historium:Spanish maquis guerrillas crossing the border between France and Spain through the Pyrenee
historium:Spanish maquis guerrillas crossing the border between France and Spain through the Pyrenees during the failed invasion of the Aran Valley, an attempt to liberate a border region of Spain and start a popular uprising against the Francoist Regime, October 1944The invasion of the Aran Valley, also known by its code name “Operation Reconquest of Spain”, was a failed armed invasion by Spanish Republican exiles who had fought the Nazi occupation in France alongside the French maquis. Organized by the PCI, the Spanish Communist Party, the operation aimed to capture a border region of Spain to set up a provisional government, in order to push the allied powers to intervene against the Francoist Regime, which had taken the power at the end of the Spanish Civil War five years earlier.Between the 19 and 24 October 1944, between 4,000 and 7,000 well-armed guerrillas crossed through the Pyrenees, hoping to start a popular uprising which, a population exhausted from the Civil War and the severe repression by the Regime, didn’t join. The guerrillas failed to mobilize the local population and take the main town and didn’t resist the counter-offensive of the around 50,000 troops mobilized by the Regime for long. By the fifth day, the remaining guerrillas were ordered to retreat into France. -- source link