The Carte Organisation

The Carte Organisation was a putative organ of French resistance during the Second World War.

It was the brainchild of André Girard, an artist who claimed to have at his command a secret army of hundreds of thousands of would-be résistants waiting to rise against the Germans once they were properly armed and led. Girard's 'secret army' existed mainly on paper and in the minds of a community of artists, musicians and students in the French Riviera.

Realistically, the organisation extended no further than the group of people around Girard and his deputy Henri Frager, plus some other small groups.

In November 1942, a list of names and addresses of hundreds of potential Carte members, drawn up by Girard, fell into the hands of the Abwehr. An assistant of Girard named André Marsac was carrying the list by train from Marseille to Paris. While Marsac slept on the train, an Abwehr agent stole the briefcase which contained the list. This fact was to have implications for the British Special Operations Executive with which Carte became entangled.

SOE agent Peter Churchill had arrived in January 1942 to evaluate the usefulness of the Carte network. He was impressed by the people he met but disagreements between Girard and Frager made it necessary for SOE to choose between them. Peter Churchill, having chosen Frager as preferable, took him to London in March 1943 to be briefed by SOE on his future role. There was no need. Carte was already doomed.

On the same night, Francis Cammaerts arrived to take Peter Churchill's place and subsequently made a much more realistic appraisal of Carte.

The following day, André Marsac, from whom the Carte list had been stolen by the Abwehr, was arrested near the Champs Élysées by Hugo Bleicher, a sergeant in the Abwehr, and incarcerated in Fresnes prison.

...
Wikipedia