Das Reich (18 page)

The steep, thickly wooded countryside made it a natural haven
for
maquisards
. In 1943, as the German grip on France tightened and the flight of STO evaders began, the Corrèze was an obvious gathering place. Many of those who came – Jews from Paris, Spanish fugitives from Franco’s rule, Russian deserters from the German Army, teenagers from half the departments of France – were not themselves communists, but they were willing to accept the energetic leadership of the local FTP. Among the Spaniards especially, it became common to find the absurd ideological ragbag that Robert Noireau noted among one of his groups in the Lot: ‘orthodox communists of PCE, anarchists of FAI, anarcho-syndicalists of CNT. Trotskyites of POUM and Catalan socialists . . .’ Few of them troubled much about politics in the
maquis
, and the zealots soon learned to hold their meetings unobtrusively. Only the jargon and the utter ruthlessness with which the FTP removed anyone – including a number of would-be defectors to the AS – whom they considered a threat made life for a rank-and-file FTP
maquisard
any different from that of a Gaullist. By the winter of 1943, perhaps 2,000
maquisards
were grouped under FTP control in the Corrèze. The number had more than doubled by D-Day.

The communists’ reputation for action appealed to enthusiastic spirits. They set up roadblocks and wrecked trains (George Hiller once found himself exchanging expressions of outrage with other, German passengers on a train which the FTP hijacked from under them). Between 27 April and 25 May 1944, the Tulle
gendarmerie
recorded seventy-eight terrorist outrages, almost all the work of the communists: fourteen were against railways, eight road attacks, seventeen against police, one factory sabotage, nineteen phone line cuts, seven attacks on
milice
and two on Germans, the remaining ten being thefts of food and material. The local population paid a terrible price in reprisals: after one minor FTP attack on a patrol near Camburet, the Germans burnt twenty-nine farms. Civilian hostages of all ages and both sexes were routinely seized and shot on the sites of ambushes. It is not surprising that Resistance only became a source of general national enthusiasm in France after the Liberation.

But the Germans were compelled to recognize that they no longer controlled large areas of the countryside. In March 1944, the Prefect of Corrèze estimated that seventeen cantons of the department were in the hands of the
maquis
, against nine held by the Germans and Vichy. The German garrison of elderly reservists in Tulle and Brive was supported by a
Sicherheitsdienst
security police and intelligence team and a detested following of several hundred armed Vichyites of the GMR and the Bony–Lafont gang – recruited chiefly from Parisian and North African criminals. The Hôtel St Martin, in which they were based, became notorious for the torture sessions customarily conducted in its baths. From time to time punitive columns took to the country, distributing violence with or without provocation. But for weeks on end
maquisards
on foot or in their
gazogène
trucks possessed unchallenged passage through the villages and countryside. Hundreds more secret FTP members awaited the call to mobilize from their jobs in the shops and factories of Tulle. There was even a 300-strong Young Communist group, led by a fifteen-year-old cadre.

Until the winter of 1943 the FTP was receiving only a trickle of arms, organized either by SOE’s Harry Peulevé, or by a BCRA agent who was transmitting for a time from the church spire of Tulle. But in the six months before D-Day, a deluge of weapons began to reach the
maquisards
: Stens, Brens, gammon grenades, rifles and a handful of mortars and bazookas. For a time these were stockpiled in secret caches in the forests, but the frustration and insistent demands of the
maquisards
persuaded their leaders to issue them directly to the groups. They had no London-trained instructors, and were compelled to teach themselves by laborious study of the pamphlets supplied with the containers, and sometimes at bitter cost in accidents. One man made himself horribly ill by eating off a knife that he had last used for cutting
plastique
. Two
maquisards
named Pagat and Rozier made their first essay in throwing a gammon bomb, only to find that it refused to detonate. They threw stones at it until it exploded, slashing their faces with pebbles and debris. More serious, however, was the shortage of
ammunition which made it impossible for most men to have live firing practice until they did so against the Germans. Contrary to popular belief, using a Sten or Bren gun effectively is not a knack as naturally acquired as riding a bicycle.

Food and boredom were the greatest problems of the
maquis
. The Corrèze had none of the natural abundance of Gascony or the great truffle region of the Périgord. Local sympathizers gave what they could, and the
maquis
stole everything they could lay their hands on from Vichy and the Germans. Noireau’s group in the Lot once captured an entire lorryload of
foie gras
, and declared cheerfully every time they opened a tin: ‘Here’s one the Boche won’t enjoy!’ In the Corrèze there were seldom such extravagances. The
maquis
relied heavily upon raids on farms and villages which made some groups as detested as the Germans, whether or not they left promissory notes behind them. The borderline between Resistance and banditry was often thin. It was widely crossed all over France that winter of 1943–4. London, conscious of the problem, contributed what little it could by filling every spare corner of parachute containers with small blue tins of vitamin pills. But tobacco remained the greatest difficulty. A
maquis
with cigarettes retained some cohesion and morale. A
maquis
without them often came close to collapse. Very few FTP groups were led by men with any experience of command. It was hard to teach hungry, frustrated teenagers sleeping under parachute silk in a muddy clearing in the woods the need to wash, to dig latrines, to make route marches to maintain fitness, to post efficient sentries. Again and again,
maquis
were surprised by German patrols, sometimes undoubtedly tipped off by disgruntled peasants. A party of twenty-two was caught asleep at dawn one April morning in a wood near Roux. Only four escaped. On 5 May, two men were killed in another surprise attack, and the nearby village of Bordes was burned.

The drops from England or Algeria were the outstanding highlights of
maquis
life. ‘Those
séances de parachutage
remain for me the finest memories of the
maquis
,’ wrote Robert Noireau.
‘Feats of patience and dreaming, of exhilaration at the idea of this contact between those in the interior and those who had chosen exile, the better to fight. Ah! Those February nights when one had to remain motionless on the landing ground, swept by the icy winds from the Massif Central!’

With the coming of spring and warmer weather, conditions improved in the
maquis
. Leaf on the trees increased their protection from observation, above all from the air. Throughout south central France, the FTP made increasingly daring demonstrations, holding parades through villages with flags and arms. The leader of the Lot FTP, a teacher named Jean-Jacques Chapou, achieved an immensely admired coup when he occupied the small town of Carjac on 10 April, the day of its fair, executed three alleged local collaborators, and telephoned the Cahors Gestapo in the name of the mayor, demanding urgent help. When the Germans approached, the
maquisards
shot up their convoy before retiring. He attempted to lay the same trap in Gramat on May Day, but the Germans failed to respond. ‘The first of May was a success throughout the region,’ reported the Corrèze party chief, Louis Godefroy, who had organized other demonstrations like that of Carjac and Gramat. ‘The departmental headquarters showed a spirit of initiative and enthusiasm which surpassed all our hopes. The prospects for this month of May are rich with promise for the success of the continuing offensive.’ Early in May, the Corrèze FTP received a directive from Limoges, reporting the communist national military committee’s commitment to preparation for ‘a national insurrection . . . The uprising was forcefully advocated as the only means of self-defence. When the Allies landed, how else could the Nazi armies be prevented from carrying out massive internments and massacring millions of Frenchmen? Best not to take that risk. The national uprising is “the supreme wisdom”.’ The communist leadership in the Corrèze considered itself uniquely well-placed to liberate its own territory. ‘Our forces, our weapons, the intelligence we possess about the enemy forces stationed in the area, the very favourable mood of the population’
all gave confidence to André Odru, a twenty-two-year-old teacher who was their ‘commissar for the fighters’. He wrote:

Louis Godefroy, the short, stocky, thirty-year-old sanitary worker codenamed ‘Rivière’, who was their party chief, argued that it would be easy to cut off Tulle by isolating its road and rail links; that enemy morale was low; the garrison weak; and popular support for the
maquis
overwhelming. Much impressed by Jean-Jacques Chapou’s achievements in the Lot, they now persuaded him to move to the Corrèze as the FTP’s military commander. ‘Kléber’, as he was known, was a slim, austere figure of considerable personal force but limited military understanding. With some 5,000 men in the department, he and the others believed that they could easily dispose of the garrison of Tulle, whose strength they estimated at 250 Germans and 400 GMR. In reality, there were 700 Germans of the 3rd battalion of the 95th Security Regiment, 500
miliciens
and a substantial number of SD, field police and German civilian and military administrators.

On 26 May Godefroy, the dynamic prime mover among them, made a discreet reconnaissance trip to Tulle with Albert Faucher, their quartermaster commissar. He claimed later that in the back room of a cafe full of local people, they were goaded and incited to act decisively. Both then and subsequently, Godefroy sought to escape acknowledging that he knew at the end of May that the FTP of the Limousin had decided not to attack Limoges. One of
their most flamboyant leaders, the formidable and murderous Georges Guingouin, had shown surprising moderation when the Limoges project was being discussed. Perhaps, like some other FTP leaders, he had already determined to hold back the bulk of his strength for the moment when the Germans retreated from the city, and the communists could seize undisputed power. In any event, he declined to have any part in a
coup de main
against Limoges. Although rumours of its imminence panicked the German garrison, the Haute-Vienne Resistance continued to confine themselves to local attacks.

The Germans were correctly informed, however, that a crisis was imminent at Tulle. On the morning of 6 June, Pétain’s detested deputy Pierre Laval personally telephoned Prefect Pierre Trouillé to discuss the threat. On the afternoon of the sixth, the schools closed early and remained shut through the days that followed. The same day, among the street posters inciting young Frenchmen to ‘Join the Waffen SS’, a new Vichy notice appeared: ‘In the event of fighting or shooting in the street, shutters must be closed and civilians must remain in their own houses.’

The FTP organized their attack before the Allied landings, as soon as they knew from the
messages personnels
that D-Day was imminent. They believed that Liberation would follow invasion within weeks, if not days. If they did not seize their opportunity, communism in the Corrèze might be swamped by the tide of history. In defiance of every order they had received through London, every protest of the
Armée Secrète
, every rule of guerilla warfare and common prudence, they attempted to seize and hold the town of Tulle.

A few minutes after 5 am on the morning of 7 June, the flat crump of a bazooka rocket explosion echoed through the sleeping streets of Tulle. A thin plume of smoke rose from the Champs de Mars barracks where it had detonated. It was the signal for the attack. Threading their way down the hills and into the streets came the
first columns of guerillas clad in blue tunics and berets, draped in haversacks and bandoliers, clutching their Stens and Brens, carrying bazooka rounds and mortar bombs in makeshift harnesses, exultantly conscious that they had reached a turning point of their war. The Germans and
miliciens
in their barracks and the schools in which they were billeted dragged on their clothes and equipment and began returning the
maquis
fire from windows and rooftops. Street by street and house by house, Chapou’s men advanced into Tulle.

Assaulting a strongly held city without artillery or air support is one of the most difficult operations of modern war. It calls for surprise, close coordination, resolution and highly trained men. Not one of these advantages did the FTP possess. In the first hour, they threw away surprise. The signal bazooka was fired forty-five minutes before the main attack was launched. It had already been postponed by twenty-four hours at the request of some units who had many miles to cover on foot to the rendezvous. Many of those in the assault force knew neither the town nor the way to it, and had to be led by local guides. Two hours after the first shot, barely half the guerilla army was engaged. All that day, little columns were trickling belatedly into Tulle to join the attack. Without radio or telephone links, each company fighting in the dense streets had no means of judging the progress of others, of summoning help or ammunition or medical aid.