The French maquis and the Allies during the Second World War

Abstract

The maquis was one of the many forms of Resistance in France’s fight against the German Occupation and the Vichy regime during the Second World War. It emerged at the end of 1942 in response to the increasingly harsh policies introduced by the occupying forces and was largely composed of young men escaping the compulsory labour service (STO) introduced at the end of 1942. Totalling roughly 25,000 men in the summer of 1943, 41,000 by the beginning of 1944 and an increasing number after D-Day, these maquisards left their lives behind them and embarked upon an underground existence in maquis camps that sprung up across France.¹ While the maquis was originally mostly formed of civilians, over the course of the war the Allied headquarters increasingly included the maquisards in their plans and offered them logistical assistance. This chapter considers this cooperation between the Allies and the maquis.