The story of this place
In early 1944, some 450 fighters of the French Resistance—the Maquis des Glières—gathered on this high, snowbound Alpine plateau in Haute-Savoie to receive Allied arms drops and organise for the coming liberation, under the motto 'Vivre libre ou mourir', Live free or die. In March 1944, Vichy police and then German mountain troops with air support surrounded and assaulted the plateau; after fierce fighting the outnumbered Maquis were overwhelmed, and around 130 died in combat or were captured and executed. Though a military defeat, Glières became a powerful symbol of French resistance broadcast by the BBC and de Gaulle. A stark national memorial now stands on the plateau.