Moulin, Jean (1899–1943) MOTORIZED RIFLE DIVISION (MRD) Red Army infantry divisions ostensibly provided high mobility via truck or other wheeled transport They were hastily organized mobile forces assembled but only partly motorized or trained in the year before the German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941 Along with similarly poorly designed and commanded mechanized divisions, almost all Red Army motorized divisions were destroyed in the first six months of fighting, along with their transports The rest were converted to ordinary Red Army rifle divisions The Wehrmacht called its motorized troops Panzergrenadiers MOTTI “Logs” or “cord” of firewood A Finnish Army term for highly successful ambush tactics used against the advancing Red Army during the Finnish–Soviet War (1939–1940) It involved blocking the front of road-bound Soviet columns before attacking into the flanks and rear That created smaller sections of column that were surrounded and defeated in detail Or it meant wide circuits by ski troops who suddenly tore into vulnerable Soviet rear areas, surrounding and destroying them It referenced the traditional Finnish “motti” method of stacking logs supported by rigid poles that held them in place The key concept was small, very tight encirclements and hit-and-run tactics that halted and fixed the enemy while minimizing Finnish casualties There followed violent interdiction of Soviet supplies and considerable damage to Soviet forces MOULIN, JEAN (1899–1943) French Résistance leader Serving as Prefect of Chartres when the Germans invaded France in 1940, Moulin was arrested for refusing to cooperate with the occupation He tried to kill himself with broken glass while in jail, but survived the attempt Upon his release he initially worked to ameliorate the severity of the German occupation Subsequently, he organized the Résistance in the Rhone Valley He went to England in October 1941, to coordinate networks in the south with Charles de Gaulle’s external Free French movement On January 1, 1942, Moulin parachuted back into France to coordinate the disparate and often quarrelsome Résistance movements, a job that was greatly difficult and extremely dangerous He was outstanding at his work, while much aided by British money and promises of material support to cooperating networks He helped the southern movements arrive at the decision to support the Free French command, opening the way to establish the Conseil Nationale de la Résistance (CNR) in Paris on May 15, 1943 Moulin did more than any other man, including de Gaulle, to coordinate and keep alive the Résistance movement inside France He was arrested by the Gestapo in Lyons on June 21, 1943 Whether he was betrayed by internal rivals or just discovered by other Gestapo police methods remains unknown, and bitterly controversial It is known that over the next three weeks he was savagely tortured to death by Klaus Barbie and other Gestapo men His death shifted the internal balance of power of the Résistance from the CNR to the Free French leaders in London and to de Gaulle in Algiers See also Force Franỗaise de lIntộrieur (FFI) 747