Organisation de résistance de l'armée

The ORA was founded by General Aubert Frère, president of the tribunal which had condemned de Gaulle to death in August 1940.

The ORA's next leader was Major General Jean-Edouard Verneau, who was arrested on 23 October 1943 and died while being deported to Buchenwald on 14 September 1944.

The ORA grew quickly in the southern zone, which was not handed over to the Germans, thanks to its officers and armaments acquired from the Vichy army.

In 1944, it amalgamated with the Armée secrète (AS) and the Francs-tireurs et partisans to form the French Forces of the Interior, although it retained its autonomy.

On the day after the defeat and the signature of the armistice in 1940, a certain number of French army officers, reduced to a body of 100,000 men, considered that all was not lost.