Franco in the case of defeat on the conventional fronts. At the end of the war, such activities had been set in motion on the fronts of Teruel, Andalusia, Extremadura, and Toledo. The action with the greatest significance was the liberation, on May 23, 1938, of 300 Asturian political prisoners in Granada. Throughout 1938 and 1939 the Corps brought together many of the exiles of Andalucía and Extremadura; however, the Republican defeat brought the dissolution of the Corps. Retreat: the French camps Hundreds of thousands of Republican soldiers and civilians crossed the French border ahead of the advancing Nationalist troops in Catalonia. Once on the other side, they were put in concentration camps by the authorities. There were 22 camps in total: Barcarès, Agde, Saint-Cyprien, Argelès-sur-Mer, Berck-Plage, Montpellier Chapallete, Fort Mahon Plage, Tour de Carol, Septfonds, Baste-les-Foages, Bram, Haros, Gurs, Vernet d'Ariège, Rivesaltes, Fort Colliure, and Rieucros in Metropolitan France and, in French North Africa, Camp Morand, Meridja, Djelfa, Hadjerat-OM'Guil, and Ain-el-Curak. In these camps, exiles began to reorganize themselves into guerrilla groups. In the camp of Argelès-sur-Mer a series of meetings were held. Members of the PCE and the Juventudes Socialistas Unificadas (Unified Socialist Youth) participated. In October 1940, the decision was made to organize anti-fascist actions in France, together with the French resistance, against the Vichy government. This was the beginning of the Spanish involvement on a grand scale in the fight against the occupation of France. Resistance On October 11, 1940 the Vichy regime started the Companies of Foreign Workers (Compagnies de Travailleurs Etrangers, CTE), which permitted prisoners to leave the concentration camps, if they would go to work in factories. This increased the possibilities of escape. Shortly after the Vichy regime established the Obligatory Work Service (Service du travail obligatoire, STO) for French citizens, with similar objectives: to provide manual labor to armament factories and the construction of the Atlantic Wall. Those French who were released through the STO began to escape to the forests and mountains, where they came together with Spanish who escaped from the CTE. The French escapees were mainly civilians, rather than remnants of the defeated French army. From this time, the French term "maquis" began to be used to refer to the camps, and "maquisards" for those that occupied them. Formation of the AGE Some of the Spanish refugees joined French resistance groups, while others formed autonomous groups. In April 1942