Maquis L 4 OOC

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Here is the basic information about the WWII rp.

Main location, Lucon, France.

To see Lucon from Mapquest go to here

It is a small sized city, I'm estimating somewhere around 8,000 to 15,000 inhabitants, both now and during WWII. It is on the rail line between La Rochelle, an important U-Boot base, and Nantes, a good sized harbor. It has a cathedral with a bishop. It was once a seaport, but since Roman times the farmers have been filling in fields, so now, and during WWII, it is about 50 km from the sea, though the farmland south is know as "The Green Venice" and is criss crossed with canals and swamp land.

My wife is from a city not far from there, Fontenay-le-Comte, which also was a port up till the late middle ages. I have traveled around that area quite a bit. Last visit, I picked up a book called, "Regards sur la Resistance Luconnaise et le Maquis L 4" (Notes on the Luconnaise Resistance and the Maquis group L 4) that was written in 1946 by a resistance fighter who had been active in Lucon.

One thing I have not yet been able to find out is how large the German garrison in Lucon was, and if there were any in outlying villages, or maybe just patrols.

We obviously don't have to stick to historical truth with the rp, but it is nice to have some basis. I've got some more detailed jpeg maps of the area that I've been having trouble posting to a web site, but could email to those interested.

 

Wow great job, that's good info to work with. BUt can I ask, why L 4? What does it mean? ANd I have heard Marquis before, but what is it? Was it the french resistance? Sorry but I have not done much research on WWII, I am more an ancient history kind of guy.

 

Here's a big chunk of background information:

On June 16, 1940, the National Assembly—which had supported the socialist government of the "Front Populaire" in 1936—faced with imminent military defeat by Germany, gave full power to Marshal Philippe Pétain. In 1940, Pétain was known mainly as a World War I hero. Pétain became the last prime minister of the Third Republic; he suppressed the parliament and immediately turned the regime into a non-democratic government collaborating with Germany.

Vichy France was established after France surrendered to Germany on June 22, 1940, and took its name from the government's administrative centre in Vichy, southeast of Paris. Paris remained the official capital, to which Pétain always intended to return the government when this became possible. While officially neutral in the war, Vichy actively collaborated with the Nazis, including, to some degree, with their racial policies.

It is a common misconception that the Vichy regime administered only the unoccupied zone of southern France, while the Germans directly administered the occupied zone. In fact, the civil jurisdiction of the Vichy government extended over the whole of Metropolitan France, except for Alsace-Lorraine, which was placed under German administration (though not formally annexed). French civil servants in Bordeaux or Nantes were under the authority of French ministers in Vichy. But the difficulties of communication across the demarcation line between the two zones, and the tendency of the Germans to exercise arbitrary power in the occupied zone, made it difficult for Vichy to assert its authority there.
This situation actually improved when the Germans occupied southern France on 11 November 1942, in operation Case Anton. Although Vichy's "Armistice Army" was disbanded, thus diminishing Vichy's independence, the abolition of the line of demarcation made civil administration easier. Vichy continued to exercise jurisdiction over most of France until the collapse of the regime following the Allied invasion in June 1944.
The Vichy regime was acknowledged as the official government of France by the United States and other countries, including Canada, which was at war with Germany. Even the United Kingdom maintained unofficial contacts with Vichy for some time, until it became apparent that the Vichy Prime Minister Pierre Laval intended full collaboration with the Germans.

The Vichy government's claim to be the de jure French government was challenged by the Free French Forces of Charles de Gaulle, based first in London and later in Algiers, and French governments ever since have held that the Vichy regime was an illegal government run by traitors.
Within Vichy France, there was a low-intensity civil war between the French Resistance—drawn from the Communist and Republican elements of society—against the reactionary elements who desired a fascist or similar regime as in Francisco Franco's Spain. This civil war can be seen as the continuation of a division existing within French society since the 19th century or even the French Revolution, illustrated by events such as the Dreyfus Affair and the 6 February 1934 riots.

France declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939 following the German invasion of Poland. After the eight-month Phony War, the Germans launched their offensive in the west on 10 May 1940. Within days, it became clear that French forces were overwhelmed and that military collapse was inevitable. Government and military leaders, deeply shocked by the debacle, debated how to proceed. Many officials, including the Prime Minister, Paul Reynaud, wanted to move the government to French territories in North Africa, and continue the war with the French naval fleet and the resources of the French empire. Others, particularly the vice-premier Henri Philippe Pétain and the commander-in-chief, General Maxime Weygand, insisted that the responsibility of the government was to remain in France and share the misfortune of its people. The latter view called for an immediate cessation of hostilities.
While this debate continued, the government was forced to relocate several times, finally reaching Bordeaux, in order to avoid capture by advancing German forces. Communications were poor and thousands of civilian refugees clogged the roads. In these chaotic conditions, advocates of an armistice gained the upper hand and overwhelmed the resistance of those who wished to continue the war. The Cabinet agreed on a proposal to seek armistice terms from Germany, with the understanding that, should Germany set forth dishonorable or excessively harsh terms, France would retain the option to continue to fight. In reality, this was probably a pretextual understanding. Once the government breached the psychological barrier of seeking terms from Germany, the armistice was virtually inevitable.

France's armistice with Hitler
France capitulated on 22 June 1940. The United States would not enter the war until 1941, and the Soviet Union was still in its period of rapprochement with Nazi Germany under the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Thus, the United Kingdom was left as the only world power at war with the Axis.
Prime Minister Paul Reynaud resigned over the decision and, on his recommendation, President Albert Lebrun appointed the 84-year-old Pétain to replace him on 16 June. The Armistice with France (Second Compiègne) agreement was signed on 22 June. A separate agreement was reached with Italy, which had entered the war against France on 10 June, well after the outcome of the battle was beyond doubt.

Hitler was motivated by a number of reasons to agree to the armistice. He feared that France would continue to fight from North Africa, and he wanted to ensure that the French Navy was taken out of the war. He could not know, of course, that the tide of opinion within the French government had turned decisively against this course of action. In addition, leaving a French government in place would relieve Germany of the considerable burden of administering French territory. Finally, he hoped to direct his attentions toward Britain, where he anticipated another quick victory.

Conditions of armistice
The armistice divided France into occupied and unoccupied zones. Germany would occupy northern and western France including the entire Atlantic coast. The remaining two-fifths of the country would be governed by the French government with the capital at Vichy under Pétain. Ostensibly, the French government would administer the entire territory. The French Army was reduced to an "Armistice Army" of 100,000 soldiers, and French prisoners of war would remain in captivity. The French had to pay the occupation costs of the German troops and prevent any French people from leaving the country.

France was also required to turn over to German custody anyone within the country whom the Germans demanded. Within French deliberations, this was singled out as a potentially "dishonorable" term, since it would require France to hand over persons who had entered France seeking refuge from Germany. Attempts to negotiate the point with Germany were unsuccessful, and the French decided not to press the issue to the point of refusing the Armistice, though they hoped to ameliorate the requirement in future negotiations with Germany after the signing.

The French government broke off diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom on 5 July 1940 after the destruction of the French Fleet at Mers-el-Kebir by British naval forces.
The Third Republic was voted out of existence by a majority of the French National Assembly on 10 July 1940 by 468 votes to 80 and 20 abstentions[1] . The assembly met in Vichy, a city in central France, which was used as a provisional capital. The Vichy regime was established the following day, with Pétain as head of state, with the whole powers (Constitutive, Legislative, Executive and Judicial) in his hand. Pétain was given the power to write a new Constitution but this was never done. He instead put forth three Constitutional Acts that suspended the Constitution of the Third Republic of 1875. These Acts suspended Parliament and transferred all powers to himself. On 12 July, Pétain designated Pierre Laval as Vice-President and his designated successor, and appointed Fernand de Brinon as representative to the German High Command in Paris. Pétain remained the head of the Vichy regime until 20 August 1944. The French national motto, Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité (Freedom, Equality, Brotherhood), was replaced by Travail, Famille, Patrie (Work, Family, Fatherland). Pétain's vice-premiers were successively Pierre Laval and François Darlan. Paul Reynaud, who had not officially resigned as Prime Minister, was arrested in September 1940 by the Vichy government and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1941 before the opening of the Riom Trial.

Vichy composition and policies
The composition of the Vichy cabinet, and its policies, were mixed. Many Vichy officials such as Pétain, though not all, were reactionaries who considered that France's unfortunate fate was a kind of divine punishment for its Republican character and the actions of its left-wing governments of the 1930s (see Popular Front). Reactionary writer Charles Maurras judged that Pétain's accession to power was, in that respect, a "divine surprise"; and many people of the same political persuasion judged that it was preferable to have an authoritarian, Catholic government similar to that of Francisco Franco's Spain, albeit under Germany's yoke, than have a Republican government. Others, like Joseph Darnand, were strong anti-Semites and overt Nazi sympathisers. A number of these joined the Légion des Volontaires Français contre le Bolchévisme (Legion of French Volunteers Against Bolshevism) units fighting on the Eastern Front, or even the Waffen SS.

On the other hand, technocrats such as Jean Bichelonne or engineers from the Groupe X-Crise used their position to push various reforms that had been postponed during the Third Republic. Many of these (for example, the foundation of the statistics office, which would become INSEE after the war, or Alexis Carrel's "French Foundation for the Study of Human Problems" — Alexis Carrel supported eugenics — which became the National Institute of Demographic Studies - INED -, led by Alfred Sauvy, after the war) were retained and reinforced under France's post-war dirigisme.
Furthermore, some members of the Vichy Government, such as young François Mitterrand, claimed to have used their official positions as "insiders" to further the goals of the internal resistance.

Fascist paramilitaries
In order to enforce the régime's will, some paramilitary organizations with a fascist leaning were created. A notable example was the "Légion Française des Combattants" (L.F.C.) (French Legion of Fighters), including at first only former combatants, but quickly adding "Amis de la Légion" and cadets of the Légion, who had never seen battle, but were supporters of his dictatorial regime. The name was then quickly changed to "Légion Française des Combattants et des volontaires de la Révolution Nationale" (French Legion of Fighters and Volunteers of the National Revolution). Then, Joseph Darnand created a "Service d'Ordre Légionnaire" (S.O.L.), which consisted mostly of French supporters of the Nazis, of which Pétain fully approved.

Implementation of Nazi racial, anti-Semitic laws
As soon as it had been established, Pétain's government took measures against his real or supposed opponents, like "Francs Maçons" (the Freemasons). It also created racist laws of Hitlerian inspiration against Jews even more quickly than Hitler had done after his ascent to power in Germany. These racist laws were more severe than the 1938 Italian Fascist ones, and they were made even stricter in July 1941.
The French police collaborated in the following events:

• In October 1940, it registered all French Jews in the police offices, and added the mention "Jews" on their identity cards (as Giorgio Agamben has pointed out, it is these documents and photos which later helped the police in its raids[2])
• Two raids took place on 14 May and 20 August 1941.
• It imposed the specific curfew on Jews starting from February 1942.
• It made sure that Jews gave back their TSF radios
• It made sure that Jews wear the "yellow star" which had been imposed to them
• It made sure that Jews who had telephones gave back their machines to them
• It attentively monitored the Jews who didn't respect the prohibition according to which they were not supposed to appear in public places and had to travel in the last car of the Parisian metro
Furthermore, foreign Jews staying in France were handed over to Germany. In total, the Vichy government helped in the deportation of 76,000 Jews to German extermination camps; only 2,500 survived the war. During the 16 July 1942 rafle du Vel'd'Hiv ("Vel'd'Hiv raid"), French police officers rounded up 12,884 Jews — including 4,051 children which the Gestapo hadn't asked for — and imprisoned them in the Winter Velodrome, in unhygienic conditions, from which they were led to Drancy transit camp (run by French constabulary police) and then to the concentration camps. The Gestapo hardly had ordered it to act so; the police eagerly participated in the raid. On 16 July 1995, president Jacques Chirac officially recognized the active participation of French police forces to the 16 July 1942 raid. "There was no effective police resistance until the end of Spring of 1944", wrote historians Jean-Luc Einaudi and Maurice Rajsfus[3]

While it is certain that the Vichy government and a large number of its high administration collaborated in such policies, the exact level of such cooperation is still debated. Compared with the Jewish communities established in other countries invaded by Nazi Germany, French Jews suffered proportionately lighter losses. Former Vichy officials later claimed that they did as much as they could to minimize the impact of the Nazi policies, although mainstream French historians contend that the Vichy regime went beyond the Nazi expectations, which originally concerned only foreign Jews staying in France, not French Jews. Maurice Papon, who became Paris' police prefect and was later responsible for the 1961 Paris massacre, was judged in the 1980s, as well as Klaus Barbie, who worked after the war for the CIA.

French collaborationnistes
Stanley Hoffmann in 1974,[4] and after him, other historians such as Robert Paxton and Jean-Pierre Azéma have used the term collaborationnistes to refer to fascists and Nazi sympathizers who, for ideological reasons, wished a reinforced collaboration with Hitler's Germany. Examples of are Parti Populaire Français (PPF) leader Jacques Doriot, writer Robert Brasillach or Marcel Déat. The Vichy regime also implemented compulsory work in Germany for young Frenchmen (service du travail obligatoire or STO), a move which pushed some of these young men to join the Resistance instead.
A number of the French advocated fascist philosophies even before the Vichy regime. Far-right organizations, such as La Cagoule, had contributed to the destabilization of the Third Republic, particularly when the left-wing Popular Front was in power. After France's military defeat, some of these sympathisers actively assisted the Vichy regime; some even directly assisted the Nazis in taking Jewish private property, destroying synagogues and other Jewish monuments, and in shipping Jews to Nazi concentration camps. A prime example is the founder of L'Oréal cosmetics, Eugène Schueller, and his associate Jacques Corrèze.
Collaborationists may have influenced the Vichy government's policies, but ultra-collaborationists comprised the majority of the government only until 1944.[5]

Relationships with the Allied powers
The United States granted Vichy full diplomatic recognition, sending Admiral William D. Leahy to France as American ambassador. President Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull hoped to use American influence to encourage those elements in the Vichy government opposed to military collaboration with Germany. The Americans also hoped to encourage Vichy to resist German war demands, such as for air bases in French-mandated Syria or to move war supplies through French territories in North Africa. The essential American position was that France should take no action not explicitly required by the armistice terms that could adversely affect Allied efforts in the war.

Shortly after the armistice, the United Kingdom attacked a large French naval contingent in Mers-el-Kebir, killing 1,297 French military personnel. Unsurprisingly, Vichy severed diplomatic relations. Britain feared that the French naval fleet could wind up in German hands and be used against her own naval forces, which were so vital to maintaining world-wide shipping and communications. Under the armistice, France had been allowed to retain the French Navy, the Marine Nationale, under strict conditions. Vichy pledged that the fleet would never fall into the hands of Germany, but refused to send the fleet beyond Germany's reach, either by sending it to Britain, or even to far away territories of the French empire, such as the West Indies. This was not enough security for Winston Churchill. French ships in British ports were seized by the Royal Navy. The French squadron at Alexandria, under Admiral Godfroy, was effectively interned until 1943 after an agreement was reached with Admiral Cunningham, commander of the Mediterranean Fleet.

Creation of Free France
To counter the Vichy regime, General Charles de Gaulle created France Libre (Free France) after his Appeal of 18 June, 1940 radio speech. Initially Winston Churchill was ambivalent about de Gaulle and he dropped links with Vichy only when it became clear they would not fight. Even so, the Free France headquarters in London was riven with internal divisions and jealousies.
The additional participation of Free French forces in the Syrian operation was controversial within allied circles. It raised the prospect of Frenchmen shooting at Frenchmen, raising fears of a civil war. Additionally, it was believed that the Free French were widely reviled within Vichy military circles, and that Vichy forces in Syria were less likely to resist the British if they were not accompanied by elements of the Free French. Nevertheless, De Gaulle convinced Churchill to allow his forces to participate, although De Gaulle was forced to agree to a joint British-Free French proclamation promising that Syria and Lebanon would become fully independent at the end of the war.

However, there were still French naval ships under French control. A large squadron was in port at Mers El Kébir harbour near Oran. Vice Admiral Somerville, with Force H under his command, was instructed to deal with the situation in July 1940. Various terms were offered to the French squadron, but all were rejected. Consequently, Force H opened fire on the French ships. Nearly 1,000 French sailors died when the Bretagne blew up in the attack. Less than two weeks after the armistice, Britain had fired upon forces of its former ally. The result was shock and resentment towards the UK within the French Navy, and to a lesser extent in the general French public.

Tensions with Britain in Syria, Madagascar
The next flashpoint between Britain and Vichy came in June 1941 when a revolt in Iraq had to be put down by British forces. Luftwaffe aircraft, staging through the French possession of Syria, intervened in the fighting in small numbers. That highlighted Syria as a threat to British interests in the Middle East. Consequently, British and Commonwealth forces invaded Syria and Lebanon, capturing Damascus on 17 June. see (Syria-Lebanon campaign)
One other major operation of British forces against Vichy French territory was the Battle of Madagascar. It was feared that Japanese forces might use Madagascar as a base and thus cripple British trade and communications in the Indian Ocean. As a result, Madagascar was invaded by British and Commonwealth forces in 1942. It fell relatively quickly, but the operation is often viewed as an unnecessary diversion of British naval resources away from more vital theatres of operation.

German invasion, November 1942
President Roosevelt continued to cultivate Vichy, and promoted General Henri Giraud as a preferable alternative to de Gaulle, despite the poor performance of Vichy forces in North Africa—Admiral François Darlan had landed in Algiers the day before Operation Torch with the XIXth Vichy Army Corps, but was neutralised within 15 hours by a 400-strong French resistance force. Nonetheless, Roosevelt and Churchill accepted Darlan, rather than de Gaulle, as the French leader in North Africa. The United States also resented the Free French taking control of St Pierre and Miquelon on 24 December 1941 because, Secretary of State Hull believed, it interfered with a U.S.-Vichy agreement to maintain the status quo with respect to French territorial possessions in the western hemisphere. [1][2]
After Darlan signed an armistice with the Allies and took power in North Africa, Germany violated the 1940 armistice and invaded Vichy France on 10 November 1942 (operation code-named Case Anton), triggering the Scuttling of the French fleet in Toulon.

Even though he was now in the Allied camp, Darlan maintained the repressive Vichy system in North Africa, including concentration camps in southern Algeria.[citation needed] He was killed on 24 December 1942 in Algiers by the young monarchist Bonnier de La Chapelle. The real power in mainland France devolved into the hands of Laval. Darlan was succeeded by Giraud who maintained the Vichy regime in North Africa for months, until the unification of French fighting forces and territories by the Comité français de Libération nationale, and the taking of power by de Gaulle, who re-established democracy. The Roosevelt administration was notably cool, if not hostile to de Gaulle, especially resenting his refusal to cooperate in the Normandy invasion of 6 June 1944. With the Vichy leaders gone from French territory due to the US, British, and Free French invasion and advance, on 23 October 1944 the U.S., Britain and the Soviet Union formally recognized the de Gaulle regime as the provisional government of France.

Independence of the S.O.L
In 1943, the Service d'ordre légionnaire (SOL) collaborationist militia, headed by Joseph Darnand, became independent and was transformed into the "Milice française" (French Militia). Officially directed by Pierre Laval himself, the SOL was led by Darnand, who held an SS rank and pledged an oath of loyalty to Hitler. Under Darnand and his sub-commanders, such as Paul Touvier and Jacques de Bernonville, the Milice was responsible for helping the German forces and police in the repression of the French Resistance and Maquis.

In addition, the Milice participated with area Gestapo head Klaus Barbie in seizing members of the resistance and minorities including Jews for shipment to detention centres, such as the Drancy deportation camp, en route to Auschwitz, and other German concentration camps, including Dachau and Buchenwald.

Liberation of France and aftermath
Following the Allied invasions of France, Pétain and his ministers were taken to Germany by the German forces where they established a government in exile at Sigmaringen.
In 1945, many members of the Vichy government were arrested and charged with high treason and other crimes. Trials ensued and some, including Laval and Darnand, were executed. Pétain was sentenced to death but the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment due to his achievements during World War I. Others fled or went into hiding, such as Jacques de Bernonville who went to Québec, Canada, while some were not prosecuted for their crimes until much later, or not at all. In 1993, former Vichy official René Bousquet was murdered while he awaited prosecution in Paris following a 1989 complaint for crimes against humanity; he had been prosecuted after the war, but had been acquitted in 1949.[3] In 1994 former Vichy official Paul Touvier was convicted of crimes against humanity.
The official point of view of the French government is that the Vichy regime was an illegal government distinct from the French Republic, established by traitors under foreign influence. Indeed, Vichy France eschewed the formal name of France ("French Republic") and styled itself the "French State". While the criminal behaviour of Vichy France is acknowledged, and some former Vichy officials prosecuted, this point of view denies any responsibility of the French Republic. However, on 16 July 1995, president Jacques Chirac, in a speech, recognized the responsibility of the French State for seconding the "criminal folly of the occupying country".[6]
[edit] Vichy people
• Philippe Pétain, head of the "French state" (Vichy)
• Pierre Laval, head of the "French state"
• René Bousquet, head of the French police
• Jean Leguay, delegate of Bousquet in the "free zone," inculped of crimes against humanity for his role in the July 1942 Rafle du Vel'd'Hiv
• Louis Darquier de Pellepoix, Commissionner for Jewish Affairs of the Vichy government
• Philippe Henriot, State Secretary of Information and Propaganda of Vichy
• Maurice Papon, head of the Jewish Questions Service in the prefecture of Bordeaux (condemned for crimes against humanity in 1998)
• Simon Sabiani, head of Doriot's PPF in Marseille
• Paul Touvier, condemned in 1995 for crimes against humanity for his role as head of the Milice in Lyon
• Xavier Vallat, Commissionner General for Jewish Questions
• Marcel Bucard, founder of the Mouvement franciste far-right league and of the Légion des volontaires français contre le bolchévisme (LVF)
• Marcel Déat, founder of the Rassemblement national populaire (RNP) in 1941
• Eugène Deloncle, co-founder of La Cagoule right-wing terrorist group in 1935 and then of the fascist Mouvement social révolutionnaire in 1940
• Jacques Doriot, founder of the Parti Populaire Français (PPF) and member of the LVF
• Étienne Leandri, wore the Gestapo uniform during the war (participated in the creation of the Gaullist Service d'Action Civique (SAC) in the 1960s
• Robert Brasillach, writer
• Louis-Ferdinand Céline, writer
• Pierre Drieu La Rochelle, writer
• Lucien Rebatet, writer
• Charles Maurras, writer and founder of royalist movement L'Action française
• Pierre Taittinger, chairman of the municipal council of Paris in 1943-44
• Henri Lafont
• Pierre Bonny (a.k.a. Pierre Bony)


More info about Maquis:

The Maquis (IPA: [ma'ki]) were the predominantly rural guerrilla bands of French Resistance.
Originally the word meant a type of high ground in southeastern France covered with scrub growth. It is the kind of terrain armed resistance groups hid in. Members of those bands were called maquisards. Eventually the term became an honorific that meant “armed resistance fighter.”
Most maquisards operated in the mountainous areas of Brittany and southern France. They relied on guerrilla tactics to harass the Milice and German occupation troops of Vichy France. The Maquis also aided the escape of downed Allied airmen, Jews and others pursued by the Vichy and German Authorities. Some maquisards did commit atrocities, and raid villages as well, but usually they could rely on some degree of sympathy or cooperation from the local populace. In March 1944, the German Army began a terror campaign throughout France. This included reprisals against civilians living in areas where the French Resistance were active. Most of the Maquis cells - like the Vercors - took names after the area they were operating in. The size of these cells varied from tens to thousands of men and women.
Politically, maquis were very diverse - from right-wing nationalists to communists and anarchists. Some Maquis bands that operated in southwest France were composed entirely of left-wing Spanish veterans of the Spanish Civil War.
When Germans began a forced labor draft in France in the beginning of 1943, thousands of young men fled and joined the Maquis. The British Special Operations Executive (SOE) helped with supplies and agents. The American Office of Strategic Services (OSS) also began to send its own agents to France in cooperation with the SOE.
During the Allied invasion of Normandy, the Maquis and other groups played some role in delaying the German mobilization. The French Resistance (FFI "Force Francaises de l'Interieur" or "French Interior Forces") blew up railroad tracks and repeatedly attacked German Army equipment and garrison trains on their way to the Atlantic coast. Thanks to coded messages transmitted over the BBC radio, each Maquis group was alerted of the impending D-Day by listening for seemingly meaningless messages such as "the crow will sing three times in the morning" or any other pre-arranged messages read in a continuous flow over the British airwaves. As Allied troops advanced, the French Resistance rose against the Nazi occupation forces and their garrisons en masse. For example, Nancy Wake's group of 7,000 maquisards was involved in a pitched battle with 22,000 Germans on June 20, 1944. Some Maquis groups took no prisoners and some German soldiers preferred to surrender to Allied soldiers instead of facing maquisards. Captured Maquis faced torture and being shot or sent to concentration camps, where few survived.
The Allied offensive was slowed and the Germans were able to counterattack in southeast France. On the Vercors plateau, a Maquis group fought about 8000 soldiers under general Karl Pflaum and was defeated with 600 casualties.
When De Gaulle dismissed resistance organizations after the liberation of Paris, many Maquis returned to their homes. Many also joined the new French army to continue the fight.
It was standard practice among the Maquis to identify members by wearing a Basque beret because it was common enough to not arouse suspicion but distinctive enough to be effective.

Pretty much all this info is from Wikipedia.

I haven't finished the book yet, so I don't know why it's called Maquis L 4, a guess would be after a highway named L 4.

 

WOW, that was a lot, I don't have the time to read it yet, but I found a list of terms used by the Germans during the war, I know we'll be typing in english, but to make it more realistic, these are the definitions of some German millitary terms.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_WWII_German_military_terms

 

Are the Germans in Lucan yet? Or do they come in later? And is there important stuff there?

 

Alright, I don't have a site with the WWII weapons site, so instead I'll answer any questions given and comment on the weapons chosen.

Also, are we playing Hollywood-esque or more realistic? I vote for realistic.

 

Scot, since the town is large enough to have a Cathedral there would be two schools, one for boys and one for girls. Even if the schools are in the same building they would be segregated. The boys taught by monks and the girls by woman religious (commonly but incorrectly called nuns). There would be a monastery and a convent. Possibly each connected to the school or at least near it. I have not been very successful in tracking down information on Religious Orders in 20th Century France and will set up the Convent based on my knowledge from the USA. It probably won't be historically correct but Convent Life and Canon should be fairly accurate. Especially since I requested some help from our resident expert, Chevy.

I will try to get my character up this weekend.

 

The Germans are definitely not in Lucon yet. I don't know exactly when and in what size force they got there, but I imagine it would be between between as early as two or three weeks after the French surrender or as late as two months or so.

There's not a whole lot of importance in the town, but as I mentioned the rail line from La Rochelle, an important port and future U-Boot base, to Nantes, another important port, goes through the town, and nicely for the resistance, the farmers out in the marsh fields would have lots of boats and skiffs with canals to the bay, which leads down to La Rochelle, so there are a lot of possibilities for the resistance. To give the Germans more of a reason to be there, I'd thought about putting a hospital there that wounded Germans get sent to, or maybe a small but important factory, like a ball-bearing or gear factory that could be sabotaged and protected.

 

Ok so there isn't much I can do just yet.... if I get around to it, I'll post something about him marching to the town. I'll keep reading, but give me the signal when the Germans arrive.

 

Important question: Will we be skiping periods of time? The war lasted for over 4 years, so will we be missing months and just establishing a storyline afterwards?

This matters, because otherwise we'll probably spend months waiting for the Germans, and years trying to defeat them (or the other way around). Someone get back to me on this, as the RPG could last for a very long time otherwise.

 

I think that after the initial introductions have been settled, we'll fast forward to the aftermath of the takeover by the Germans and the start of the rebell movement.

 

Yes, probably be skipping ahead alot. One thing though, we've kind of gotten ahead of ourselves. It opened, and so far still is June 22, 1940, the day of French surrender, so the FFI hasn't officially been created, we, in effect, are creating our own cell right now.

 

Well, lets just say the FFI already is in existence. We'll be contacted shortly.

 

What about my SOE agent? I shouldn;t be around at the moment, surely?

 

Daie: If you want, it could be you instead of Major Willowby talking to James, i'd just change it, and maybe you will stay in the area, but they need locals with local contacts, though I think Robert will be the "General" for FFI for the larger region.

Or you could parachute or infiltrate in to us later, maybe bringing a small boat with more weapons and explosives up through the marshes from the bay.

 

A couple of historical notes.

1) After the French surrender French young men were conscripted and sent to Germany. Many escaped into the hills and country to avoid this and joined the French Resistance.

2) Women were part of the Resistance doing various things including fighting and dying.