French Forces of the Interior
Encyclopedia
French Resistance
The French Resistance is the name used to denote the collection of French resistance movements that fought against the Nazi German occupation of France and against the collaborationist Vichy régime during World War II...
fighters in the later stages of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Charles de Gaulle
Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....
used it as a formal name for the resistance fighters. The change in designation of these groups to FFI occurred as France's
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
status changed from that of an occupied nation to one of a nation being liberated by the Allied
Allies of World War II
The Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . Former Axis states contributing to the Allied victory are not considered Allied states...
armies. As regions of France were liberated, the FFI were more formally organized into light infantry units and served as a valuable manpower addition to regular French forces. In this role, the FFI units manned less active areas of the front lines, allowing regular French army units to practice economy of force measures and mass their troops in decisive areas of the front. Finally, from October 1944 and with the greater part of France liberated, the FFI units were amalgamated into the French regular forces, thus ending the era of the French irregulars in World War II.
Liberation
After the invasion of Normandy in June 1944, at the request of the French Committee of National Liberation, SHAEF placed about 200,000 resistance fighters under command of GeneralGeneral
A general officer is an officer of high military rank, usually in the army, and in some nations, the air force. The term is widely used by many nations of the world, and when a country uses a different term, there is an equivalent title given....
Marie Pierre Koenig
Marie Pierre Koenig
Marie Pierre Kœnig was a French army officer and politician. He commanded a Free French Brigade at the Battle of Bir Hakeim in North Africa in 1942....
, who attempted to unify resistance efforts against the Germans. General Eisenhower
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...
confirmed Koenig's command of the FFI on 23 June 1944.
The FFI were mostly composed of resistance fighters who used their own weapons, although many FFI units included former French soldiers. They used civilian clothing and wore an armband with the letters "F.F.I."
According to General Patton
George S. Patton
George Smith Patton, Jr. was a United States Army officer best known for his leadership while commanding corps and armies as a general during World War II. He was also well known for his eccentricity and controversial outspokenness.Patton was commissioned in the U.S. Army after his graduation from...
, the rapid advance of his army through France would have been impossible without the fighting aid of the FFI. General Patch estimated that from the time of the Mediterranean landings
Operation Dragoon
Operation Dragoon was the Allied invasion of southern France on August 15, 1944, during World War II. The invasion was initiated via a parachute drop by the 1st Airborne Task Force, followed by an amphibious assault by elements of the U.S. Seventh Army, followed a day later by a force made up...
to the arrival of U.S. troops at Dijon
Dijon
Dijon is a city in eastern France, the capital of the Côte-d'Or département and of the Burgundy region.Dijon is the historical capital of the region of Burgundy. Population : 151,576 within the city limits; 250,516 for the greater Dijon area....
, the help given to the operations by the FFI was equivalent to four full divisions.
FFI units seized bridges, began the liberation of villages and towns as Allied units neared, and collected intelligence on German units in the areas entered by the Allied forces, easing the Allied advance through France in August 1944. According to a volume of the U.S. official history of the war,
In Brittany, southern France, and the area of the Loire and Paris, French Resistance forces greatly aided the pursuit to the Seine in August. Specifically, they supported the Third Army in Brittany and the Seventh U.S. and First French Armies in the southern beachhead and the Rhône valley. In the advance to the Seine, the French Forces of the Interior helped protect the southern flank of the Third Army by interfering with enemy railroad and highway movements and enemy telecommunications, by developing open resistance on as wide a scale as possible, by providing tactical intelligence, by preserving installations of value to the Allied forces, and by mopping up bypassed enemy positions.
Political Tension
French Army
The French Army, officially the Armée de Terre , is the land-based and largest component of the French Armed Forces.As of 2010, the army employs 123,100 regulars, 18,350 part-time reservists and 7,700 Legionnaires. All soldiers are professionals, following the suspension of conscription, voted in...
, and a series of tense meetings between de Gaulle and FFI leaders in major cities ensued. Despite FFI disenchantment with de Gaulle's methods, in large part they accepted his decision that FFI members would either be amalgamated into the French regular army or return to civilian life.
Amalgamation
Light infantry
Traditionally light infantry were soldiers whose job was to provide a skirmishing screen ahead of the main body of infantry, harassing and delaying the enemy advance. Light infantry was distinct from medium, heavy or line infantry. Heavy infantry were dedicated primarily to fighting in tight...
class, although some formed light reconnaissance
Reconnaissance
Reconnaissance is the military term for exploring beyond the area occupied by friendly forces to gain information about enemy forces or features of the environment....
units like the 12th Regiment of Dragoons. Some of these units were used to besiege German troops in still-occupied French ports or to secure France's alpine frontier with Italy, others were used to secure Allied lines of communications in France, and still others were assigned as army reserve units for the use of General
General
A general officer is an officer of high military rank, usually in the army, and in some nations, the air force. The term is widely used by many nations of the world, and when a country uses a different term, there is an equivalent title given....
de Lattre de Tassigny
Jean de Lattre de Tassigny
Jean Joseph Marie Gabriel de Lattre de Tassigny, GCB, MC was a French military hero of World War II and commander in the First Indochina War.-Early life:...
's French First Army
French First Army
The First Army was a field army of France that fought during World War I and World War II. It was also active during the Cold War.-First World War:...
. From October 1944 until March 1945, the FFI units were amalgamated into the French Army in order to regularize the units. Units such as the 49th Infantry Regiment (formerly the FFI Corps Franc Pommiés) and the 3rd Demi-Brigade of Chasseurs (formerly the FFI Alsace-Lorraine Brigade
Alsace-Lorraine Brigade (France)
The Alsace-Lorraine Independent Brigade , usually known as the Alsace-Lorraine Brigade or sometimes as the brigade Malraux, was a French Forces of the Interior unit that fought alongside regular French Army forces in World War II during the closing months of 1944 and early 1945.- History :Formed...
) were constituted in this manner using FFI manpower. Amalgamation was successful in varying degree; the training, tactics and attitudes of the former French Resistance
French Resistance
The French Resistance is the name used to denote the collection of French resistance movements that fought against the Nazi German occupation of France and against the collaborationist Vichy régime during World War II...
fighters often differed from those of the regular soldiers with whom they served. General De Lattre's comments on this situation are enlightening:
[Traditional military values] were not and could not be the characteristics of the F.F.I. units. Condemned to be born and live in secret, placed outside the law by the enemy and by the enemy's accomplices, they had above all developed the revolutionary military virtues, those of partisans. By force of circumstances the personalities of the leaders had played a determining role and had stamped each maquis with a different brand.
. . .
To the regiments we had landed the extreme variety of the F.F.I. organizations, their at least peculiar discipline, the differing quality of their groups, the poverty of their equipment, the crying inadequacy of their armament and supplies, the heterogeneity of their officering, the facility with which their superior ranks had been assigned, and in certain cases the ostensibly political nature of their aims, ran counter to the classical military outlook of many officers, some of whom, in reaction, exaggerated their regulation strictness.
. . .
The part [the FFI] had taken in the fight for liberation not only encouraged them rightly in the wish to retain their individuality; their successes, valued often from a local angle, established in their view the excellence of the military system which circumstances had led them to create and which they intended to substitute for the traditional system, which they considered out-of-date.
Weapons and equipment
Cromwell tank
Tank, Cruiser, Mk VIII, Cromwell ,The designation as the eighth Cruiser tank design, its name given for ease of reference and its General Staff specification number respectively and the related Centaur tank, were one of the most successful series of cruiser tanks fielded by Britain in the Second...
tanks (150 provided by Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
) and captured German tanks (44, of which 12 were Panthers
Panther tank
Panther is the common name of a medium tank fielded by Nazi Germany in World War II that served from mid-1943 to the end of the European war in 1945. It was intended as a counter to the T-34, and to replace the Panzer III and Panzer IV; while never replacing the latter, it served alongside it as...
). The 12th Regiment of Dragoons received 12 Cavalier tank
Cavalier tank
The Tank, Cruiser, Mk VII Cavalier was an unsuccessful design of British cruiser tank during World War II. It suffered from an underpowered engine, and problems because of the rush to design and build it.- Development :...
s among other British equipment in April 1945. In other cases, FFI units used vehicles no longer favored by Allied forces, such as the U.S. M6 Fargo
M6 Fargo
The 37 mm Gun Motor Carriage M6 was a modified Dodge Light Truck mounting a light anti-tank gun. It was used by the US Army for infantry support and tank defense...
, a light truck with a portee
Portee
A portee is a truck that carries a gun on its bed, such that the gun is not affixed permanently to the vehicle, can be quickly unloaded, and can be fired from the truck....
37 mm antitank gun. Finally, civilian vehicles and practically anything else in running condition were pressed into service and used until they could no longer be maintained.