Maquis (World War II) Maquis (World War II) The Maquis () were rural guerrilla bands of French Resistance fighters, called "maquisards", during the Nazi Occupation of France in World War II. Initially, they were composed of men and women who had escaped into the mountains to avoid conscription into Vichy France's "Service du travail obligatoire" ("Compulsory Work Service" or "STO") to provide forced labor for Germany. To avert capture and deportation to Germany, they became increasingly organized into active resistance groups. Originally the word came from the kind of terrain in which the armed resistance groups hid, high ground in southeastern France covered with
Maquis (World War II) in the rural areas of France, resistance had a role and justification in the lives of many people "who had no ambition to hold a gun, or memorize a coded message, though as the occupation grew in its violence the pressure on the French people to defend themselves by force intensified, and the military nature of resistance came to predominate". The connection between the Vichy government and armed resistance paved the way for the eventual formation of the Maquis. The "Service du Travail Obligatoire" (S.T.O.) was enacted on 16 February 1943 but underwent various refinements and classifications. It required young