This was to be the first of three major operations conducted by Pflaum in the ten weeks from 2 February to 18 April, all in the area immediately south and west of Lake Geneva (see map). At this stage the Germans believed, like Churchill, that the main threat was not a southern landing but an Allied push through Italy, over the Alps and down the two communication corridors which ran south-west of Lake Geneva: the southern railway corridor past Aix-les-Bains and the Lac du Bourget and the western road corridor through to Nantua and Oyonnax.
This is not to say, however, that the Germans could afford to ignore the Vercors completely, for the Maquis on the plateau were still highly active. On the night of 1/2 February, for example, the transformers at the Saint-Bel works in Grenoble were sabotaged and 2,700 kilograms of explosive were stolen. On 19 February, another sabotage attack on the station at La Mure, south of Grenoble, destroyed a train and winding gear. On 29 February, a dozen or so locomotives were blown up at Veynes station, 15 kilometres south of the Vercors.
At dawn on 3 February, the day after the start of Pflaum’s operation in the Jura, Paul Adam was on guard duty in the deep snow, with a friend, a Sten gun, two grenades and a telephone. Their sentry post was positioned on a railway viaduct a kilometre or so north-east of the deserted thirteenth-century monastery of Our Lady of Esparron. Here, the previous November, he and his fellow Maquisards had taken refuge from the bitter winter. It was dark and one of Paul Adam’s Maquisard friends had just left, hitching a lift to a meeting on a passing train. He was followed a little later by another on his way home to pick up some washing from his mother. ‘[Suddenly] the noise of some vehicles attracted our attention,’ Paul Adam wrote later, ‘but we thought it was only the lorries arriving at the nearby saw-mill. I was just in the process of telephoning the monastery to ask for a change of guard, when my mate, who had gone to stretch his legs on the viaduct, suddenly came dashing back shouting, “Les Boches! Les Boches!”’
The two men started to climb the slope towards the monastery, ‘but halfway up we heard a shout which stopped us dead in our tracks. Thirty metres away, on the road leading up to the monastery, I saw vehicles. I got ready to fire on the ones in front of us which were full of troops, hoping to escape in the chaos which would ensue, when suddenly a huge German leading a patrol of twelve others came round the corner … beyond him there was an armoured car with machine guns mounted on a turntable which began to rotate towards us, its guns firing … Since it was clearly impossible to get back to the monastery where we could hear a fierce firefight already in progress … we went back to the viaduct through the woods. As we got there, a train arrived pulling cattle wagons. The doors were open and we could see that carriage after carriage was filled with Germans … After the train had passed, we saw, below the viaduct, some vehicles, one of which had a fat German leaning against his cab, chatting while he lit a cigarette. He took several deep pulls on his fag, stuck one hand in his pocket and began to admire the countryside. “It’s all over for you my friend,” I said to myself and, taking aim at some kind of badge he had on his chest, I fired. He dropped dead without even letting go of his cigarette … after a forced march over rocks and across mountain torrents we finally arrived at a station, where we knew a train would pass in an hour or so … The station master gave us each a blue denim working shirt and an old hat as disguise and let us board the train without tickets, our stripped-down Stens hidden in our haversacks.’
Back at the monastery, Jean Sadin was getting up when the German attack started: ‘It was just getting light … I was doing up my laces when suddenly I saw a signal maroon hanging in the sky … then a second and a third … We quickly woke everyone up. Suddenly a rattle of machine-gun fire hit the area round my window. I leapt to one side and took up a position where I was able to see some Germans enter a building not 30 metres away. After a brief attempt at resistance, our commander gave the order to disperse – every man for himself. My friend, not hearing my cries … dashed out and was immediately cut down … We managed to flee by a back door, taking refuge among the bushes and rocks near by. As we ran, a huge explosion rocked the monastery building behind us.’
Amazingly, only two of the Esparron Maquis were killed. If the German attack had been more efficiently prosecuted, if they had followed their normal practice and surrounded the monastery, many more would have died.
The unusually heavy February 1944 fall of snow also affected another gathering of Maquisards 60 kilometres to the north, on the ‘impregnable fortress’ of the Glières plateau, which dominates the main Geneva–Chamonix road and railway, some 15 kilometres north-east of Annecy. Many regarded this high plateau, which was an ideal site for the parachuting of arms, as more impregnable and easier to defend than the Vercors. On 7 February, Churchill was shown an urgent telegram from one of London’s agents describing the situation on the plateau: ‘VERY urgent. We have given the order to take strong action in the Savoie. We ask for instant despatch of parachute troops and arms, above all machine guns – and also air support. We are ready for action but we urgently need aid and assistance.’ The British Prime Minister was asked to give special priority to the plateau, whose fall would have ‘severe repercussions for the whole of the Resistance’.
Over the previous weeks, encouraged by calls by the French service of the BBC, Maquisards had flooded on to the Glières plateau, including some fifty Spanish republicans and numerous retired soldiers from the area. By the end of February, it was reported that there were now ‘350 trained and experienced men [who are] occupying an exceptionally strong position on the … plateau’. This was followed by a string of optimistic messages, which spoke of the ‘citadel of the Glières’ and ‘The high morale of our Maquis who take on … day by day, the semblance of regular troops who are disciplined and well led. If we can adequately supply them from the air, we will have here a body of men who can be used when D-Day comes.’ On 19 February material was sent from the plateau for use in a BBC broadcast: ‘We shall remain on this impregnable plateau with the banner: “Live in Freedom or Die”.’
In the second half of February a clandestine meeting, attended by senior Resistance leaders in the region, was held in Lyon to discuss overall strategy. The concept of establishing ‘redoubts of Resistance’, as proposed by Ferdinand Miksche in his report of 20 January, was discussed. Henry Thackthwaite, the SOE agent leading the Union Mission, was there and strongly opposed the idea of fixed defence, preferring a mobile defence in which the Maquisards would retire before a German advance, while keeping them under fire during the day and then attacking them on the flanks and from behind at night. He was supported by the then head of the Secret Army in the area, Albert Chambonnet. When it came to guerrilla warfare, Chambonnet, who was not of the French Army but an ex-Air Force officer, held the same opinion as Romans-Petit and Alain Le Ray. On 9 February he had issued instructions to the Maquis in his area, ‘Never accept frontal combat with the enemy. Pull back and attack his flanks without mercy.’ A few days after the Lyon meeting Chambonnet wrote a prophetic letter expanding on his views: ‘If we concentrate our forces in the most defendable mountainous areas, two possibilities will ensue; either the enemy will attack and destroy them, or they will be content to block them and our best forces will be locked up and neutralized.’ Later still, in April, Chambonnet wrote a note on the specific subject of the Vercors: ‘A vast apparatus [is being assembled] on the Vercors in order to strike a decisive and “brilliant” blow against key enemy positions along the main Alpine routes … I am firmly opposed.’ Tragically, Chambonnet’s warnings went unheeded.*
At the end of the second week of March the redoubt strategy was raised again when local Resistance leaders met in Annecy to decide what should be done about the Maquis groups now gathered in strength on the Glières plateau. Most of the local Resistance commanders were opposed to a fixed defence of the plateau. But their opinion was overruled by a representative from London who attended the Annecy meeting. According to one of those close to these events, London’s man told the gathering that they ‘had to give London the proof that the Resistance is not just talk, but a considerable force which the Germans will have to reckon with’. In the end, despite heavy reservations, it was this opinion which prevailed.
London’s message that the