Vercors PlateauThe Vercors is a plateau in the département of Isère in Eastern France. The cliffs at its eastern edge face the city of Grenoble. It comprises several resorts for cross-country skiing. Many members of a maquis of the French resistance died fighting in 1944 on the plateau. The 1944 fighting on the plateau followed a declaration of freedom from the German occupation in some towns & villages on the plateau. In response, German parachute & glider borne troops landed on the plateau (owing to the difficulty of access to the plateau by road) & brutally suppressed the uprising, terrorising the population of the plateau with gross acts of rape & torture. Maquisards appealed to Free French agencies based in United Kingdom to supply arms and heavier weaponry to counter the German action, but none was forthcoming. There are rumours that base political motives of De Gaulle among others were the reason behind this failure to support the Vercors uprising.
Categories: French geography | Plateaus |
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