Spanish resistance fighter to General de Gaulle, when asked how long he had been in the Resistance, ‘With all respect, General, before you.’
Quoted in From Love And War In The Pyrenees: A Story Of Courage, Fear And Hope, 1939-1944 by Rosemary Bailey. Via Richard Baxell
Well worth listening to this frank 15 minute Radio 4 interview with Stuart Christie “In 1964 a young Scot called Stuart Christie joined a plot to assassinate the Spanish dictator General Francisco Franco. He had become friends with Spanish exiles living in London and was keen to help end Franco’s rule. But the plot failed and Christie ended up in jail. He has been telling his story to Mike Lanchin. ” BBC Radio 4
Thanks to Christine of stillcause for flagging this.
Referring to the contribution of the Spanish Maquis to the French resistance movement, Martha Gellhorn wrote in The Undefeated (1945):
“During the German occupation of France, the Spanish Maquis engineered more than four hundred railway sabotages, destroyed fifty-eight locomotives, dynamited thirty-five railway bridges, cut one hundred and fifty telephone lines, attacked twenty factories, destroying some factories totally, and sabotaged fifteen coal mines. They took several thousand German prisoners and – most miraculous considering their arms – they captured three tanks. In the south-west part of France where no Allied armies have ever fought, they liberated more than seventeen towns.”