Original subtitles

NARRATOR: History is not an exact science.

It is never set in stone.

As time passes knowledge of the past is refined and evolves?

But, by definition existing ideas have thick skins

and are hard to shift.

To understand the realities of the world

you sometimes have to shake them up

and decipher the facts by looking at them another way.

Posterity has left us with an image of the French Resistance

as partisans acting alone against the Nazi occupiers.

And yet!

On July 22, 1940.

A stream of passengers disembarked

from a ship in the port of Southampton,

in the south of England.

They were French, Belgian, Danish, and Polish.

Since, Hitler invaded their country,

more than 30,000 refugees had already crossed the Channel.

Most were searching for better days.

Though a handful wanted to continue fighting.

There was nothing to suggest

that these resistance fighters would go underground,

but they were ready to risk their lives

to free their country from Nazism.

On that same July 22, 1940, 130 km away,

an oppressive atmosphere pervaded the British capital.

Great Britain was the last power to resist Germany.

And, the Wehrmacht threatened to land on its shores.

(CAT MEOWS)

Despite this, Winston Churchill remained confident.

The Prime Minister was convinced

that it was possible to avert the threat

by urging the defeated populations to revolt against their occupiers.

A completely iconoclastic strategy.

During incredulous audience, he gave the order,

"Put Europe to fire and blood."

Very quickly, a new secret service was created.

Its mission was to coordinate subversive actions

in occupied Europe.

The name of this organisation was Special Operations Executive.

Or SOE.

From now on, no holds are barred.

Make way for the war of the thugs.

In the heart of London,

the new service took up residence in Baker Street,

in complete secrecy.

It is from here,

that a handful of men were to implement the strategy

dreamed up by the Prime Minister.

In each country,

clandestine networks would be responsible

for harassing the enemy until defeat.

At first, the SOE had no contacts on the continent.

-Have you seen this telegram, Felix 1 man had a solution.

-But, one man had a solution, General Gubbins.

The mastermind of the operation,

whose story was brought to the screen.

-Take on to Don.

-A student of guerrilla warfare,

Gubbins recommended recruiting hot-heads and outliers.

Rare jewels were found in aristocratic circles.

(APPLAUSE)

But, also in the pubs frequented by the criminal underworld.

The war of the thugs was inspired by tried and tested techniques.

Like those employed by Al Capone,

who managed to terrorise America in the 1930s with only a few men.

And, finally in the ports,

where refugees, ready for combat, continued arriving.

Their perfect command of the language

and customs of their homelands made them ideal recruits,

who were able to operate without being noticed.

By the end of the summer of 1940,

patriots of all stripes had joined the ranks

of this unlikely army.

-Ready, go.

-Instructors had only a few weeks

to turn these free spirits into special agents

in Her Majesty's service.

General Gubbins lamented...

The "SOE is under intense pressure to be operational

as soon as possible.

Improvisation is part of our daily program.

-And shoot to kill.

-Guerrilla techniques...

(GUN SHOTS)

practice with explosives...

(BOMB BLASTS)

-First, a vicious dash of the tin hat...

then grab a fog.

-Courses in silent killing?

-That's the end of that one.

-Not to mention the essential practice

of parachute jumping.

Novices were warned,

only one man out of two will return alive.

To complement the operations of its agents,

London hoped for an uprising of populations, incited to revolt.

The BBC, a new radio weapon, hammered out its slogans...

-Then the songs they've written, they speak to us

-All in vain.

Stunned by the whirlwind victory of the Reich,

the crowds remained deaf to these messages.

The first Resistance fighters tried to oppose the occupying forces

with very limited means.

Some published underground newspapers.

Others slashed the tyres of Germans, or cut their phone lines.

Brave acts,

which turned out to be more dangerous than effective.

Churchill became impatient.

He harassed his staff...

"When will we decide to send out saboteurs to cripple the enemy?"

In the spring of 1941,

a handful of volunteers set off for the old continent,

under the sneering eyes of the Royal Air Force pilots.

In the opinion of its leader, General Portal,

this war of thugs was beneath the gentlemen of the army.

Reluctantly, he gave up 4 old aircraft

that nobody wanted anymore.

As if to prove the officers right,

most of the SOE missions end in failure.

One volunteer who was supposed to be dropped in Belgium,

landed in Germany, in the middle of a prison camp.

-Go!

-The parachute of the agent,

who was supposed to become the leader of the Danish resistance,

did not open.

His corpse revealed to the Germans the covert activity of the British.

All hopes of a quick infiltration in Denmark collapsed.

In France, the record was hardly better.

The success of some operations,

including an attack on the Pessac power station,

was tarnished by the capriciousness of the craftsmen,

who were a little too roguish.

They went to Spain to celebrate their success...

diluting their patriotism in the fumes of alcohol

with money entrusted to them by the SOE.

Above all,

the anti-German demonstrations encouraged by the BBC,

were, for the most part, violently repressed.

In France as in Belgium,

in Norway as in the Netherlands,

the Nazis arrested, deported or executed.

18 months after its creation,

Winston Churchill ruminated on the failures of his shadow army.

The dream of a general insurrection was dissipating.

As for the networks of saboteurs

on which he had placed such high hopes,

they had failed to set Europe ablaze.

In the meantime,

the Nazi war machine had imposed its will as far as Moscow.

A change of strategy was needed.

At the beginning of 1942, hope was reborn.

Despite the pounding of German bombers,

England had valiantly resisted.

Any threat of invasion was now over.

Better still.

Two great powers joined the ranks of the allies,

the Soviet Union...

and the United States.

By joining forces,

the three leaders hoped to achieve a classic military victory,

culminating in a landing on the old continent.

The SOE rose from its ashes.

-Felix 1 done.

-Forget about a general uprising, it was time for targeted actions.

From then on,

the mission of Her Majesty's agents was to weaken the enemy

while awaiting future military operations.

Norway, France, Greece, Yugoslavia.

In one year, 320 emissaries,

this time hand-picked, set off for Europe.

There was still one major obstacle.

Most of the powers in exile in London were opposed

to the offensive strategy.

Fearing reprisals against the Belgian people,

the head of the government, Hubert Pierlot,

demanded that the resistance be limited to intelligence.

But, what did it matter to the British?

National sovereignty was of little consequence

in the fight against the Nazis.

British priority was to strike at Belgium's steel industries,

a real boon for the Wehrmacht.

On January 28, 1942,

the SOE played a trump card...

a former law student, who had arrived in London

in the early days of the conflict...

Andre Wendelen!

His mission, to lay the foundations of a sabotage group

in his native land.

The rookie agent relied on his old friends

from the University of Brussels.

A gamble that paid off.

They welcomed their fallen comrade as a messiah,

and soon nicknamed him "the Archangel".

These intellectuals, these anti-fascist militants,

dreamt of taking action.

Together, they created what would later become

the dreaded G Group.

But, they knew nothing about the war of the thugs.

Andre gave them practical training.

The development of each detonator was passionately discussed.

Their credo, to cripple the occupiers,

while avoiding unnecessary destruction.

In the spring of 1942,

the apprentice saboteurs were ready for their baptism of fire.

London designated the targets.

Their attacks were remarkably precise...

a railroad line between Liege and Cologne.

Scornful of the danger,

Andre Wendelen and his friends rejoiced.

Then they turned to industrial sites.

The SOE was over the moon.

His instructors had been right...

"This officer is most definitely above average."

A really first class man and leader.

"Very quickly, the Belgian agent deployed the G Group

all over the country.

Leaving his comrades to operate on their own,

he set out to recruit new idealists from corner of the country.

After the Belgian government,

London came up against another leader in exile,

a much tougher one...

Charles de Gaulle.

On July 14, 1942, a national holiday,

the Frenchman was indignant to see the British interfering

in the organisation of his country's resistance,

while he had been battling for months to create unity

under his authority.

The general demanded to be the only one

to organise missions to France.

His request fell on deaf ears.

Churchill did not want to give him a say.

Especially, since the country would be the scene

of the future Allied landing.

In the autumn of 1942,

about fifty SOE agents were already operating

in the country.

And, London did not intend to stop there.

On the night of September 24-25,

the Royal Air Force pilots were astounded.

(OVERLAPPING CHATTER)

They were going to drop a woman on enemy soil.

-How do you do? @ -And this is feeling.@

-According to the ever-transgressive General Gubbins,

they were more reliable than men.

Lise de Baissac, from the old French aristocracy,

choose to defend the land of her ancestors

under the banner of the Union Jack.

At 1am, she let herself slide into the void.

Her destination Poitiers.

Lise demanded to have the same responsibilities as a man.

She said.

-"I warned them, I refuse to play Mata Hari".

-Baker Street entrusted her with a major mission.

To the growth of the secret networks in the southwest zone.

Assuming the identity of Irene Brisse,

a widow with a passion for archaeology,

she travelled day and night in an area of more than 300sqkm.

Lise de Baissac welcomed and concealed new agents...

and Organised the reception of the explosives.

Assisted by the Frenchmen she had recruited.

The containers were then distributed to resistance fighters

following orders from London.

Tirelessly, Lise ensured the liaison

between several clandestine networks...

Prosper, Bricklayer.

And, also Scientist,

founded by her younger brother Claude,

also an SOE agent

and one who shared his sister's rebelliousness

and fierce patriotism.

The boisterous Claude de Baissac,

who went into action two months before his sister,

did not hesitate to ask for the most demanding missions.

He told his superiors, "I am strong.

"I am even very strong.

"Tell me what you need."

The response came quickly.

Her Majesty's agent gained the loyalty

of most of the French employees at the Bordeaux base,

which harboured German U-boats.

Despite being watched by the occupying forces,

the men from Scientist managed to sabotage

several enemy submarines.

Claude de Baissac sent detailed plans

of the base to London.

And, information on the ships crossing the Atlantic.

A godsend for the Royal Air Force...

which could intensify targeted bombings.

In the winter of 1942,

Churchill was relieved to learn that

the guerrilla warfare conducted by his shadow army

was beginning to pay off.

He could now entrust the army

with a goal of the utmost importance,

preventing Hitler from acquiring atomic weapons.

-That area is entered vital.

-A team of specially trained Norwegian agents

was dropped into the far north.

Handpicked for their physical strength,

the men reached their target after a ten-day journey

at minus 30 degrees.

Their goal was to destroy a factory that produced an essential element

for the manufacturing of atomic bombs...

heavy water.

Two hundred German soldiers guarded the building day and night.

The operation resembled a suicide mission.

On the night of February 27, 1943,

the commando managed to place explosives on the machines.

A half a ton of heavy water was destroyed,

and production was hampered for several months.

The head of the occupation forces in Norway,

General Von Falkenhorst, was stunned, declaring,

"This is the most glorious strike I have seen in this war."

That winter, the Wehrmacht suffered a series of bitter setbacks,

in the Egyptian sands of Al Alamein...

then at Stalingrad, on the Russian steppe.

The Reich was wounded.

(DOG BARKS)

It was time to strike the territory that made the Fuhrer proud...

Denmark.

This ideal protectorate offered the German navy

control of the Baltic Sea, as well as access to the North Sea.

The icing on the cake, the country fed the German troops.

Its bacon, delighted them all over Europe.

(DRUMS SOUND)

This Nazi stronghold stubbornly resisted the SOE.

Since the tragic parachute jump of the agent

charged with organising the Danish resistance,

all British infiltration attempts had failed.

Playing the odds, Baker street then bet on an unlikely candidate...

the adventurer, Flemming Muus.

Exiled by his family who had lost hope in his career,

he worked in the most remote corners of Africa.

Overwhelmed by a patriotic fever,

he rushed to London in search of a role that suited him.

On March 11, 1943,

the ex-coconut seller returned to his native land.

"I threw myself on my knees and kissed the earth.

"I was in Denmark."

Full of glib charm,

the adventurer joined forces with another surprising personality,

Monica Wichfeld!

An aristocrat, who financed the anti-Nazi press.

Together, they immediately began remobilising resistance fighters.

A parachute drop and training centre was set up on the Wichfeld property.

Across the country, networks were finally taking shape,

cameras in hand, conscious of writing history.

In the spring of 1943, they set Denmark ablaze.

Everything was blown up.

Military vehicle factories...

supply convoys for the Wehrmacht...

gasoline depots...

shipyards...

Shaken out of its slumber, the population backed the saboteurs.

In a few weeks,

Denmark was on the verge of insurrection.

London was alarmed,

overzealousness could expose the nascent resistance

to violent repression.

-Norway and Denmark are definitely out.

-On June 19, 1943, Ralph Hollingworth,

the head of the Danish branch,

tried to bring his agent back into line...

"Slow down.

You have reached a breaking point.

You must obey this order.

In vain.

The former deadbeat met Varinka, Monica Wichfeld's daughter.

With the woman who would become his second in-command at his side,

he felt his wings spreading.

The tandem wanted to tip the country into the camp of the allies...

"Our goal is a popular uprising" proclaimed the rebel.

What London had feared, would eventually come to pass.

On August 29, 1943,

Denmark was declared an enemy of the Reich.

Monica Wichfeld was arrested.

Flemming and Varinka hunted.

Barely organised,

the Danish resistance was already in danger.

In the autumn of 1943, bad news was pouring in.

In the East, in Yugoslavia,

disturbing reports indicated that

the resistance had been losing ground

to the Nazi occupiers for months.

And, for good reason,

the royalist resistance movement, financed by London,

had broken free from British directives.

In some areas, Chetniks even fraternised

with the occupiers.

This was a disaster for Churchill...

he had been counting on them

to hold back a large number of enemy divisions.

This time, he got personally involved.

He ordered the SOE to send one of his close friends,

to the scene...

Fitzroy Maclean.

A seasoned diplomat,

the Scottish envoy was charged with assessing the military power

of the other Yugoslavian resistance organisation...

the communists.

Organised in paramilitary groups,

they had already won several major battles.

But was it worth siding with them?

The old lion feared making a pact with the devil.

He fumed...

"The Bolsheviks are crocodiles.

"How can one trust them at all."

Upon his arrival,

Fitzroy Maclean was taken to a remote cave.

The headquarters of the Yugoslav Partisans leader.

Josip Broz, known as Tito,

wanted to win British support

to become a leader in the fight against the Nazis.

(SOLDIERS SINGING)

He presented his host with the dream of an ideal society.

Among the partisans everyone would learn to read,

and would cultivate pride in fighting

to liberate their country.

Women represented almost a quarter of the workforce.

Enthralled, the dashing diplomat met Olga,

her pistol strapped to her belt.

And, the female commander who punctuated her arguments

with punches on the table.

And, above all, Stana Tomasevic, a 22-year-old teacher,

who would become an icon of the Yugoslav resistance.

The Briton reported enthusiastically...

"Tito brings to the resistance against the Germans courage,

"realism, ingenuity and good sense.

"To find so much independence of spirit in a Communist

"is unheard of, and amazing to me."

However, Maclean noted

that Tito intended to establish a system

based on the Soviet model in his country.

The Prime Minister, a pragmatist,

swallowed his anti-communism in favour of military efficiency.

Dozens of tons of weapons

were quickly delivered to the partisans.

At the end of 1943,

they took over large areas of the country.

The leader of the Yugoslav resistance succeeded...

-Marshal Tito is the man who has kept several divisions

of German troops tied down in the mountains of Hugo Yugoslavia.

More.

He has inflicted heavy casualties on those same troupes.

Tito's partisans are far more than guerrilla fighters,

but formidable army well equipped from the arsenal of the allies.

-The leader of the Yugoslav resistance succeeded...

the road to power was now open to him.

However, in return for his support,

Churchill hoped that he would agree to remove

his future government from Moscow's influence.

The time had come to strike the Reich with a fatal blow.

In November 1943, at the Teheran conference,

the British, Americans and Soviets

agreed to set the date of the landing

for the following spring.

The shadow army had to prepare its role in the final act.

(PHONE RINGS)

-Operations trouble.

Oh, good. OK. 16...

-Good morning!

-General Gubbins, the brain of the SOE,

recalled his best agents to London, to distribute roles.

Among them were Claude de Baissac.

Andre Wendelen, the Belgian.

and Flemming Muus, the Dane

who managed to escape the clutches of the Gestapo.

In Denmark as well as in Belgium,

clandestine units, including those of Andre and Flemming,

were in charge of destroying communication routes.

The objective was to prevent the Wehrmacht

from moving its forces to the Normandy front,

while the Allies gained a foothold on the continent.

While France, as the future theatre of the operations,

held all of London's attention.

The Resistance was also charged with blocking the road

to German reinforcements.

Claude de Baissac was entrusted with the creation of "Scientist II",

a new operational cell in Normandy,

an area free of any SOE presence.

This was enough to satisfy his appetite for challenges.

Throughout 1944, a blessing from above was dropped on France...

85,000 containers of rifles of machine guns,

of hand grenades

intended for the patriots who were ready to fight.

Claude equipped the men of his region.

His objective, to subject them all to the orders of London.

Whatever their political leanings.

Gaullists, whom the General managed to keep under his authority.

Or, communists.

Louis Petri, known as Loulou,

head of the Communist formations in Normandy, admitted...

"Before, my men and I hated the British.

Everything changed

when we started working with Claude de Baissac.

Uniting the Maquis was one thing.

Keeping control of men who were restless

after months of secrecy,

and who were suddenly armed to the teeth, was another.

Some of them were eager to fight the occupiers immediately,

in spite of the British instructions.

Soon, Scientist II was on the verge of implosion.

It was Lise de Baissac, who had come to help her brother,

who brought the rebels to heel.

With diplomacy, she brought them back to reason...

-"Drawing the attention of the Germans in our sector

-before the arrival of the Allies

would compromise the success of the operation.

During the night of June 5-6, 1944,

The messages of the BBC intended for the clandestine organisations,

finally resounded.

As 1,30,000 Allied soldiers landed on the beaches of Normandy,

the shadow army went on the attack.

The felling of trees on the roads destruction of railroads...

cutting of telephone lines.

Throughout France, 900 acts of sabotage,

committed in 24 hours,

gave the landed forces time to consolidate the beachhead.

Thanks to their knowledge of the terrain,

the Resistance fighters then facilitated the progression

of the Allies towards the inland.

Lise de Baissac, also took part in convoy attacks.

The reports that reached the SOE,

testified to the effectiveness of this guerrilla warfare.

At the end of July 1944,

the Allies broke through the German lines,

supported by 500,000 French Resistance fighters.

A contribution praised by the media.

-The Maquis secretly trained and disciplined,

have exceeded all estimates of the help expected from them.

In Chach, as elsewhere all over France,

you'll see them in action alongside Americans

during the liberation of that city.

All over France, the men and women of the Mah have been terrific.

-Once France was liberated, the Allies advanced towards Germany.

In Belgium, the companions of the Archangel, Andre Wendelen,

numbered more than 4000 members.

They worked furiously for the liberation of their country.

Similarly, in Italy, the patriots armed by London

precipitated the retreat of the Germans.

They accelerated the advance of the Anglo-American troops

and liberated more than a hundred cities by themselves.

Like Florence, Genoa and Milan.

In the autumn of 1944,

even though all of Churchill's hopes were fulfilled in the West,

the situation in the East worried him no end.

Tito, the charismatic leader of the Yugoslav partisans,

secretly flew to Moscow,

to make a pact with Stalin.

On October 20, 1944, Tito's partisans liberated Belgrade,

thanks to the support of the Red Army.

Witnessing the triumph,

Fitzroy Maclean reported to Churchill...

"Tito has firmly established himself in the capital.

He controls practically all of Yugoslavia.

The Prime Minister had to give up his illusions,

the man he had supported was indeed going to establish

a communist government in his country.

A failure that he did not intend to suffer twice.

The same threat hung over the neighbouring country, Greece.

Entire regions were liberated by the communists,

without any help from the SOE.

This time, Churchill reacted.

It was out of the question to lose this territory,

which was vital for control of the Mediterranean.

In October 1944,

he dispatched the British army

and did not hesitate to bomb

the partisan-held districts of Athens.

To top it all off,

London enforced the return of the unpopular King George II.

A time bomb that would throw Greece into a terrible civil war.

On May 8, 1945,

Germany finally surrender.

The victors lost gave themselves over to the sheer joy

of a deliverance which they had helped bring about.

In Denmark, agent Muus and his resistance fighters,

too far from the action, were not able to participate.

However, the rebel was celebrating his own victory,

Varinka has succumbed to his charm and had agreed to marry him.

In London, Baker Street was also celebrating...

Colin Gubbins, the gentleman from SOE,

was congratulated by the Commander-in-Chief

of the Allied Forces, General Eisenhower who proclaimed...

"I consider that the work of SOE throughout Europe

"played a major role in our final and complete victory."

However, in order to restore their national pride,

most countries in the post-war period

were quick to ignore London's role.

Thus, General De Gaulle

immediately expelled the British agents from France.

Each nation rewrote history to its advantage.

This was made all the more easy

as a fire ravaged the Baker Street offices.

A part of its archives disappeared in smoke.

The heroic legend of populations

liberated by their own national resistance forces

was set in stone,

betraying Winston Churchill's favourite adage,

"History is written by the victors."

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