Maquis (World War II)

The Maquis (French pronunciation: ​[maˈki]) were rural guerrilla bands of French Resistance fighters, called maquisards, during the Occupation of France in World War II. Initially, they were composed of men who had escaped into the mountains to avoid conscription into Vichy France's Service du travail obligatoire (STO) to provide forced labor for Germany. To avert capture and deportation to Germany, they became increasingly organized into active resistance groups.

Originally the word came from the kind of terrain in which the armed resistance groups hid, the type of high ground in southeastern France covered with scrub growth. Although strictly meaning thicket, maquis could be roughly translated as "the bush". Historians have not yet established how the Corsican term arrived in the mainland of France; nevertheless, “the Italian-derived word ‘maquis’, used as a common description of woods and scrubland on the island, evoked an all-encompassing image of woods and mountains, whereas the more limited word ‘garrigue’ used in the south of France indicated [...] an inhospitable terrain, and the words ‘bois’, ‘foret’. and ‘montagne’ were too bland.” The term maquis signified both the bands of fighters and their rural location. The term established the image of a ‘maquisard’ as a “committed and voluntary fighter, a combattant, as distinct than the previous ‘réfractaire’ (unmanageable)." Members of those bands were called maquisards. The term became an honorific that meant "armed resistance fighter". The Maquis have come to symbolize the French Resistance.

Most maquisards operated in the remote or mountainous areas of Brittany and southern France, especially in the Alps and in Limousin. They relied on guerrilla tactics to harass the Milice and German occupation troops. The Maquis also aided the escape of downed Allied airmen, Jews and others pursued by the Vichy and German authorities. Maquisards usually relied on some degree of sympathy or cooperation from the local populace. In March 1944, the German Army began a terror campaign throughout France. This included reprisals against civilians living in areas where the French Resistance was active (Oradour-sur-Glane massacre, Tulle massacre). The Maquisards were later to take their revenge in the épuration sauvage that took place after the war's end.

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