That looks interesting Richard. Thanks for posting it
As you are well aware I'm sure, there's lots of interesting WW1 & WW2 sites where desperate actions were fought that don't make it into the guide books - which tend to focus on the main areas like Ypres, Somme, Verdun D-Day and Bulge etc. The lack of people and facilities makes these little known sites far more evocative.
I'll pick your one above up next year
You make a good point about the little known actions.
Another good example might be the Vercors resistance museum in the Drôme, another excellent (and under visited) motorcycling area. Linking it to the oft travelled Route Napoleon is easy.
http://www.memorial-vercors.fr/fr_FR/index.php
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By the end of 1941 the Vercors had an organised resistance of about 100 lightly armed men supported by supply lines and training facilities. In late 1942 the Nazis started rounding up men and women for forced labour, and many of the younger people escaped to the Vercors. By May 1944 there were supposed to be between 350 and 400 Maquis* spread over ten camps in the Vercors.
By the early spring of 1944 it had become apparent to most people in France that the Allies must soon invade the mainland. In the Vercors the reasoning was that the invasion would either come from North Africa or up through Italy with possibly a second front opening in Northern France.
Eugene Chavant, the Mayor of Chapelle en Vercors, travelled to North Africa to present a case for starting a rebellion in the Vercors. He argued that no matter where the invasion was the Nazis would have to bring in reinforcements. Whether they were moving south or north they would have to pass by Grenoble, and a well armed and highly motivated Maquis in the Vercors could slow them down, or even stop them, thus giving the Allies time to establish a beachhead.
What happened next is open to argument. Certainly de Gaulle was in North Africa at the time of Chavant’s visit. There seems little doubt that Chavant did talk to de Gaulle’s aides, but there is dispute about what was actually discussed and agreed. There is some evidence that the aides went away and discussed Chavant’s proposals, and Chavant believed that that they also got de Gaulle’s approval.
Certainly on his return his forces had reason to believe that the Allies, or at least de Gaulle’s Free French forces, had committed to helping the Vercors’ resistance. At the same time British Special Operations Europe (SOE) officers working with the resistance were told to monitor transmissions for a code word which would have special significance to the Maquis.
The Maquis understood that the deal called for them to build a grass airstrip at Vassieux, and that when they rose up reinforcements and supplies would be flown in. What supports the Maquis’ claims of a deal with de Gaulle was that during the eventually fighting in the Vercors there were thousands of Free French troops and tons of supplies in Africa which were not committed to fighting elsewhere.
By 6th June 1944, D-Day, the Vercors Maquis was said to number between 3 and 4000 men, well drilled and disciplined but lightly armed. On that day the Vercors’ SOE liaison did receive the awaited code words. The following day General Karl Pflaum, the commander of the Wehrmacht’s 157th Reserve Division and commander of Grenoble, received a message from the resistance declaring the Vercors an independent Republic. That afternoon the flag of the free Republic of the Vercors was flown from the summit of Le Moucherotte, at 6000ft the highest mountain in the Vercors.
That night a French Cavalry officer, dressed in ceremonial uniform, liberated Pflaum’s stable of stallions by unlatching the doors to their stalls and then riding a mare in season past the stable block. These horses were to feature in what was to be the War’s last ever cavalry charge.
By June 13th the Nazis had made their plans and were prepared to move. They recognised that it would be hard to invade and conqueror the Vercors, but they could control the area if they could storm the passes and hold the high ground. That morning 1,500 well trained and battle hardened Wehrmacht troops advanced up the Seyssinet to St. Nizier pass where they were met by two companies, about 150 men, of Maquis under the command of François Huet.
The battle was very one sided until a platoon from the 6th Bataillon de Chasseur Alpins (French Alpine troops) arrived to help. The French lost just ten men, the Nazis dozens more. That night the Allies dropped containers of machine guns, ammunition and medical supplies which the Resistance took as a sign of de Gaulle’s support.
Two days later the Germans returned with 3000 men supported by heavy machine guns and mortars, and gained control of the pass.
During the following month sporadic fighting, but no serious battles, took place around the fringes of the Vercors. The Resistance took the German’s virtual inactivity as a sign they had won. On 14th July, following Allied success in Normandy, Bastille Day was celebrated throughout the Vercors. Later that day 80 American aircraft dropped 1000 containers of small arms, ammunition, medial supplies and food.
The Resistance believed that if the Americans could drop supplies in broad daylight without any German opposition then the invasion from North Africa must be imminent, and built the airstrip at Vassieux.
Unhappily the Allied success which so encouraged the Resistance also encouraged the Germans to fight back. As the Maquis gathered in a supply drop the Germans struck with bombers and fighters. By the end of the day the villages of Vassieux en Vercors and Le Chappelle had been flattened. That night the Maquis sent out a call to the Free French in Africa to send the promised reinforcements.
On July 19th a force of 20,000 German troops, supported by fighters and bombers, attacked the Vercors. Amongst the German troops were a contingent of Mongol troops fighting alongside the Germans in the belief that by so doing they could free their lands from Communist rule. It was the Mongols who were to be blamed for much of the carnage which was to follow.
The Maquis fought back bravely but by nightfall the Germans controlled the heights. In desperation the resistors started sending out calls to de Gaulle and London for the promised reinforcements and supplies. Two days later a force of heavy planes were spotted approaching from the south, from the direction of North Africa. Understandably the Maquis assumed this was the long awaited reinforcements and they cleared the runway of the obstacles they’d placed there.
Too late they realised that they were German planes carrying SS troops. Quickly they captured the landing strip and the Germans started to move in from the heights. Then the carnage started. Everything that was alive - men, women, children, domestic pets and farm animals – was killed. And throughout the Vercors the dead were put on display.
In the fighting there were some extraordinary acts of bravery. In one skirmish a company of Cameroon troops, coloured soldiers who had been hiding out since the fall of the Vichy Government, made a cavalry charge with swords and lances against a company of tanks.
In the Grands Goulets, a series of damp caves which forms part of the road to Pont en Royans, a handful of Maquis armed with sten, shot and handguns and a few petrol bombs held up a company of Germans, with tanks, for eight hours. When the Germans eventually broke through they completely flattened the hamlet of Les Barracques in revenge. Even the small cemetery was destroyed as a tank was driven round to break up the gravestones.
By July 24th the Maquis, as a cohesive force, were broken and started retreating to the forests and caves. The injured were taken to the caves at the Grotte de la Luire near St. Agnan.
The next day they were discovered by a combined force of Gestapo and SS. Those who couldn’t move were shot or smothered where they lay. Those who could were dragged to the cave entrance and thrown over the cliff.
The priest, doctors and nurses were taken to Lyons and handed over to Klaus Barbie, the infamous Butcher of Lyons. After torture the men were killed and the women sent to Ravensbruck where they died or were killed.
There is a certain irony in that those who managed to escape from the Vercors joined Resistance groups who were fighting to keep the Route Napoleon open for the expected American landings on the Mediterranean coast. When the Americans did eventually leave their beachhead the road though to Grenoble was under the control of the Resistance.
As you travel along the Route Napoleon you’ll see numerous small memorials carrying the cross of Lorraine, each marking a point where resistance fighters lost their lives keeping the road clear. In the car park at Barreme there is a display which shows a little of how the Resistance kept the Route Napoleon open.
When the Allies eventually reached Grenoble the city was surrendered without fighting to a combined force of Americans and Vercors Maquis.
In retrospect perhaps the plan to turn the Vercors into a fortress was flawed. Military experts say that civilian fighters are better used in skirmishes rather than in conventional warfare. Fighters and supplies might have been better used clearing the Route Napoleon. But with such fiercely independent people logic could play no part.
Today academics, and conspiracy theorists, still argue about the role of General de Gaulle in the Vercors tragedy. At their most vicious they claim that de Gaulle deliberately sacrificed the Vercors so that France would have martyrs when the war was over. Some say that de Gaulle knew nothing of the plans which were merely a suggestion by Chavant. In truth we are probably just seeing the typical confusion of War.
