region, by way of reprisals, a Mongolian detachment, still under the SS, went to a farm where two French members of the Resistance had been hidden. Being unable to take them prisoner, these soldiers then took the proprietors of that farm (the husband and wife), and after subjecting them to numerous atrocities (knifing, rape, et cetera) they shot them down with submachine guns. Then they took the son of these victims who was only three years of age, and, after having frightfully tortured him, they crucified him on the gate of the farmhouse.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=57}}}}

The reference to the "Mongolians" were to Asians serving in the Red Army who been captured by the Wehrmacht and joined either the German Army's ''[[Ostlegionen]]'' or the SS; the French called all these men "Mongols" regardless if they were Mongols or not. The ''Milice'' was especially hated by the Resistance and captured ''miliciens'' could expect little mercy. One ''maquisard'' fighting in the Haute-Savoie wrote in his diary about the fate of a ''milicien'' taken prisoner in July 1944:

{{blockquote|Aged twenty-nine, married three months ago. Made to saw wood in the hot sun wearing a pullover and jacket. Made to drink warm salted water. Ears cut off. Covered with blows from fists and bayonets. Stoned. Made to dig his gave. Made to lie in it. Finished off with a blow in the stomach from a spade. Two days to die.{{Sfn|Ousby|2000|p=304}}}}

The rejection of the "Force C" plan had not reached many of the ''maquis'' leaders operating out in the countryside and after the news of D-Day, the ''maquis'' attempted to seize "redoubts", most notably at the [[Vercors Massif|Vercors plateau]].{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=55}} [[Eugène Chavant]], the FFI chief in the [[Isère]] region ordered all ''maquis'' bands to concentrate on the Vercors plateau after hearing of D-Day.{{Sfn|Ousby|2000|pp=283–284}} By 9 June 1944, some 3,000 ''maquisards'' had heeded the call and 3 July 1944 the "Free Republic of the Vercors" was proclaimed.{{Sfn|Ousby|2000|p=284}} Though the Allies did try to fly in supplies to the "redoubts" and the ''maquis'' fought bravely, all these operations ended with the Resistance defeated.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=55}} In the middle of June, the Wehrmacht had taken the village of [[Saint-Nizier-du-Moucherotte]] from the [[Maquis du Vercors]], which severed the link between the [[Vercors plateau]] and [[Grenoble]].{{Sfn|Ousby|2000|p=285}} To celebrate Bastille Day, the US Army Air Force sent in 360 B-17s to drop supplies of weapons to the ''maquisards'' on the Vercors plateau.{{Sfn|Ousby|2000|p=284}} However, the weapons the American dropped were all light weapons and Chavant sent a radio message to Algiers on the night of 21 July 1944 asking for heavy weapons to be air-dropped, called the leaders in Algiers criminals and cowards for not arranging more support, and ended with the line: "That's what we are saying criminals and cowards".{{Sfn|Ousby|2000|p=285}} In the Battle of the Vercors Plateau, the SS landed a glider company and the ''maquis'' suffered very heavy losses.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=55}} Many of the "German" units fighting on the Vercors were ''[[Ostlegionen]]'' (Eastern Legions), Red Army POWs, mostly Russians and Ukrainians, who had joined the SS after being taken prisoner in 1942 or 1943. By this point the Germans had taken such heavy losses on the Eastern Front that they needed the manpower of the ''Ostlegionen'' to compensate. While the same Alpine division that had taken the Glières plateau in March stormed up the Vercors plateau supported by a tank unit based in Lyon, the SS landed via glider.{{Sfn|Ousby|2000|p=285}} The ''maquis'' lost about 650, killed during the fighting on the Vercors plateau and afterwards, the Germans shot about 200 ''maquisards'', mostly wounded who had been unable to escape together with the medical team that had stayed behind to take care of them.{{Sfn|Ousby|2000|p=285}} In the aftermath of the Battle of the Vercors, the local people were victims of massive reprisals which included numerous cases of looting, rape and extrajudicial executions.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=56}}

In early August 1944, Hitler ordered Field Marshal [[Günther von Kluge]] to launch [[Operation Lüttich]] against the Americans. As the Resistance had severed the telephone lines, the orders for Lüttich were transmitted via the radio in a code that had been broken by the Government Code and Cypher School, leading to Ultra intelligence that gave the Americans advanced notice and time to prepare for the coming offensive.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=52}} After the breakout from Normandy, Eisenhower had planned to by-pass Paris while Hitler had ordered General [[Dietrich von Choltitz]] to destroy Paris rather than allow the city be liberated, stating "Paris must be destroyed from top to bottom, before the Wehrmacht leaves, do not leave a church or cultural monument standing".{{Sfn|Ousby|2000|pp=288–289}} The FFI in Paris led by [[Alexandre Parodi]] and [[Jacques Chaban-Delmas]] urged patience while [[Henri Rol-Tanguy|Henri Tanguy]] (codename Colonel Rol), the FTP chief in Paris wanted to start a revolt, being deterred only by the fact that the Resistance in Paris had about 15,000 men, but only 600 guns, mostly rifles and machine guns.{{Sfn|Ousby|2000|p=291}} On 19 August 1944, the Paris police, until then still loyal to Vichy, went over to the Resistance as a group of policemen hosted the ''tricolore'' over the Préfecture de Police on the Ile de la Cité, which was the first time the tricolor had flown in Paris since June 1940.{{Sfn|Ousby|2000|p=291}} All over Paris, the outlawed ''tricolore'' started to fly over schools, ''mairies'' and police stations, an open challenge to German power, and a sign that the French civil service was shifting its loyalty.{{Sfn|Ousby|2000|p=291}} Emboldened, Tanguy and his men started to attack German forces on the Boulevard Saint-Michel and Boulevard Saint-Germain, leading to a mass insurrection as Parisians started to build barricades in the streets.{{Sfn|Ousby|2000|p=291}} By the end of the day, about 50 Germans and 150 ''résistants'' had been killed and not wanting the Communists to have the credit for liberating Paris, the Gaullist Parodi sanctioned the uprising.{{Sfn|Ousby|2000|p=291}} Faced with an urban uprising that he was unprepared for, Choltitz arranged a truce with Parodi via the Swedish consul [[Raoul Nordling]], marking the first time that the Germans had treated the resistance as a legitimate opponent.{{Sfn|Ousby|2000|p=292}}

On 21 August 1944, Koenig was given command of all the BCRA agents, the SOE's F section and RF section agents and the Jedburgh teams, which reflected the political need to put all of the resistance under French control.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=22}} By the end of August 1944, the SOE had a total of 53 radio stations operating in France, up from the two it had begun with in May 1941.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=25}}

De Gaulle disapproved of the truce as he used the uprising to order on 22 August General [[Philippe Leclerc]]'s 2nd Armored Division to liberate Paris, stating he did not want the Communists to liberate the city.{{Sfn|Ousby|2000|p=293}} On 24 August, French soldiers entered Paris, which led to some hours of intense fighting before Choltitz surrendered on 25 August, though pockets of German and ''milice'' forces fought on for several more days as Choltiz simply did not inform his forces of his plans to surrender.{{Sfn|Ousby|2000|p=293}} On the afternoon of August 25, 1944 de Gaulle returned to Paris, a city he not set foot in since June 1940, to be greeted by vast cheering crowds as he walked down the Champs-Élysées.{{Sfn|Ousby|2000|p=294}}

As various cities, towns and villages were liberated in France, the Resistance was usually the most organized force that took over.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=58}} Many ''résistants'' were disgusted by the mass influx of new members in the dying days of the struggle, contemptuously calling them the FFS (''Forces Françaises de Septembre''-French Forces of September) or the ''Septemberists'' for short, as all these people had conveniently only discovered their French patriotism in September 1944.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=58}} In the middle of 1944, Chaban-Delmas had reported to de Gaulle that the FFI numbered 15,000 in Paris, but the time of the liberation of Paris on 25 August 1944, between 50,000 and 60,000 people were wearing FFI armbands.{{sfn|Ousby|2000|p=301}} The liberation of France began with D-Day on 6 June 1944, but different areas of France were liberated at different times.{{sfn|Ousby|2000|p=278}} Strasbourg was not liberated until November 1944, and some coastal towns on the English Channel and the Atlantic like [[Dunkirk]] were still in German hands when the war ended on 8 May 1945. Ousby observed: "There was no national day for Liberation. Each town and village still celebrates a different day, the gaps between them marking advances that often looked bogged down, pockets of German defense that often turned out to be unexpectedly tough. It proved the bitterest of ends to a bitter war."{{sfn|Ousby|2000|p=278}} As France was liberated, many ''résistants'' enlisted in the French Army, with 75,000 ''résistants'' fighting as regular soldiers by November 1944, and by the end of the war, 135,000 ''résistants'' were serving with the French forces advancing into Germany.{{sfn|Ousby|2000|p=302}} For many resistance leaders who gave themselves the title of captain or colonel, it was quite a comedown to be reduced to a private.{{sfn|Ousby|2000|p=302}}

Besides attempting to establish a government, the Resistance took its revenge on collaborators who were often beaten or killed in extrajudicial executions.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=58}} ''Miliciens'' were usually shot without the bother of a trial, and at least 10,000 ''miliciens'' were shot in 1944.{{sfn|Ousby|2000|pp=303–304}} The young women who had engaged in ''collaboration horizontale'' by sleeping with the Germans were singled out and had their heads publicly shaven as a mark of their disgrace, which meant that a good percentage of the young women in France were shaven bald in 1944.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=58}} The attacks on the young women who had German lovers had the "atmosphere of a savage carnival" as the women were rounded by mobs to be insulted, beaten and shaven.{{sfn|Ousby|2000|p=306}} One ''résistant'' in the Gard region explained the violence to a reporter in September 1944: "I'll simply say that the majority of the FFI have been outlaws. They are lads from the mining areas...they have been hunted; they have been imprisoned; they have been tortured by ''miliciens'' whom they now recognize. It is understandable that they should now want to beat them up".{{sfn|Ousby|2000|p=306}} At the time, many feared that France was on the verge of civil war as it was felt that the FTP might attempt to seize power, but owing to the shortage of arms and loyalty to Moscow which recognized General de Gaulle as France's leader, the Communists chose to pursue power via ballots rather than bullets.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=58}}

In the aftermath of the Liberation, the SOE agents were all ordered out of France as the Anglophobic de Gaulle wished to maintain a version of history where the SOE never existed and the Resistance was entirely a French affair.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=58}} De Gaulle also promoted a version of history where France for the entire occupation from 1940 to 1944 had been a "nation in arms" with the Resistance representing almost the entirety of the French people had been waging a guerrilla struggle from the beginning of the occupation right to its end. His concern was then to rebuild France not only on the material and international level, but also morally, pushing him to put forward the actions of the Resistance to re-establish national unity and pride, which the war had damaged. On 17 September 1944, in [[Bordeaux]], the SOE agent [[Roger Landes]], who become the leader of the Resistance in Bordeaux after André Grandclément, the previous leader had been exposed as a Gestapo informer, was taking part in the celebrations of the liberation of Bordeaux when General de Gaulle motioned to him to come aside for a chat.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=58}} De Gaulle told Landes, who was wearing the uniform of a British Army officer that he was not welcome in France and had two hours to leave the city and two days to leave France.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=58}} The Francophile Landes who had been born in Britain, but grew up in France was profoundly hurt by this request, and sadly left the nation he loved so much.{{Sfn|Crowdy|2007|p=58}} De Gaulle had wanted a resistance to give proof of ''France éternelle'' that held out against the occupation; however, he was angered by the fact that the ''résistants'' often seemed to consider themselves as the new legitimate authorities of the towns and cities they had liberated. Therefore, in the wake of the liberation of the national territory, he openly considered them as troublemakers hindering the return to normalcy and rule of law which he pursued.{{sfn|Ousby|2000|pp=300–302}} Everywhere, the ''résistants'' were pushed out of power to be replaced by the same civil servants who had served first the Third Republic to be followed by Vichy or the ''naphtalinés'', Army officers who had gone into retirement in 1940, and resumed their service with the liberation.{{sfn|Ousby|2000|p=301}}