Maquis des Glières

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At the end of 1943, to harass the enemy at the time of the expected Allied assault, the French Resistance in the French Alps of Haute-Savoie badly needed arms. To find good dropping zones to supply the Maquis with arms and sabotage equipment, a mission composed of Lieutenant-Colonel Heslop from the Special Operations Executive and Captain Rosenthal from the Free French Forces was sent from London: the plateau of Glières, a high remote mountain table ideal to drop supplies, was chosen.

On 31 January 1944, Lt. Tom Morel, from the underground army, was commissioned to collect parachute drops from the Royal Air Force with a hundred men. But Capt. Rosenthal, the Free French representative, convinced the other staff members to regroup the majority of maquisards on the plateau of Glières in order to establish a base to attack the Germans and carry out sabotage. Because the Allies were in doubt about the value of the French Resistance, it appeared to be necessary to show its capabilities to undermine the German military power in France on a large scale.

At the same time, the state of siege was declared in Haute-Savoie. Anyone found carrying arms or assisting the Maquis was subject to immediate court martial and execution. Hunted by the Vichy police and badly supplied, most of maquisards gathered on the plateau of Glières to set up the base of operations as planned. Soon after, a hundred French communist resistants and about fifty Spanish lumberjacks joined forces with them in taking refuge and getting weapons. Lt. Tom Morel welcomed all the volunteers and did not spurn the communist fighters just as the Vichy government tried to divide the Resistance against itself. From the 13th of February on, the four hundred and fifty maquisards, under the command of officers from the 27th chasseurs alpins battalion, were besieged by two thousand French militiamen and police. Although they suffered from starvation and frigid conditions, they collected three parachute drops consisting of about three hundred containers packed with small arms (Sten submachine guns, Enfield rifles, Bren light machine guns, Mills grenades) and explosives.

Unfortunately, on the night of the 9th and the 10th of March 1944, their revered commander-in-chief, Lt. Tom Morel, was traitorously killed in a bloody skirmish with the Vichy forces.

On the 12th of March 1944, after the largest Allied parachute drop, the Germans started to bomb the area with ground attack aircraft. The French Militia staged several attacks, but they ended in failure. On the 23rd of March, three battalions from the 157th Reserve Division of Wehrmacht and two German police battalions, composed of more than four thousand with heavy machine guns, 80 mm mortars, 75 mm mountain guns, 150 mm howitzers and armoured cars, concentrated in Haute-Savoie.

Reason told the new commander-in-chief, Capt. Anjot, and the maquisards to withdraw while they still had time. Reason but not honour. With a verbal duel for several weeks between two talented radio announcers - one for the BBC and the other for Radio Paris - word had seeped out of France, Britain and America that a great and glorious uprising had taken place in southeast France. Clearly, Glières had become an important element in the psychological warfare. To honour the French Resistance, Capt. Anjot, an experienced, thoughtful and impassive officer, would fight in the face of defeat, but his aim was to save most of his men's lives.

Finally, on the 26th of March 1944, after another air raid and shelling, the Germans took the offensive. They split their attacking parties into three Kampfgruppen and designated to each one specific target. Reconnaissance was carried out by ski patrols dressed in white camouflage. One of the patrols with a Gebirgsjäger platoon made an attack on the main exit to the plateau and captured an advanced post in the rear. Sustaining the attack from about fifty German soldiers, eighteen maquisards fought and resisted into the night, but were outnumbered and overwhelmed, even if most of them succeeded in escaping under cover of darkness. At ten o'clock, Capt. Anjot thought honour had been satisfied and ordered the Glières battalion to retreat. In the days that followed, Capt. Anjot and almost all his officers as well as one hundred and thirty maquisards were found dead. They had been killed in battle or, if taken prisoner, had been tortured, shot or deported. For the Germans, the maquisards were not regulars but terrorists.

The region of Savoie had been absolutely shattered. But this defeat would be transformed into a moral victory and give a boost to the French Resistance. It is a mark of the Maquis' success in the French Alps that the speed of the American advance and the rapid retreat of the Germans was far beyond the expectations of Allied planning staff.

[edit] External link

• The Battle of Glières