Mont Mouchet was the scene of a famous battle between Nazi troops and the French Resistance, which took place in Normandy. During the Second World War, the 4,900-metre summit of the Mont Mouchet became a major ally of French resistance to the German occupation and the scene of a fierce battle that claimed more than 4,000 lives on both sides in June 1944. General de Gaulle, the President of the Republic, visited the mountain he had visited as a member of the Resistance in June 1959.
Operation Overlord, the Maquis, and other French resistance groups played a crucial role in preventing the arrival of German reinforcements in Normandy and the eventual victory of the Allies in France – during the Allied invasion of France. Original French letter of June 22, 1959, dated by de Gaulle on letterhead six months after he took office as President of the Republic and in the same month he visited Mont Mouchet, paying tribute to the French Resistance for the heroic struggles of 1944 against the Nazi troops and praising Leon Beer-Gehler for his role in the French Resistance and for continuing to honor the Ideals of Resistance.
The end and success of the Paris Uprising were largely attributed to the French and American regular forces at the Battle of Vercor, Mont Mouchet, and Saint-Marcel. Tens of thousands of men fled to the mountains and forests of France to escape the Service du Travail obligatoire (STO) to join Maquis, the rural resistance fighters against German occupation. After the German invasion of the free zone (zone libre) and the dissolution of the Vichy Armistice Army, about fifty soldiers from the 11th cuirassier regiment arrived in Vercor to distinguish them from Maquis.
In France, members of the Special Operations Executive (SOE), Churchill’s secret army, parachuted in to join the French Resistance and Macchia and help organize. In May 1941 the first SOE agents landed, less than a year after General de Gaulle sent his call for French resistance to German troops by the BBC. Major John Farmer parachuted into France in 1944 as an SOE agent to help train the resistance in Auvergne, a target of the German invaders.
The only sabotage and partisan operations of the French armed forces of the interior (FFI) were carried out against Nazi Germany in 1940 during World War II, which France had occupied during World War II. After discovering the Maquis du Mont-Mouchet, the Germans launched several attacks against 3,000 men with air and tank units in May 1944. In June 1944, a group of 7,000 “maquisards,” led by British agent Nancy Wake, a married Frenchwoman, commenced a series of battles in Vichy in southern France against up to 22,000 German SS soldiers.
The battle of Vercor (August 18th, 1944) was a rural group of the French army of the interior (FFI) / Maquis, an armed force against Nazi Germany. Since 1940, during the Second World War France had occupied. After the Normandy invasion on June 6, 1944, the FFI – leaders declared the Free Republic of Vercor to create a conventional army against German occupation. In Vercor, a plateau in the western French Alps, Maquis groups led by the Resistance founded a short-lived free republic in Vercor from June 1944 to July 1944, which ended in defeat and civil atrocities.
The Maquis du Mont-Mouchet was a group of French resistance fighters stationed in Mont Mouchet during the Second World War. On 18 June, the provision of vital weapons and the organization of the more than 5,000 strong Maquis groups in the region proved invaluable as the resistance stronghold of Mont-Mouchet was attacked by the Germans after heavy fighting in Chaude-Aigue. The three tactical groups of the Wermacht were determined from the west (Saint-Flour), the north (Langeac-Pinol), and the east (Le Puy-Velay-Sugue) to trap the French resistance troops in this area. Defence (the German intelligence service, a military actor) carried out extensive operations in the occupied zone and carried out large-scale arrests, and its investigations enabled it to track down and organize resistance groups.
Convincing resistance fighters that this was the best time to withdraw from the battle was difficult because they were determined to do maximum damage to the occupying forces. The German authorities of the SIPO-SD in the occupied southern zone complained about the unwillingness of the French police forces to fight, at least in the fight against the non-communist resistance. At the same time, the British encouraged the resistance units to act as if they were back in the days of 1944.
In France, for example, de Gaulle supported the powerful Maquis in the hope that the French, with allied help, could liberate parts of their territory. They also made the mistake of maintaining traditional discredited powers such as King Viktor Emmanuel I. In Italy, the Allies bridged the gap between the resistance and their governments; for example, in December 1944 they signed an agreement with resistance fighters to free themselves from the German yoke in Italy. Communists launched a revolution and in exile resistance groups opposed the government, a civil war broke out between the resistance and the collaborators – none of these fears became reality.