La Résistance

THE FRENCH RESISTANCE DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR
  © IWM (HU 56936)

Hauptmann Kurt-Joachim Winkler was sipping a whiskey as the train he was riding left the outskirts of Château-Thierry. He was heading home on leave, this would be the first time he had been home since leaving the year before in March as his unit was getting ready for the invasion of France.

He had mixed feelings about this trip, his unit was being redeployed to Russia, where, as he understood it, things were not going very well. His colonel had arranged things so that Winkler might spend a few days with his wife and two children before reporting for duty in southern Russia with Army Group South.

Winkler was a reservist, an artilleryman from Baden who had seen action at the tail end of World War I. After that war had ended, he had stayed with the small army allowed to the Germans by the victorious Allies. Promotions had been slow, but Winkler was content. His pay was sufficient to allow him to support a wife and children and maintain a small cottage in the little town of Gengenbach in the Schwartzwald.

Though war had come again, he didn't mind, in the artillery ...

Winkler set his whiskey down as the train's brakes began to squeal, what the devil? As the train lurched to a stop, the whiskey spilled and soaked his trousers.

"Diese verdammten Franzosen können nicht einmal eine anständige Eisenbahn betreiben!¹" Winkler muttered as he stood up and tried to wipe the liquid from his trousers.

Furious he got to his feet, looking for someone to berate, that's when he heard gunfire.

Guillaume Micheaux aimed down the tracks at the train which had come to a stop just short of the farm cart which his resistance unit had placed on the tracks. Capitaine Duroc, their unit commander, had received orders to launch attacks on the French rail system. A bold move, one which the Germans couldn't ignore.

He could see the men of his unit talking with the locomotive's engineer, that's when a German soldier stepped off the the car behind the tender. The man had a rifle and was shouting back at someone else in the car.

One of the Frenchmen turned and looked at the German, who was now unslinging his rifle, the man, without a word, raised his machine pistol and shot the German. The soldier collapsed without a sound beside the train.

"Let's go, lads." Henri Laurent was up and moving towards the train, his machine pistol at the ready. Guillaume followed, he could see other resistance men and women running up to the train and entering the cars.

Winkler was bleeding from a wound on his forehead where one of the French had hit him with the butt of a pistol. His hands were on the back of his head, his tunic soiled with blood, his trousers with spilled whiskey. He found himself at his wit's end, what were these people doing? What hope did they have of fighting back against the Reich?

The French had them moving up to the head of the train, he started when he saw the body of a dead soldier lying beside one of the lead cars. It was only then that Winkler felt a hint of fear.

One of the Frenchmen noticed him, apparently Winkler was the only officer on the train.

"Ah, un officier nazi, très gentil. Où vas-tu, cochon²?"

Winkler had no idea what the man had said, he spoke very little French, only enough to order a whiskey, really.

"Ich verstehe nicht, was ...³" Winkler began to answer.

The rifle butt hit him low in the abdomen, driving the air from his lungs and driving him to his knees. He was gasping for air and his eyes were tearing up.

He looked up at the Frenchman who had struck him and saw emptiness in the man's eyes. It was then that Winkler realized that this was the end.

Pierre Mouton fired a single shot into the German's head. It snapped over and the man slumped to the ground, dead. Guillaume, who had struck the man first was angry. Not only were his trousers now soiled with blood and brain matter, he had wanted to kill the German.

"Don't fret Guillaume, we have five other captives, you can shoot one of them."

When Pierre said that, one of the captive Germans blanched, he spoke fluent French.

"Please, gentlemen, there is no need for ..."

Hans Volkmann was shoved from behind as he tried to plead his case. Then another Frenchman grabbed his tunic collar and began pulling him to the front of the train. When he realized what was going to happen, he tried to break away and run, he didn't get far.

Guillaume chambered another round then looked to Duroc. The captain was forcing the surviving Germans to kneel in front of the locomotive. Guillaume noticed two men in police uniforms, not Germans, were among the group being forced to kneel.

"Are those Frenchmen?" he asked Pierre.

Pierre nodded, "Collaborators, they help the Boche. They are worse than the Nazis."

When the partisans left, slipping back into the woods, they left seven dead Germans and two dead Frenchmen.

The Germans began rounding up hostages within hours of the attack.

¹ These damned French can't even run a decent railroad!

² Ah, a Nazi officer, very nice. Where are you going, pig?

Norway Stirs ...

(Source)

Gefreiter Georg Schülze had learned to enjoy himself in the small Norwegian fishing village he and nine other German soldiers had been posted to. They were the sole sign of the German occupation of Norway that most of the villagers saw on a day to day basis.

A policeman, a detective in fact, assigned to Berlin before the war, Schülze had been a reservist. Called up in late 1939, he had begrudged his departure from the police to find himself in this small, wind-swept port in the middle of nowhere.

Over time though, he had learned to love the area. It was rugged and somewhat remote but had a beauty which he grew more and more accustomed to, he thought of after the war, perhaps staying here wouldn't be so bad. The villagers left the occupiers alone and caused no trouble for the Germans. For their part, the Germans left the Norwegians alone as well.

Most of the people were fishermen or those who supported them. It seemed idyllic to Schülze, though a few conversations with the locals made it clear that life on the sea, depending on the sea, was far from idyllic. As one of the fishermen had told him, "The sea, she wants to kill you, you can never turn your back on her."

But from the safety of the shore, it all looked so pretty to him.

At the moment he was sitting in the small office they were using as their headquarters, the other two men currently on duty - Schützen¹ Klaus Winter and Hans Ahrens - were out patrolling the village and its environs. It was another quiet day but rather cold. It had snowed during the night, coating the landscape with a lovely white blanket but making the troops wish that their greatcoats were a bit more substantial.

Schülze was reading the latest directives from Berlin, via occupation headquarters in Oslo, and one caught his attention. Apparently they were getting an officer to replace his current superior, Feldwebel Max Bayer.

Bayer wasn't your typical reservist posted to occupation duty rather than frontline service. The man was a decorated combat veteran who had been wounded in the fighting around Narvik in the spring. After a long stint in hospital he had been posted here, healthy enough to supervise nine reservists who sole job was watching over some 500 Norwegians, but not healthy enough to return to the front.

Apparently that was changing, one of the papers he held in his hands were orders for Bayer to return to  Germany for posting to a combat unit. His replacement, Leutnant Herbert Bär was expected any day now. Schülze actually knew Bär, the man had been a senior police official in Potsdam at the start of the war. Schülze wondered who the man had pissed off to get sent to Norway.

"So Bjorn, how are things in Oslo?" Premierløitnant Morten Henriksen asked as Bjørn Mikkelsen came into the room, brushing snow from the shoulders of his coat.

"Warmer than here, but not by much. The place is crawling with Germans and quislings², it's good to be back in the countryside." Mikkelsen removed his coat, hanging it on a wooden peg near the door, then joining Henriksen by the stove. He sniffed and then asked, pointing at the pot on the stove, "Is that real coffee?"

"Yes, have some, we liberated it from the Germans down in the valley."

"Now how did they get coffee?" Mikkelsen asked.

"We didn't stop to ask. Hildur and I went down to check out the lay of the land, so to speak. While we were hiking back she pulled the bag of coffee beans from her coat pocket, asked me if I thought the Germans would miss them. Apparently she pocketed them from the back of a German truck. That woman is full of surprises!" Henriksen had to chuckle at the memory, though at the time it had scared him. He had chastised her for stealing the coffee, she had laughed and told him to "grow up."

Mikkelsen poured himself a cup of coffee after fetching a cup from the nearby table. Only after taking a few sips of the hot brew, did he set the cup down and reach into his jacket. He pulled a long, rag-wrapped object from that pocket and placed it on the table. Which caused Henriksen to raise an eyebrow.

As Mikkelsen returned to drinking his coffee, the Norwegian officer leaned forward, picked up the object and unwrapped it. It was a rifle scope. Looking through it he could see that it was in very good condition.

"Will this fit on your hunting rifle?"

"Olaf and I hunt with the same rifle, of course in Olaf's case it's 'used to hunt.'"

"Then let's check it out, we have ample ammunition for a few test shots to zero the scope." Henriksen was excited, with a scoped rifle they could hurt the Germans from a distance. His little band of resistance fighters had been semi-idle for months. Though they occasionally sabotaged German vehicles, and stole various items from the Germans when they could, they had not really done much to take the war to the Germans.

Henriksen was a soldier, he wanted to fight the occupiers, some of the others weren't so sure that they should actually fight the Germans. Mikkelsen wanted to, as did the other surviving regular soldier, Martin Sundheim. The three reservists in their small band weren't so sure they could survive a stand-up fight with the German military.

Henriksen decided that if need be, he, Sundheim, and Mikkelsen would separate from the group and make war on the occupiers elsewhere. There were any number of places on the roads into the mountains where the Germans could be attacked.

He was growing impatient.

Schülze heard a vehicle pull up outside of their small  headquarters, it sounded like a Kübelwagen, so it had to be Leutnant Bär. He stood up, adjusted his greatcoat and donned his helmet. Might as well look presentable for the new boss, he thought.

Before he could get to the door, it swung open, it was indeed Bär.

"Well, well, Georg, napping at midday?" Bär was insufferable, Schülze remembered that about the man.

"Herr Leutnant, I was going through our message traffic when I heard your car pull up. We weren't expecting you until later today."

"Very well, let's have a look at my new domain, take me around, show me this little outpost of the Reich!" With that, Bär turned on his heel and headed back out the door, Schülze following.

Schülze had the feeling that things in his quiet little fishing village were about to become less quiet. Bär was not the "live and let live" type.

Stepping into the street, one of the locals nodded at Schülze and waved, sending Bär into a fit.

"You there, that man!" he yelled in German, pointing at the local. "Doff your cap and bow when speaking to a German officer!"

"Sir, things have been ..."

"Silence Schülze! I know you've been coddling these primitives. The whole town smells of fish! Things are going to change and change today!"

The local man, who did speak a bit of German, actually took off his cap and bowed slightly in the direction of the loud German. As the officer stormed down the street, the fat German, the one who seemed nice, simply shrugged and followed his officer.

The Norwegian frowned. He knew a man in a village up the coast who supposedly was in touch with the resistance in the hills. Perhaps they should know of this new development. He assumed this meant trouble.

Sten Rike had done his stint in the army long ago, but he still remembered the officers who liked to throw their weight around. This new man smacked of such an officer. Rike had a feeling the quiet times were over.

And the war had been so "peaceful" for them up to now.

Damn it.

¹ Privates, lowest rank in the military (German)

² A Norwegian term used for those who collaborated with the Nazis. It came from the name of a Norwegian politician, Vidkun Quisling, who worked closely with the Nazis during the occupation.

Loyalties

Frenchman of the Milice¹
Bundesarchiv

It is November of 1940, the war has settled into German bombing raids on the United Kingdom and British bombing raids on Germany. From the northernmost reaches of Norway to the Pyrenees and from the English Channel to old Poland most of continental Europe lies under the iron boot of Nazi Germany.

While ground fighting on the Continent is going on in the abortive Italian invasion of Greece, most of Europe lies quiet. Many people are just trying to get on with their lives, assuming that the war is lost and that the British will eventually sue for peace. Some actively assist their German conquerors, trying to get a leg up on their fellow citizens in Hitler's New World Order.

Some though, are beginning to resist, loyalties are being tested. Often it is the innocent who suffer most of all.

In the town of Épernay, two Opel trucks pulled up to the the scene of an attack on German soldiers which had taken place the previous day. Twelve German soldiers dismounted from those trucks and quietly surrounded the small sidewalk café owned by Eduard and Colette Bousquet. Colette turned to her husband.

"What is this Eduard, why are the Germans here? Has this got something to do with that murder yesterday?"

Colette had been at the market when the attack had taken place, she had returned to find the café closed. She had nearly fainted at the amount of blood on the sidewalk and one of their tables.

"I don't know, chérie,² perhaps." Inside Eduard was deathly afraid, he had heard rumors of German hostage taking in some of the bigger towns and cities throughout France, but something of this nature had never happened in Épernay. There were only a hundred Germans in the entire town, what could this mean?

SS-Hauptsturmführer³ Oswald Müller saw that the infantry he had requested had already arrived. He nodded with satisfaction as his Kübelwagen pulled to the curb, "Do you want to join in the fun Hannes?" He asked his driver.

SS-Oberschütze Johannes Berger nodded and said, "I'd love to Sir."

The two SS men got out of the car and watched the French near the café, there appeared to be fifteen or so being held up by the soldiers. Looking for the man in charge, Müller saw a sergeant and called out, "You, Unteroffizier, are you in charge here? Where is your officer?"

Unteroffizier Werner Schmitz looked towards the SS officer, then turned to the interior of the café, "Herr Leutnant, you have a visitor!"

Müller walked over to the young sergeant, noticing that the man was highly decorated⁴, he didn't remonstrate with him concerning his attitude towards the SS. Combat veterans seemed to have a lower opinion of rear area men like himself. Not that we don't serve the Reich in other ways, Müller thought. Any fool can point and shoot a rifle.

"Ah Leutnant, how good of you to join us on this fine day, I think it might rain tonight, perhaps snow if it gets any colder." Müller offered.

The lieutenant, also a combat veteran by the looks of his decorations, sniffed and said, "My men are here Herr Hauptsturmführer, we have sealed off the café and prevented those who were here when we arrived from leaving. What else do you need?"

"Why, arrest these people of course. They are potential witnesses to the crime which took place here yesterday. You'd think that the local commander would have done this yesterday rather than wait for me to drive down from Reims. Obviously you people are unaware of proper procedure." Müller was smiling, which made the lieutenant nervous.

The Bousquets were confused at first when the Germans began loading people onto the trucks. At first things were smooth, the French were nervous but the Germans were remaining calm. Then one of the civilians, an older man, began to protest loudly. The Bousquets could hear him yelling, "I'm not getting onto any truck, I've done nothing wrong!"

At which point the SS officer nodded to his driver.

Berger walked over to the man who was now physically trying to push away the soldier who was trying to get him on the truck. Berger simply walked up to the older man and used the butt of his rifle to drive the man to the ground.

The man sat stunned upon the sidewalk, waving a hand over his bloodied head as if to say, "No more." The crowd began to get restless, more people were starting to try and get away. Which is when a single shot rang out, freezing everyone, German and French.

Müller still had his P 38 pointed skywards, his arm extended. Everyone naturally looked towards the source of the shot. Müller bellowed, "Everyone on the f**king trucks or we start shooting people, right here, right now!"

The French moved quickly now, boarding the two trucks with little resistance at this point. Two men began to help the older man who had been struck down up into one of the trucks. Müller shouted again, "Not him, leave him!"

The two men complied, they let go of the man, who managed to stay standing, then they climbed onto the truck. The older man looked at Müller and tried to speak, which is when Müller shot him in the head, killing him instantly.

"Do you Französischen Schweine understand now, we are not playing f**king games. You will comply and you will obey!"

Müller holstered his pistol then turned to Berger, "How many did we bag?"

"Fourteen, Hauptsturmführer."

Müller thought for a moment, he could see two people inside the café, probably the owners. Ah yes, he recognized Eduard Bousquet. He thought about loading the two of them on the truck, but decided not to, they could pick up six more Frenchmen on the way back to Reims. His boss had said twenty hostages, ten for each German killed. He'd leave the Bousquets, they had the only decent café in town.

At dawn the next day, the twenty hostages were brought out, in groups of five, and shot in front of a crowd of hundreds. The witnesses to this atrocity had been gathered by the Germans and forced to watch their innocent fellow citizens being murdered by the German Army.

It was nothing new, les Boches had behaved the same way in the Great War two decades before. Nearly every French and Belgian village had a monument to those murdered by the Germans, with their names on the monument and the inscription -

Fusillé par les allemands 1914 - 1918⁵

¹ The Milice française (French Militia), generally called la Milice, was a political paramilitary organization created on 30 January 1943 by the Vichy regime (with German aid) to help fight against the French Resistance during World War II. (Source)

² Darling (French)

³ Captain in the SS (German)

⁴ German troops typically wore their decorations on their combat uniforms, even in combat.

⁵ "Shot by the Germans 1914-1918" (French) Now those monuments have a new list of names and a second inscription: Fusillé par les allemands 1940 - 1944

The Sidewalk Café

Luftwaffe soldiers at a Paris café, 1941
Bundesarchiv

Guillaume was standing outside of a small café near the center of the town of Épernay. He had a cigar box tucked under his left arm and he looked up and down the street as he nervously smoked yet another Gauloises.

Finally, the couple who had been sitting at the small table on the sidewalk outside the café got up and left. He stepped back into the shadows under the awning of the small shop next to the café and pulled a pistol out of the cigar box, tucking it quickly into his coat pocket. His hands were very sweaty.

As they did everyday at about this time, two Germans rolled up in a small Citroën. The driver parked, then got out and opened the back door for an officer. The officer went to the just vacated table and sat down. A waiter took his time getting outside to the German. Though the weather was getting chilly this late in November, sitting outside in the sun sipping a strong drink was still favored by many, including this German.

Guillaume looked up the street, he could see the truck driven by the man he only knew as Charles. He noticed a puff of exhaust as Charles started the truck and began to roll slowly down the street.

Guillaume got to the German's table before the waiter.

"Excusez-moi, auriez-vous un allume-cigare?¹"

Oberstleutnant Horst Weller had been looking for the waiter, the idiot seemed to get slower every time he visited this café. When he heard the Frenchman speaking to him, he turned.

"What? What do you want you gabbling Frenchman? I don't speak your language." he had spoken far more gruffly than he had intended. It was then he noticed that the Frenchman had a cigarette. Ah, he wanted a light.

"Moment bitte." Weller said as he reached for the tunic pocket which held his cigarettes and lighter.

When the German reached for his pocket, Guillaume tossed his cigarette to one side. As Charles had predicted, the German's head turned to follow the cigarette, no doubt confused as to why someone would ask for a light, then throw the cigarette away.

When the German's head turned, Guillaume drew the pistol from his pocket. When the German turned to look back at Guillaume, his hand was still trying to reach his cigarette lighter. His eyes grew wide as he looked down the barrel of Guillaume's Walther P 38 pistol, a pistol "liberated" from one of the two dead Germans in the forest.

When the German opened his mouth, Guillaume fired his pistol.

Oberschütze Phillip Steiner jumped when he heard the shot close by, he turned in that direction. He scrambled for the door handle and his pistol at the same time when he saw his officer slumping at his table, blood spurting from his neck.

Finally he had his pistol in hand, safety still on, and the door to the car half opened. At that very moment he sensed movement behind the car, he caught a glimpse of a truck coming down the road and a man very near the rear of the Citroën.

"Was machst du ..." was all he managed to say before he saw the Frenchman's pistol. He aimed and pulled the trigger of his P 08 but it failed to fire.

The Frenchman's pistol barked and Steiner's world went dark.

"Stop the truck!" Guillaume couldn't hold it in any longer.

Charles stopped the truck just inside the forest, then he watched in amazement as the man he thought of as a cold blooded killer scrambled out of the truck and vomited his breakfast onto the side of the road.

He had, not ten minutes ago, shot a German officer in the throat at a table on the sidewalk, then had walked over to the officer's driver and shot him down without batting an eye. Guillaume had then got into the truck and said, "Let's go." As if this was something he did every day.

When Guillaume got back into the truck, he didn't say a word. Charles knew better than to say anything. "We all have our demons," he thought.

That night, Duroc had questioned Guillaume about his behavior. The man had responded by lighting a cigarette, then sitting down. Duroc could see that the hand which held the cigarette was shaking.

"Mon Capitaine, when I killed the German on the road, in the forest, I was angry. I was tired of being pushed around and not fighting back. Today, at the café, I was not angry, in fact I was terrified. Of killing that man and of failing. I presume that had I failed Charles would have left me?"

"Yes, he would have. But you didn't fail, Caporal Michaux. You executed your task perfectly. It is hard to kill a fellow human when you are calm and collected. Yet you did so. Your reaction afterward was perfectly natural." Duroc nodded as he said that. He remembered the first time he had had to kill a man in cold blood. It was near Sedan, during the retreat. A young German messenger had driven his motorcycle into the small French detachment Duroc commanded.

While his men had stood staring at the German, and the German at them, Duroc had drawn his sidearm and stepped forward. The German began to raise his hands in surrender, he looked surprised when Duroc shot him, twice, in the chest.

Duroc was surprised that the man didn't die instantly but fell to the road and began to cough and moan. He was dying but it was messy. So Duroc had stepped forward again, and shot the young man in the head, ending his agony.

Duroc still saw the young German's face in his nightmares. He suspected that he would for as long as he lived.

Sighing, Duroc reached for the bottle of cognac he kept for these occasions and a single glass. He poured the liquid then handed it to the Corporal. "Drink this, it helps for the initial shock."

Guillaume nodded, took  the offered glass and drank it all down in one swallow. It burned, but it felt good in a way.

"Merci, mon Capitaine. I think I shall go find something to eat." as he stood, Duroc held up a hand.

"Sir?"

Duroc went back to a corner of the hut and retrieved something. When he came back into the dim light cast by the small lantern, Guillaume saw that the Captain held a rifle, a German rifle.

"This came from the man you stabbed on the road. It is yours now."

Guillaume looked down at the German K98k, "A fine weapon, Sir. Vive la France."

Duroc nodded and said, "Let us hope so, Caporal, we have a hard fight ahead."

After Guillaume left, Duroc sat down and muttered, "A hard fight and a long one. May God have mercy on us all."

¹ Pardon me, would you have a lighter? (French)

In the Forest

(Source)

Guillaume couldn't help but notice that one of the men was always behind him, he felt like he was being kept under constant watch. He understood why, but it frightened him. As they went deeper into the forest, he realized that these people could just kill him out of hand. So he tried very hard to do what they asked and tried to appear nonchalant about the whole thing.

The man leading the group raised a hand as they approached what appeared to be a clearing of some sort ahead. Everyone went down to one knee, including Guillaume. The man behind him nodded, this fellow they'd found wandering the forest had good instincts, he thought. Perhaps he is a soldier after all.

The leader gestured again and the party approached a clearing, within which stood a small hut. Guillaume thought it looked like a forester's shack, a place to stay while guarding against poachers. Two of the men and one of the women took up positions where they could watch the approaches to the clearing. The others entered the shack, save for Guillaume who was left outside with his "minder."

"Care for a smoke, clochard¹?" the man asked, offering a packet of Gauloises.

"Merci." was all Guillaume said as he reached for the offered pack. The man then lit his own cigarette then offered the lighter to Guillaume. After lighting his cigarette, Guillaume handed the lighter back, he had noticed that the lighter had the crest of the 15th Motorized Infantry Regiment.

"Soldier?" he asked the man.

"Certainement, when Juin surrendered the division, some of us escaped in all of the confusion. The Boches had so many prisoners they couldn't possibly keep track of all of us. Myself and René, one of the men on sentry duty, were in the same company. We had just returned from leave so we still had our civilian clothing with us. Dumped the uniforms and blended into the populace. It was a scary few weeks, that I can tell you. Where have you been?"

"I was put on a train to Germany. Just this side of the German border they paroled all of the enlisted men below the rank of sergeant. I went to my cousin's in Reims, she provided me with everything I have, including food. Which was nearly gone when I stumbled into those two Boche on the road. Then you lot came along and voilà, here I am. Am I a prisoner?"

"That depends on the captain." the man said mysteriously.

Guillaume raised an eyebrow at that, then with a Gallic shrug accepted the fact that his fate was entirely in these peoples' hands.

"What is your assessment of the man, Pierre?" Capitaine Duroc, (not his real name but a nom de guerre) sat in the room's sole chair, smoking a pipe. He wore the uniform of a French infantry officer, which he had been until his unit had been destroyed near Stonne. The uniform was starting to show more than a little wear and tear, but he was reluctant to take it off. It was his sole connection to his old life, the life of a professional soldier.

"I saw him stab the German after being shoved. the fury in the man's face was obvious. I think he has seen much and been kept from fighting back. He finally blew up. But I'm not quite ready to trust him." Pierre shrugged, as if to say, it's not my decision, but ...

"Bring him in." Duroc ordered.

Guillaume stepped into the dimly lit hut, it took him a moment for his eyes to adjust. When they did, he saw a small table with a man sitting behind it. A man in uniform. He also noticed the man's kepi on the table, so he did as he had been taught.

"Caporal Guillaume Micheaux, 142e Régiment d'Infanterie, 8e Division d'Infanterie se présentant au service Monsieur!²" He snapped a salute as he barked out the phrase.

"At ease, Corporal. Now tell me, are you ready to sacrifice all for la patrie³?"

Guillaume hesitated for a second, then answered, "Honestly Sir, I don't know. I don't think any man can answer that until the moment comes, then you either give your all, or you run."

Duroc nodded, "A good answer Corporal, a safe answer. But you are correct. Did your unit see any fighting in the spring?"

"No sir, our officers ..." he stopped, realizing that he was on dangerous ground, then he realized that being honest was the best way to go, "Our officers were mostly reservists, they weren't ready for the speed and the shock of the German attack. Honestly sir, we fell apart."

Duroc nodded and sighed, "Your unit wasn't the only one to collapse after the first blow. We, as a nation, weren't ready. But those men and women outside, they are now ready. But are you?"

"I don't know Sir."

"But you killed that German on the road."

Guillaume looked at the floor, "He angered me, I decided that I wasn't going to be bullied by the Germans anymore. It was a moment of anger, I don't know if I could do that on command."

"Yet you were in the Army."

"Yes sir, I was but ..."

"But what Corporal? Were you discharged by the army?" As he said that, Duroc pulled his pay book from his tunic and slapped it down on the table, standing as he did so. "Look at that, READ IT!"

Guillaume picked up Duroc's pay book, there he saw the man's picture and his real name, Etienne-Marie-Sainte-Cloud Desaix. His unit was the 1st Battalion of the 67th Infantry, which had been practically wiped out at Stonne in May.

"I understand, mon Capitaine. If you wish to hold me to my oath, I will obey. I am a soldier."

"So you accept me as your superior, as your commanding officer?"

"Oui, mon Capitaine. Jusqu'à la mort!⁴

"We shall see, Corporal. We shall see."

¹ Tramp (French)

² Corporal Guillaume Micheaux, 142nd Infantry Regiment, 8th Infantry Division reporting for duty Sir. (French)

³ The fatherland (French)

⁴ Yes, my Captain. Until death! (French)

On the Run

(Source)

Guillaume Micheaux was moving down the road inside the large natural park south of Reims. He had been moving by night, hiding in the vineyards near the northern outskirts of the park during the day. When he reached the forests of the park, he felt more comfortable moving during the day. He could make better time.

He usually had enough time to hide from the occasional German patrol, they were mostly truck mounted, sometimes it was a single motorcycle-sidecar combo, rarely one of the small cars the Germans had. The vehicles made enough noise so that he heard them long before he could see them, or they him. When he heard one approaching, he would hide in the underbrush.

He was worried, he was running out of food, the nights were getting colder, and he had no idea if there were Frenchmen in the park who were either hiding from the Germans or, better still, fighting the Germans. He had to make contact with someone soon, or he would have to come up with a different plan. Guillaume had no illusions about being able to survive the winter out in the open. Alone.

As he pondered his situation, his mind drifted, he was in the midst of daydreaming of days to come when he heard a voice ...

"Nun, guck mal da.¹"

He had breasted a slight rise and walked right up on two German soldiers, lounging near their motorcycle combo, eating bread and drinking what could only be some of the local wine.

One of the Germans stood straight and swung his submachine gun around in front of him, the easier to reach for if he needed it. Neither German felt in the least bit threatened by the scruffy looking tramp who had walked up on them suddenly.

"Also, Landstreicher, sprichst du Deutsch? Gibt es überhaupt eine Chance darauf?²"

Both Germans laughed. Guillaume had no idea what the soldier had said to him, he decided to act innocent and hope for the best.

One of the Germans, the one without the submachine gun, approached him, laughing and looking back at his partner. Guillaume couldn't help but notice that this man had left his rifle propped against the motorcycle.

The German pushed Guillaume, his words, though indecipherable to Guillaume were obviously insulting, but not in a threatening way, at least not yet. He pushed Guillaume again, and at that point something snapped in the Frenchman. He had had quite enough of Germans chasing him and pushing him around.

As he reached for the kitchen knife he had in the pocket of his long coat, he heard something which sounded like a shot. Paying no attention to that, he drew the knife and plunged it into the German soldier's belly.

The German coughed once, then dropped to his knees, a surprised look on his face. Guillaume stood over him, the bloody knife still in his hand. He could not understand why the other German had done nothing.

That's when he heard another laugh, and a voice in French saying, "Well, well, the tramp has teeth."

Guillaume looked away from the German, who was now sitting awkwardly on his haunches, both hands held tightly to his lower belly, blood oozing out from around them.

"Are you going to finish him? Or do you want to watch the cochon³ bleed out?"

The man who spoke had a military-style beret on his head, a German submachine gun in his hands, and looked as if he'd been living rough for quite some time. With him were three other men and two women. All of whom were carrying German weapons, three pistols and two rifles, all looked as scruffy and wild as the speaker.

"I ..., I ..., I don't know, who are you?"

Guillaume looked towards the motorcycle-sidecar combination, the German who had the submachine gun was sprawled in the road, bleeding badly but still alive. He had been the recipient of the shot Guillaume had heard. One of the women was relieving him of his weapon and ammo pouches. When he groaned and tried to pull his weapon back, the woman quickly pulled a knife and cut the man's throat. He died gagging in the road.

Guillaume heard "his" German groan. He looked at the man for a moment. The German looked back at him and said a single word, "Bitte." A plea of some kind, no doubt.

Guillaume just stood there, he had no idea what to do.

The apparent leader of this small group said one word, "Enough." He stepped forward and with his own knife, cut the German's throat.

"Quickly, strip them of anything useful, then we need to drag them and their machine off into the trees. The Boche will find them eventually but by then we'll be long gone." Turning to Guillaume he spoke again.

"As for you mon ami, are you dumb or just lost?"

Guillaume snapped out of his stupor and said, almost automatically, " Je suis Caporal Guillaume Micheaux, 142e régiment d'infanterie, 8e division d'infanterie."

"Well mon ami, we're not in the old army, and you won't find your regiment around here, but we can always use men who know how to kill Germans. Even if you were a little sloppy and we had to finish that one for you." He said, nodding at the dead man in front of Guillaume.

"Who, who are you people?" Guillaume stuttered.

"We are the resistance, the people who will not bow to les Boches, the people who will kill them and keep killing them until they leave France. Or until they are all dead. Marie over there," he gestured at one of the women, who now had a submachine gun, "would prefer the latter. Apparently she didn't care for being raped by a pig of a German."

Marie still held her bloody knife, she nodded at Guillaume then cleaned the blade on the tunic of the man whose throat she had cut. "Are we going to stand here all day Pierre, gabbing like old men? We need to get back into the forest. Do we keep the tramp or do we leave him?"

Guillaume simply nodded and said, "I'll go with you."

"Then help move these dead men and their motorcycle, then we go."

Guillaume had joined the resistance. The thought of that terrified him. These people knew how to hate.

¹ Well, look at that. (German)

² So, tramp, do you speak German? Any chance of that at all? (German)

³ Pig (French)