How did the French Resistance get their weapons?

[Dogs On Acid]

Did they steal them? Did they kill Germans with hunting weapons and then take the rifles/machine guns from the corpses? Or did they get them from the Allies?

[theblackmask]

They got guns smuggled in from Britain, which is why the STEN was pretty popular amongst the resistance.

They did also steal guns of dead Nazis and have a few guns left over from WWI still.

[Dogs On Acid]

Did they pay Britain for the smuggled Sten guns or was it strategic charity?

[theblackmask]

Heh, funny term. "Strategic charity" for sure.

An interesting detail about that is the quality of the weapons they gave. The STEN is pretty cheap to make, and not very reliable. While they were dropping STENs into France, the British military kept ordering the higher quality Thompson from the US for their own use.

[CornetJoyce]

The unspoken assumption here is that the Resistance got none or little of the weaponry of the French army, which seems unlikely.

[Dogs On Acid]

The unspoken assumption here is that the Resistance got none or little of the weaponry of the French army, which seems unlikely.

What happened to the French Army during occupation?

[Ismail]

What happened to the French Army during occupation?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_France_during_World_War_II

[CornetJoyce]

Some of it was retained by the Vichy regime (which the Americans recognized) but I assume that the majority was disbanded. I see no reason to think the Resistance didn't get a respectable share of the small arms.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IbtHlvLXv4&feature=related

[Hoipolloi Cassidy]

What happened to the French Army during occupation?
Massive numbers surrendered or were captured in 1940, and sent to camps in Germany. As for the weaponry - the stuff that wasn't captured by the Germans was usually destroyed before it could fall into their hands, viz. the French Fleet in Toulon, which was destroyed on orders of the Vichy Government so that it would neither fall to the Brits, nor the Germans.

At any rate I wouldn't exaggerate the number of resistants, especially not those engaged in outright armed combat, and especially before 1944...

[CornetJoyce]

Well, the Resistance couldn't have done much with the ships.
Again, it seems unlikely that the Resistance didn't manage to grab a significant amount of small arms. The smallness of the Resistance would suggest that they didn't have to get vast amounts.

[RedSquare]

Multiple sources:

- British drops carried under by SOE
- Left over weapons from the former Army
- Privately held firearms
- Ammunition and weapons from the enemy

Currently it's possible to own several guns, including hanguns, in France. They've a good system of regulation, so perhaps some of this personal onwership was around in the 1940s.

Like many resistance groups, the enemy can become a major supplier as occurred in Ireland during it's War of Independence. Raids on police and army barracks often netted the guerillas with weaponry. Obviously smuggled guns from sympathetic Irish-Americans and privately held shotguns were required to start, but eventually the enemy becomes a plentiful source of supplies.

[agnixie]

Massive numbers surrendered or were captured in 1940, and sent to camps in Germany. As for the weaponry - the stuff that wasn't captured by the Germans was usually destroyed before it could fall into their hands, viz. the French Fleet in Toulon, which was destroyed on orders of the Vichy Government so that it would neither fall to the Brits, nor the Germans.

At any rate I wouldn't exaggerate the number of resistants, especially not those engaged in outright armed combat, and especially before 1944...

The resistance controlled respectable chunks of Vichy before it folded, and Vichy folded mostly because it was falling apart at the seams. The forced labor laws more or less tripled the resistance's numbers overnight in 1943, while in the west, they were active enough to warrant serious reprisals (Oradour, for example). I know it's fashionable to overstate collaboration in France, but there's a point where it gets absurd.

The French fleet in Toulon was scuttled by orders of Darlan after he and his chief of staff spent the past two years making sure the mediterranean fleet stayed in port despite orders from Vichy. There were plans from Germany to capture it from 41 onwards, which were well known by the french admiralty thanks to the partial incompetence of the Abwehr (which was actually intentional from its commander).

[The Man]

Well It is a actually a quite interesting story:

The U.S. Military had devised a plan in which they would air drop thousands of single shot pistols made by General Motors called 'Liberators'. A man/woman was supposed to pick it up, shoot a nazi soldier, and take his rifle. Apparently, A lot of them dropped into the ocean.. But still hundreds landed in the hands of the french, and it worked quite effectively.

This was the theory:
1. Man/Woman picks up Liberator Pistol
2. Loads Liberator Pistol
3. Finds Nazi Soldier
4. Shoots Nazi Soldier
5. Takes Nazi Soldier's Rifle
6. Kill more Nazi Soldiers with Rifle

Here is a picture of the pistol:

http://www.genitron.com/Unique/Guide-Lamp-Liberator-Pistol.jpg

If you are a historical collector, you can find this pistol on the market today (Even ones that were dropped into france.) But they are extremely expensive.

[Hoipolloi Cassidy]

they were active enough to warrant serious reprisals (Oradour, for example). I know it's fashionable to overstate collaboration in France, but there's a point where it gets absurd.

Oradour was a massacre of civilians. Are you suggesting the Nazis were such nice guys they would only kill people if they really, really had to?

The original issue wasn't who did or didn't join the Resistance, but when, and what percentage were armed combatants at what point, which would be a prerequisite for asking how much weaponry was needed, let alone available. There's a wide range between collaboration and armed resistance, and it's as absurd to say that most French people were hiding in the Maquis as it is to say they were all collaborators. In fact there was a wide range of resistance, but until, say, late 1943 the numbers at the "armed resistance" end were pretty slim. As a teacher of mine who'd lived through that period put it, "by 1944 people were standing in line to join the Resistance. In 1943 there was no-one."

[agnixie]

Oradour was a massacre of civilians. Are you suggesting the Nazis were such nice guys they would only kill people if they really, really had to?

No, but it's obvious you have no idea what the word reprisal means. It was part of the general policy of the nazis to hit the civilian population whenever the resistance pulled some stunt; a wedding party near where my grandparents grew up was killed as part of a series of reprisals which were later linked to the actions of the new governor in the west after breton resistance fighters managed to murder the previous governor.