CORSICA UNDER THE TEST OF WAR 1939–1943

October 1943: Corsica became the first part of French territory to be liberated. This decisive action for the subsequent operations — since the Allies would be able from this strategic base to organise their landings in Italy — was achieved largely through the action of the maquis fighters.

Since 1939, the war had been a distinct experience for the island compared to that of the continental territory. Because the population endured privations and a health crisis without equivalent. Because the Occupation, from November 1942, was, as in the southern zone, essentially Italian, and it heightened tensions between irredentists in favour of annexation to the Peninsula and patriots hostile to this Fascist expansionism. Finally, because the political divisions of the mainland were not replicated identically there, and it was rather clan and family allegiances that determined commitment to Pétainism, the Resistance or Collaboration.

Yet no specific study had until now been devoted to this determining aspect of the history of France during the Second World War.

Hélène Chaubin, Corsica correspondent for the Committee for the History of the Second World War, the Institute of Contemporary History and the Centre for Social History of the Twentieth Century, is the author of several works, including La Résistance en Corse (with Sylvain Gregory and Antoine Poletti, 2005).