Spanish Maquis by the Civil Guard, nearly wiping out the movement. The term ""maquis"" comes from the French term ""maquis"", which in turn comes from the Corsican term ""macchia"", the maquis shrubland, a type of biome found in the Mediterranean basin, mostly associated with Corsica. In France, the term was first used to refer to a group of guerrillas of the French resistance against the German occupation of France during World War II. The resistance fighters in these encampments were referred to as ""maquisards"". The anti-Franco guerrilla resistance in Spain began before the 1939 end of the Spanish Civil War. The outbreak
Anti-partisan operations in World War II and August, Germans launched their largest operations against the French partisans (Maquis du Vercors). Similar to the "cauldron operations" employed in the Soviet Union, 10,000 German troops encircled and destroyed a 4,000 strong local partisan force, also committing atrocities against the local civilian population, in order to terrorize the locals and to prevent the surviving partisans from regrouping in the villages. Anti-partisan operations in World War II Anti-partisan operations during World War II were counter-insurgency operations against the various partisan resistance movements. During World War II those operations were primarily carried out by the invading and occupying Axis powers, although