Primary sources
- A document titled "500 Frenchman of the army of the Maquis inflict heavy casualties on 5 German battalions." This is a little more than a page about 500 Frenchman vs. 7 German battalions with artillery and tanks in the mountains. 100 Frenchmen escaped, and 700 Germans died or were wounded.
- A newspaper titled "French Resistance Strikes at Coast" from 1944, right in the middle of the war. It has 2 subheadings not including the one under the headlines. It talks about the status of German forces in the Mediterranean and in France, and what is being done to route them. It compares France’s position, with the occupation and all, to a fan spread out but soon to fold, if it is hit in the right spot (in the south, where it is weakest). Overall this is a useful article that must have given hope to those who read it when it first came out and gives me great information about what was going on at the time: "Fourteen patriots of the French Forces of the Interior attacked a train of fourty-six tankers three miles south of Vienne (Massif Central) and "killed fifty Germans" the London radio said yesterday."
- This is Charles de Gaulle’s speeches which are called “Flame of the French Resistance”, which is on the home page. He made them just as the war was starting, after the French government signed the treaty with the Nazis. It is incredibly useful, even though few people actually heard the first speech when it was originally broadcasted in June 1940.
- This is the 1943 newspaper titled “French Resistance Now Well Organized”. It is a nice little article about how the resistance progressed and became organized. There was a large part about the resistance taking out a German train with a troop of soldiers inside. It rolled off the tracks and down a hill and the French made sure no one escaped alive.
- This had 10 pictures from ww2 and French resistance information. The pictures could be helpful because it’s a primary source. Also there is an article about the French Resistance. Résistance cells were small groups of armed men and women (called the Maquis in rural areas), who, in addition to their guerrilla warfare activities, were also publishers of underground newspapers, providers of first-hand intelligence information, and maintainers of escape networks that helped Allied soldiers and airmen trapped behind enemy lines. It details how the resistance was useful to the war effort.
- This is another newspaper from directly after the war labeled “De Gaulle – Citizen But Still Symbol”. It talks about his new role as leader. It also discusses his childhood and upbringing, and his daily routine at work. It shows me who de Gaulle is, on a deeper level than just “military leader of the Resistance and based in England”