Winston's War_ Churchill, 1940-1945 - Max Hastings [241]
Another act of folly, the brief liberation of the town of Tulle in the Corrèze by the Communist FTP for a few hours on June 9, caused SS panzergrenadiers to hang 99 innocent hostages from the lampposts in reprisal for the resistance massacre of the elderly Wehrmacht reservists who had garrisoned the town. At Oradour-sur-Glane the next day, 642 men, women and children were slaughtered, in reprisal for the abduction by maquisards of a popular SS battalion commander. That day, from London, Gen. Pierre Koenig, designated by de Gaulle as commander of the FFI—Forces Françaises de l’Intérieur—ordered a “maximum brake on guerrilla activities.” Such a demand was at odds both with the mood of the moment and all previous instructions. It created confusion in the ranks of the Resistance. On June 17, Koenig issued a new order: “Continue elusive guerrilla activity to the maximum,” while avoiding concentrations. This did not prevent the madness of the Vercors on July 21, where 640 maquisards and 201 local civilians were killed, as the Germans assaulted another ill-judged gathering of Resistance forces.
Around 24,000 FFI fighters died during the struggle for France. Thousands more, most of them civilians, perished in reprisals and executions of prisoners, for instance 11,000 in and around Paris; 3,673 in Lyons; 2,863 in the Limoges area; 1,113 in Lille; and similar proportions in lesser cities, together with thousands of others deported to German concentration camps, from which most never returned. It seems doubtful whether it was useful or prudent to arm the French Resistance on a large scale. Churchill’s enthusiasm caused the maquis to become dangerous enough to enrage the Germans, but insufficiently powerful to defend themselves or their communities. Most maquisards had only pistols or Sten submachine guns with two or three magazines apiece. They lacked heavy weapons, ammunition and radio communications for sustained or large-scale engagements.
The courage and sacrifice of those who supported resistance, or even merely withheld support from Vichy, deserve the profound respect of posterity. But the moral achievement must be detached from cool analysis of the military balance. Postwar claims for the damage inflicted on the enemy by the French Resistance and its SOE sponsors were grossly exaggerated, as German war diaries make plain. Resistance historians, for instance, have claimed that the maquis inflicted hundreds of casualties upon the 2nd SS Das Reich Armoured Division on its march from southern France to Normandy in June 1944. German records, by contrast, reveal only thirty-five killed886. The impact of maquis attacks on German communications that summer was infinitesimally smaller than that of Allied air attacks. Resistance fulfilled a striking moral function, especially important in resurrecting the postwar self-respect of occupied nations. Julian Jackson has written: “In the history of France887, Resistance is more important as a social and political phenomenon than a military one.”
The Balkans, however, were different. There, the terrain was much more favourable to guerrilla warfare. In Albania, Greece, Yugoslavia and also Italy, the prime minister perceived political circumstances and military opportunities which might yield dramatic benefits. New Zealand premier Peter Fraser urged caution, sensibly observing to Churchill that the Balkans was a region “of seething factions, who would turn to whoever would give them most support.”888 But the prime minister believed that local passions could be harnessed to Allied purposes. It was remarked by critics that the enthusiasm of the prime minister and of the SOE’s guiding lights reflected a “T. E. Lawrence complex,” wild delusions about the prospect that a few personable British officers might influence the behaviour of entire Balkan societies,