FRENCH GUERILLAS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 July 1943, Page 4

FRENCH GUERILLAS

CARRYING ON TRADITION OF THE FRANC-TIREURS OF 1870. AGAINST THE HATED HUNS. When in 1870 France was overrun by the Germans, Paris encircled, and llio downfall apparently inevitable, the Gorman troops of occupation began to be solely tried by sharpshooters. These irregulars, shot at sight, whenever caught, worked in small bands. They would slip through a wood, surprise an outpost, and steal off again into the night, leaving the dead men to be discovered when the guard was changed. In many a home “grandfather's gun” hung on the wall and tales wore told and told again how he went by night shooting Prussians, while grandmother wondered whether he would ever return. And now today, the grandsons of these men are taking to the woods and in turn are out shooting Prussians and all the other Germans who since 1870 have been steadily moulded in the same mould of aggression, conquest and systematic robbery. Between slavery in German factories, with the very great possibility of death beneath R.A.F. bombs, and the outlaw’s life in the hills, the young men 'of France today have chosen. They will do as their grandfathers did and fight for their country from every rock or hedge or hillock. NO EASY HUNTING. Hunting out these guerillas is going to be no easy task, especially in such regions as the French Alps, the Germans having to track themover ground as well known, inch by inch, to the defenders as it will be unknown to the attackers. French Gardes Civiles will prove doubtful auxiliaries, as they will be reluctant to light the flames of a civil war which will mean their certain destruction. The hated Hun stands everywhere at a great disadvantage in this intangible guerilla warfare, ever trying to the extreme, where troops who have returned from what they believe a successful “clean-up” find almost as they reach camp some hidden ambush of half a dozen men with a machine-gun to fling havoc into their midst. There is no rest for the foreigner on the home soil of his enemy, as the Germans have learned in Russia, where the first defeats of the German armies were brought about precisely by guerilla bands as much as by ordinary troops.

Women are taking their part in this warfare in France against the enemy. Many a message is passed on from one band to another by a whispered word, often said between prayers in the little local church. REAL ARMY READY. But guerillas are only the advance guard of the real army that is waiting silently and hidden to come into action. The guerillas are the outlaws. After them come the partisans. Their task is one of watching and fighting, watching by day and going about their ordinary occupations, and by night slipping oui to reinforce the guerillas in some hardy raid and return to their homes before dawn. The silent army is in being, it' has its regiments and divisions, its leaders are in contact. Someone knows the day and the hour’ when it will rise up as one man and strike, and strike hard. The plans are made, the fuse is set. The only danger is precipitate action.