Ready to dive into the epic saga of the French Resistance? Join us as we bust myths, break down the real story behind the Maquis, and settle the "civil war or liberation?" debate once and for all! If you love history with a twist, you're in the right place. Subscribe for more untold WWII stories and drop a comment on what surprised you most in this episode! #history #WWII #France #resistance #education
👉 This channel was created in collaboration with https://www.youtube.com/@dentrolastoria
0:27 - Series Introduction: Civil War or Liberation?
1:12 - Setting the French Context
2:49 - Vichy France and the Question of Civil War
5:58 - The Maquis and Early Resistance
7:43 - Expanding Groups and Resistance Media
10:11 - Opposition, Key Battles and Collaboration
12:24 - Liberation, Aftermath, and No Civil War
15:21 - Series Conclusion and Wider Reflections
👉 This channel was created in collaboration with https://www.youtube.com/@dentrolastoria
0:27 - Series Introduction: Civil War or Liberation?
1:12 - Setting the French Context
2:49 - Vichy France and the Question of Civil War
5:58 - The Maquis and Early Resistance
7:43 - Expanding Groups and Resistance Media
10:11 - Opposition, Key Battles and Collaboration
12:24 - Liberation, Aftermath, and No Civil War
15:21 - Series Conclusion and Wider Reflections
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:07Music
00:08Music
00:08Music
00:14Music
00:15Music
00:28Reflecting on the history of World War II, Giovanni and I came across some comments
00:34that bring up the old story of the Civil War again, to basically deny the fact that there
00:41was a war of liberation, which is not a synonym for civil war. There are those who always bring
00:47up the same old story. No, it wasn't liberation. It was a civil war. No, there wasn't the resistance,
00:54but it was a political issue. Was it really like that? So to try to clarify things a bit,
00:59Giovanni and I thought of making a mini-mini-series dedicated precisely to the resistance movements
01:05in Europe, to analyze the situations well and clarify once and for all whether it was a war
01:11of liberation or a civil war. Our first episode, today's episode, is dedicated to the French
01:17resistance, the Maquis, and therefore to what happened beyond the Alps in the first real example
01:24of armed opposition to the French occupation. Simple. Just take a look at the link you find
01:30in the video description. So, civil war or war of liberation? As we said, let's start this mini-series
01:37with our neighbors across the Alps, with France. Why? Simply because within occupied France,
01:42the France that is forced to surrender after the invasion of late spring and early summer of 1940,
01:50the first major partisan movements begin to emerge. They're not the only ones. Similar movements also
01:56arise in occupied Poland and in Norway, and there are some small movements even in Denmark. But it's
02:03undeniable that within occupied France, and also in so-called Vichy France, which we dedicated a video
02:10to just two months ago, you can watch it again on the channel, several movements developed of liberation
02:16focused on political issues, on logistical issues, and sometimes even social issues. Think of the
02:24student movements. They are all movements that, to varying degrees, seize the opportunity of the
02:30proclamation broadcast on the radio on June 18, 1940, by Charles de Gaulle from London, to not surrender,
02:37to not accept the situation, to not bow down to the logic of Marshal Pétain and the emerging
02:44government of the French state, the one that would become the Vichy state. But as I said,
02:50we've already talked about Vichy. So my question is, in France, from 1940 until 1944,
02:57was there a civil war? If you ask a French person today, they will answer you with absolute certainty,
03:04no, there was no civil war, even though it was maintained in the south of the country. An area
03:10that for a little more than two years was fairly autonomous from the Germans. An area that still
03:15collaborated with the Germans. A government that had real sympathies towards Nazi Germany, and with
03:23which it maintained continuous relations. Despite this, no civil war was identified. Let's see why.
03:30You might say, okay, but weren't there clashes, even isolated ones, between the Mackie fighters,
03:36that is, the members of the resistance, and the militiamen of Vichy? It's true, there were some.
03:43Maybe they're not well known. In Italy, maybe, these clashes aren't included in many of our school
03:50textbooks. But they did happen. Just think about this. Starting from 1943. That is, from when Vichy,
03:59France, had basically already lost exclusive control over the so-called Free Zone units of the
04:06French militia, which was responsible for internal security on behalf of the Vichy government. These
04:13units actively collaborated with all the forces of repression deployed by the German occupiers.
04:20And there were quite a few. Because let's start with the Wehrmacht itself, which, through the
04:25Feldgendarmarie, was responsible for the security of military sites. Then the Abwehr, the military
04:33intelligence that intercepted the underground networks of the French resistance. The Gestapo,
04:37the Geheima-Stats-Polizei, the Secret State Police, the 4th Office of the RSHA, the Sickerheitshauptampt of
04:46the SS, the Sickerheitsdienst, the Security Service, 3rd Office of the RSHA. All elements of opposition
04:54to attempts by the resistance to, in fact, resist the occupier. And then there was the French
05:02Melisse, a police force led by Joseph Darnot, which, for brutality and violence, rivaled the
05:09Gestapo. Despite the existence of the French Melisse, no one today in France is willing to
05:14recognize that period as a French Civil War. Let's see why. Strictly speaking, the legal French
05:21state was the French state. For what reason? Simply because when the Republic fell, the Third
05:27Republic, the one that was born several years earlier, back in the 1800s and lasted until the
05:34Second World War, that French state had taken its place in a legitimate way, even though there had
05:41been protest movements, even though Parliament couldn't meet in a truly plenary way, even though
05:50several prominent figures in French politics, and not only them, had opposed and spoken out against
05:56the birth of this state. So the Maquis fighters were terrorists? Not exactly. First of all,
06:02because they operated mainly in the occupied zone, the area outside Vichy control, the area under German
06:09control. And they were extremely heterogeneous groups. Many of these would have been coordinated
06:16by Jean Moulin, the legendary leader of the Maquis fighters within a conglomerate that would
06:26be called the CNR, an acronym that stood for the Conseil National de la Résistance, a clandestine
06:34central committee, basically the equivalent of our own CLN, a coordination group that mainly dealt with
06:41resistance in urban centers. Jean Moulin's CNR politically supported Charles de Gaulle's actions
06:48against Henri Giraud, de Gaulle's political rival. A man, Giraud, whom he initially did not trust very
06:56much. The newly appointed general, who was previously a colonel, had gone to London on a diplomatic mission.
07:04Many say it was to distract him from Parisian affairs, to keep him away. And from London, he became a
07:11spokesperson for a France that was resisting. The fact is that under John Moulin, the CNR managed to
07:18bring together many different groups from various backgrounds and types, initially keeping only the
07:23communists at a distance, who, among other things in the first phase, represented the majority. And for at
07:30least a certain period, therefore, at least until the summer of 1941, they remained, if not exactly,
07:36neutral. However, they were active only from a truly political point of view, and not a military
07:42one. What actually unleashed the firepower of the communist groups was Operation Barbarossa, that is
07:48Hitler's decision to break the non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union, signed at the end of August
07:531939, the famous Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, and to invade the Soviet Union. From that moment on, the French
08:01resistance, so we're talking about the end of June 1941, became stronger and stronger, more and more
08:08active, and increasingly diverse. There were groups, for example, Defense de la France, which had a
08:15predominantly university background. Students from the Sorbonne, who had started publishing an underground
08:20newspaper, one of the many underground newspapers, some would even survive beyond the period of the
08:27resistance itself. Think about the underground newspaper Combat, which starting in 1949, so four
08:35years after the end of the war, would be privatized, and would become a commercial newspaper. But beyond
08:41the resistance through the written word, by circulating newspapers, underground dailies, or underground
08:47periodicals, which encouraged resistance, which explained to the French how to resist, the Germans,
08:53giving advice on which radio frequencies to tune into in the evening, and what to do to make the
09:00Germans stay in France more difficult. And they wrote, they gave news that wasn't filtered by the
09:06authorities. There were also intelligence groups, groups that dealt, for example, with preparing the
09:12areas for landing, or areas for parachuting, supplies, weapons, radios, transmitters, medical supplies,
09:21and of course also food, to the real combat units. That was the case with the operations bureau,
09:28Ray Ann, led by Andre Girard. But there were also some espionage groups. Such was the case of the
09:34Arme Secrete, a Gaullist group led by Charles de la Strain. Or there were other groups, extremely
09:41specialized, when it came to urban resistance. This is the case of the Front National, but be careful,
09:47it's not the current Front National of Marine Le Pen. Are they just namesakes or not? The original
09:53Front National, Le Pen, was founded by members of the French Communist Party in May 1942. And this group
10:01would become particularly notable during the liberation of Paris. Another topic we've already
10:07covered in the video is Paris burning, which you can find on the channel. All these various groups,
10:12in one way or another, opposed, obviously, the Germans, and to a much lesser extent, the Italians.
10:17In the area that the Italian Army, the Royal Italian Army, had occupied near the border. So,
10:25Menton, Nice, and the surrounding area. And then, also, against the Vichy militiamen themselves,
10:32who, at least at first, in the beginning, didn't really care much about it. But after the occupation
10:38of the former free zone by the Germans, they had gone on the offensive. As I said,
10:44the French militia of Joseph Darnand had become a strong enemy of the Maquisards. In cooperation
10:50with the Abwehr of Hugo Bleicher, the French militia suppressed not only dissent, but also the
10:57partisan cells themselves. Cells that operated mainly in the cities, but in some cases, obviously limited
11:03cases, they also took action in the open field. This is the case, for example, of the Battle of
11:09Verkhor between the end of June and the beginning of July 1944, when a large group of Maquisards
11:16fought in open field against the Waffen-SS of General Karl Flamme. In that case, it was a real
11:24and complete defeat. The Maquisards were forced to retreat, leaving more than 600 dead on the field. In most
11:31cases, the Maquisards operated in the countryside, operated in the towns, operated in the cities,
11:39especially in the main cities, Lyon, which would become the base of Jean Moulin, or Paris. Against these
11:46Maquisards, in addition to the French militia, as we said, there were several specialists of what today
11:52we would call counterinsurgency, who came from Germany. The main one of these we have already met,
11:57Klaus Barbie, a terrifying man, known especially for the brutal torture he inflicted on his prisoners.
12:03Moulin, for example, died from the tortures inflicted by Barbie on July 8, 1943. In his place at the head
12:11of the CNR, there would have been George Badeau. But, once again, if we look at the reason for being
12:20of the Maquisard, of the French resistance, we cannot speak of civil war. A classic example
12:26is precisely the liberation of Paris, a liberation that is agreed upon between different parties
12:32involved, some of them conflicting. And it also sees the participation of soldiers and gendarmes,
12:38who until a short time before were working for the former Vichy regime. Inside Paris City Hall,
12:44to be clear, barricaded inside there, there were communists, Gaullists, part of the CNR,
12:51and also former gendarmes and former French soldiers who came from the experience of Vichy.
12:58This shows how the claim of talking about a civil war in France between the Gaullists and the communists,
13:04other groups like the student movements and the Vichy supporters, is something completely unfounded.
13:09Even today, now that it's been 80 years since the Second World War ended, in France,
13:16there is no doubt about the difference between those who fought for freedom and those who chose
13:20another path. Even today, the Vichy supporters are seen as outcasts, traitors, French people who
13:27preferred to look the other way and believe that a normal world included German occupation, included
13:33submission, the oppression, the denial of certain rights, and the suppression, even physical,
13:40of many of their fellow countrymen. However, all this is not seen as a civil war. Why is that?
13:46Because simply, until the proclamation of the Algiers government, there wasn't exactly another
13:54government to oppose, Vichy France. And you couldn't talk about the French resistance as an army that was
14:01more or less regular and more or less organized. Homogeneous that directly opposed Vichy France.
14:08Only later would there be more and more Maquisards, and fewer and fewer supporters for the Vichy regime,
14:15for purely historical reasons, and because of how events evolved. From the occupation of the former
14:21Free Zone onward, more and more French people became aware of the need to oppose the occupation.
14:28Clearly, the Allied Secret Services also played a role. Think, for example, of a person we've already
14:35come across in our stories. The RAF Lt. Col. Frederick E. O. Thomas the White Rabbit. You can find his
14:43story
14:43in one of the channel's videos. Or Major, later Colonel Maurice Bookmaster of the Allied Intelligence Corps.
14:52These officers were responsible for coordinating and assisting, both materially and with intelligence,
14:59the French resistance. Support that would prove crucial in various areas and at different times
15:06during the resistance itself. A resistance that would achieve its triumph with the liberation of Paris,
15:14France, and that would also play very important roles within Operation Dragoon. That is, the invasion of
15:21southern France, carried out on August 15, 1944, with amphibious landings that, starting from the
15:30western Mediterranean, would be carried out along the entire southern coast. In that case, the support of
15:38the Maquisards would have been crucial in providing the Allies with the exact positions of the various
15:44German units. And the situation of the fortifications and the coastal batteries. The dissolution of the
15:52Vichy government on August 20, 1944, even though Patin and some of his ministers took refuge in Germany
16:00without being able to exercise any power, affirmed the vitality. The definitive history of the French
16:07French resistance. In the end of a very difficult period of friction, which had seen many so-called
16:13Free French joined by Poles, Jews, and also Spanish veterans. From the Spanish Civil War, which truly was
16:21a real civil war, they faced the Germans, to a much lesser extent the Italians, and the Vichy supporters.
16:28Today, in France, people talk about the resistance or the Maquis, but no one talks about civil war. So this
16:34lesson coming from France should make us really reflect on what the period between 1943 and 1945
16:42was like in Italy. But if that's not enough for you, in the next episodes of this mini-mini-series
16:48dedicated to the so-called Civil War, you'll understand more about it. And probably there will
16:53be more clarity about what the resistance struggle was and why it can't be defined as a civil war.
16:59See you in the next episode!