The term became an honorific meaning "armed resistance fighter". Their image was that of a committed and voluntary fighter, a combattant, as opposed to the previous réfractaire ("unmanageable"). Members of those bands were called maquisards. The term "maquis" signified both the group of fighters and their rural location. The Italian-derived word " maquis " is commonly used to describe woods and scrubland on the island, and evokes 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 " ('wood'), " foret " ('forest') and " montagne " ('mountain') were too bland. Historians have not established how this Corsican term arrived on the mainland of France, but observe that: Īlthough strictly speaking it means thicket, maquis could be roughly translated as " the bush" in Corsica, the saying prendre le maquis 'to go into the bush' is used to describe someone who leaves the village in order to live in the bush, either biding time to seek revenge, or while being pursued by others with an intent to arrest or kill. Originally the word came from the kind of terrain in which the armed resistance groups hid, high ground in southeastern France covered with scrub growth called maquis (scrubland). They had an estimated 25,000 to 40,000 members in autumn of 1943 and approximately 100,000 members in June 1944. To avoid capture and deportation to Germany, they became increasingly organized into active resistance groups. Initially, they were composed of young, mostly working-class, men who had escaped into the mountains and woods to avoid conscription into Vichy France's Service du travail obligatoire ("Compulsory Work Service" or STO) which provided forced labor for Germany. The Maquis ( French pronunciation: ) were rural guerrilla bands of French and Belgian Resistance fighters, called maquisards, during the Nazi occupation of France in World War II. Liberation Front of the Slovenian People.Polish resistance movement in World War II ( Polish Underground State)Īssembly for the National Liberation of Serbia.Political dissidence in the Empire of Japan.Pope Pius XII and the German Resistance.Resistance in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.
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