SirOutrageous1027 t1_izyseyz wrote on December 12, 2022 at 9:06 PM

Reply to comment by DonkeyDonRulz in Simple/Short/Silly History Questions Saturday! by AutoModerator

I suspect German blitz tactics that overwhelmed France and Poland would have similarly prevailed against the Czech. Czechoslovakia is a lot smaller than Poland and it's landlocked so there's no reinforcements coming in. Sure it's mountainous, but it's small - heck it made short work of Yugoslavia which was all mountains and much bigger.

You don't really have Britain and France on the other side - not without a naval invasion or violating Dutch sovereignty. Otherwise you've just got the Maginot crossing. And frankly, given how non-aggressive France was when Germany invaded Poland, I doubt they would have been more aggressive with the Czechs. Though a more aggressive push by the French would have been a lot more interesting. German military leaders feared a French invasion when the forces were split in Poland.

We heard about potential military coups when he marched into the Rhineland and when he threatened Czechoslovakia. Both were due to fears of France. It's possible that basically any time before the Fall of Paris if the war started the go poorly, that would've been it. But victories kept Hitler in power and the military appeased.

DonkeyDonRulz t1_izzr4nz wrote on December 13, 2022 at 1:08 AM

I think I read somewhere that much of the heavy equipment used to take Poland and France was in Czech hands at the beginning of 1938. The Skoda works was a huge munitions plant that also changed hands without a shot being fired.

As I recall, the book argument went like so: capturing that equipment through war would have cost both German and Czech losses, whereas just turning materiel over to Germany strengthened then with no attritional loss of equipment, Czech or Nazi. Hitler increased his armament something like 25%, and picked up the factories producing heavy artillery, some 2 years before he invades France. The gain in knowledge, existing equipment, and factory capacity was an advantage that builds over the years, with the diplomatic resolution to Munich. If he had taken, say 15% material losses, in destroying half the Czech forces and only captures sabotaged factories, his army is not 125% or 150% in 1940, but 85% of it's 1938 strength. Do Poland and France fare better against that ? Does Poland soften it's diplomatic stance, after seeing Czechoslovakia get run over? Does it push the larger war back 12 to 18 months to where Stalin wakes up and starts prepping?

You're right about Hitler accumulating victories, in 1940. But 1938 was a different world. Hitler's only foreign victory before 1938 was the Rhineland annexation of 1936. Anschluss preceded Munich in 1938 spring.. Both areas were German speaking, and arguably more German than any Czech or Polish province. Czechoslovakia and Munich were the first conquests of a not-so completely German speaking area, and that Hitler getting away with it, basically scot-free, began that pile of foreign policy victories that accumulated until 1941. But prior to Munich no one knew all that was coming. France had alliances with the Little Entente countries (Balkans, Romania, Czechoslovakia) so technically it was more obligated to fight for the Czechs in 38 than the Poles in39. I mean that's why French pressured the Czechs into Munich. It wasn't worth a war, but their treaties had already committed them to one, if the Czechs fought. Better to talk the Czechs down.

I know why historians hate counterfactuals,lol.

I do like the inter war period. It is so full of the little " if only .." situations that make you think about t the carry on effects.