Split Thread WWII & Appeasement

[Craig B]

If you scroll down to the bottom of the page at this website there are several quotes from military experts about the matter of Czech defences including Brigadier Stronge, who seems to have been the British military attache there:

https://www.quora.com/What-would-ha...o-appease-Hitler-and-give-him-the-Sudetenland

Poland was a Czech enemy at the time and eventually did a Czech land grab after Munich.

Chamberlain was playing a diplomatic poker game. For him to go to war in 1938 would have resulted in a world war in which he would have had practically no reliable allies, and for which the British armed forces were ill-equipped and ill-trained. The verdict of history is that Hitler started the war by breaking the Munich agreement, and the German-Soviet pact. That's when conscription was introduced. There are people on the internet now who accuse Churchill of starting the war. If there had been war in 1938, which nearly happened, Chamberlain and the Czechs would have been blamed for starting it.

According to the source cited in your link Stronge was of the opinion that CS could "hold the Germans for several months".

 

[Tolls]

As it says down the bottom of that book snippet (I can't see what book that page or two is from), the official military history of Czechoslovakia reckoned about a month with no support.

The idea of the Czech air force, even with Soviet support, raiding Vienna or any other German targets in any meaningful way is a bit optimistic as well.

 

[Henri McPhee]

According to the source cited in your link Stronge was of the opinion that CS could "hold the Germans for several months".

My reading is :

He estimated that the Czechoslovak army could hold out against a German attack unassisted by allies for three months.

It was assuming there would be Soviet assistance from their air force which never came.

 

[Craig B]

My reading is :



It was assuming there would be Soviet assistance from their air force which never came.

I am quoting from the bottom of the second para on the first page of the image of the book reproduced in your link, where that opinion is attributed to Stronge and to the head of the French military mission, described as a "seasoned observer". Other less sanguine opinions are related, but you chose to name Stronge. If you think he was wrong, why did you not direct our attention to the commentator you think is right.

May I say that the quality of your referencing of sources, and the choice of sources that you cite, are open to serious criticism, time and time again.

 

[Klimax]

By and large the defences were there to channel troops. There was a limit to the fire zones, and the whole Czech plan was to withdraw from the Western part to buy time. Post-Austria, this withdrawal became faster as they feared getting a large chunk of their army trapped by a pincer.

Thanks. I'd note that defenses in North-East Bohemia (Krkonoše and Orlické hory) were mostly complete including Heavy Objects, so any advance through that part would be fairly difficult. That includes terrain itself. (It's quite nasty)

See map I linked. (Heavy Objects by default are not shown)

I suspect that biggest problem for us would be Southern Moravia because of wide lowlands around river Dyje and that was concern he was talking about. (Also fits based on being narrowest point of republic)

This was how long (and I do wish I could find the reference) they would stand without significant Western intervention. Considering what happened the following year, the French would not have been in a position to do a great deal.

Where things change is what happened next.

As Pacal suggests, how would a Germany without the 2 or 300 Czech tanks fare against the French and British. I'm not convinced they would do any worse...however, the big question is what happens in the east. And I have no idea on that one.

Note: Absence of Czech tanks means that Germany had to invade us. There would be far bigger changes then that. For one, it would cost Germany a lot (soldiers and material) and factories would be in far worse condition. Also infrastructure wouldn't be intact. Also resistance would be easier, because population registers would be useless. (I suspect many people forget that this point)

East, I suspect would be sum of mobilization and travel time.

By and large the defences were there to channel troops. There was a limit to the fire zones, and the whole Czech plan was to withdraw from the Western part to buy time. Post-Austria, this withdrawal became faster as they feared getting a large chunk of their army trapped by a pincer.



This was how long (and I do wish I could find the reference) they would stand without significant Western intervention. Considering what happened the following year, the French would not have been in a position to do a great deal.

Where things change is what happened next.

As Pacal suggests, how would a Germany without the 2 or 300 Czech tanks fare against the French and British. I'm not convinced they would do any worse...however, the big question is what happens in the east. And I have no idea on that one.

According to the source cited in your link Stronge was of the opinion that CS could "hold the Germans for several months".

Several months? Bloody unlikely. Not that many soldiers and unfinished rearming. Also I don't think we had yet sufficient supplies like ammunition.

Maybe if we had finished Border Defenses as was planned,. we might have lasted longer because there would be salso second layer of defenses . Assuming attacker didn't develop better anti-bunker weapons...

As it says down the bottom of that book snippet (I can't see what book that page or two is from), the official military history of Czechoslovakia reckoned about a month with no support.

The idea of the Czech air force, even with Soviet support, raiding Vienna or any other German targets in any meaningful way is a bit optimistic as well.

Maybe six weeks. it would depend strongly on how well some of newer weapons (like AA guns) performed against German material.

 

[Hubert Cumberdale]

Weren't the "flying artillery" tactics already in place?
I know other parts were changed, but I thought the core tank and air support tactics were in place by Munich?

Its more than just "tactics in place"

Czechoslovakia, even though it was mostly achieved without shooting, taught the Germans a vast amount about how to co-ordinate and move armoured divisions through hostile territory.

This was priceless experience no one else in the world had at the time.

Although we think of Poland as a curb-stomp, it came as a pretty nasty shock to the Wehrmacht. They lost almost a thousand tanks, 25% of their aircraft, and around 20,000 fatal casualties.

Realising the depth of tactical and operational deficiencies - particularly of command, control, and co-ordination - they undertook a crash-retraining program to absorb the lessons learnt.

By the time you get to 1940, the Germans were using the lessons learnt in Czechoslovakia and Poland to good effect, their armies used captured Czech equipment, and the war was funded by looting the Polish and Czech gold reserves.

Standing up to Hitler in 1938 would have meant the Nazi state collapsing under the weight of its own fiscal incontinence long before it became a serious threat to any more of its neighbours.

 

[Hubert Cumberdale]

Well, in 1938 the Czech's didn't have Czech tanks, at least not the ones the Germans ended up nicking (the ones renamed Pz38t).

And the British hardly had any of the tanks they used in 1940. I don't think any Mathilda's had been delivered, for example.

As I said above, the Germans had a head start on pretty much everyone.
As for the Soviets, one of the questions raised over defending Czechoslovakia was how the Soviets could intervene meaningfully.

The Germans also didn't have much in the way of effective tanks in 1938. They could perhaps scrape together a hundred PzIII's and PzIV's and the rest were PzI's and PzII's which were hardly tanks at all.

 

[Hubert Cumberdale]

By and large the defences were there to channel troops. There was a limit to the fire zones, and the whole Czech plan was to withdraw from the Western part to buy time. Post-Austria, this withdrawal became faster as they feared getting a large chunk of their army trapped by a pincer.



This was how long (and I do wish I could find the reference) they would stand without significant Western intervention. Considering what happened the following year, the French would not have been in a position to do a great deal.

Where things change is what happened next.

As Pacal suggests, how would a Germany without the 2 or 300 Czech tanks fare against the French and British. I'm not convinced they would do any worse...however, the big question is what happens in the east. And I have no idea on that one.

Czech tanks made up just about all of the 6th Panzer Division, and all of the medium tanks the 7th Panzer and 8th Divisions.

Taking these away would leave Hoth's Corp with only 1 Panzer Division (not much of a Corp then) and deleting Kliest's XXXI Corps while only slightly bolstering the remaining Panzer Divisions with the left-overs.

Would it have made a difference to the outcome? Given the French command paralysis, probably not, but it certainly would have affected German planning which could have made a difference.

 

[Garrison]

Czech tanks made up just about all of the 6th Panzer Division, and all of the medium tanks the 7th Panzer and 8th Divisions.

Taking these away would leave Hoth's Corp with only 1 Panzer Division (not much of a Corp then) and deleting Kliest's XXXI Corps while only slightly bolstering the remaining Panzer Divisions with the left-overs.

Would it have made a difference to the outcome? Given the French command paralysis, probably not, but it certainly would have affected German planning which could have made a difference.

Well the command paralysis was in no small part due to the speed of the German advance and the unexpected direction they came from. In 1938 it's debatable whether the Germans could have mounted such a swift assault with much more limited armour (especially bearing in mind they would potentially have to worry about the eastern front as well) and that the Ardennes attack plan wasn't formulated until much later and only adopted because of a chain of circumstances unlikely to be repeated in 1938.

 

[Planigale]

Personally, I think it would have been quite jolly to have gone to war in 1938 with the might of the Czechs as allies, and weak little Germany, the war might have been over by Christmas. It's just that Chamberlain was taking military advice at the time, and advice and information from our secret service about Hitler's intentions. Britain was not up to the job at the time, and public opinion could not be disregarded.

There is an interesting opinion from 1952 about all this. I'm not sure this is entirely accurate:

http://www.carrollquigley.net/misc/Quigley_explains_how_Germany_conquered_Czechoslovakia.htm

What would have been the response in America if Czechs and Brits attacked Germany? Would it have reinforced as US isolationist position? Would Japan have moved on British far eastern possessions sooner?

 

[Hubert Cumberdale]

Well the command paralysis was in no small part due to the speed of the German advance and the unexpected direction they came from. In 1938 it's debatable whether the Germans could have mounted such a swift assault with much more limited armour (especially bearing in mind they would potentially have to worry about the eastern front as well) and that the Ardennes attack plan wasn't formulated until much later and only adopted because of a chain of circumstances unlikely to be repeated in 1938.

True. I was just commenting on the hypothetical "what if" scenario where Germany has no Czech tanks in 1940.

Although I think if a glacier had invaded France in 1940 it would still be moving inside Gamelin's decision making circle, I don't think the Germans would have formulated anything like Plan Yellow with two fewer Panzer Corps than they actually had.

 

[ddt]

Fair point.
The Saar defences were not in existence, but the line behind them was.
In essence the earlier defences were intended to forestall an attack in depth, sacrificing the ground around Aachen.

Aachen is much futher north, it's near the Dutch-Belgian-German border tripoint. How much behind the Saar defences was the line behind them?

The German plans (Green) had pretty much as many troops in the defences in the West as they had the following year, so that wouldn't make much odds.

OK. Which takes away from the offensive forces that could be deployed against CS.

It is possible a solid Czech defense, with a more aggressive French attack, would result in the Germans deciding to withdraw troops to the French frontier. But that involves an aggressive French command, which does not seem to have been the case.

The latter seems to me to have been the most deciding factor in the abject failure of the 1939 "invasion".

I'm also not convinced Poland would act.
After all, if they attacked Czechoslovakia then that would instantly open them up to Soviet reprisals.

And that would open up the possibility for the SU to transport troops and supplies to CS.

 

[Tolls]

Aachen is much futher north, it's near the Dutch-Belgian-German border tripoint. How much behind the Saar defences was the line behind them?

My error, sorry.
The wiki for the Siegfried Line has a nice map, and the building work for '39 was called Aachen-Saar. I should have said Saarbrucken.

The completed lines were about 30 miles back?

OK. Which takes away from the offensive forces that could be deployed against CS.

no different to '39, though. And these were fortification troops anyway. They would never be deployed for an offensive.

The latter seems to me to have been the most deciding factor in the abject failure of the 1939 "invasion".

And Gamelin (the root of the French problems) was in charge as well. I really don't see the French being anymore proactive in '38 than they were in '39.

And that would open up the possibility for the SU to transport troops and supplies to CS.

Which is why Poland wouldn't do it.
Hungary might have, though. Not that they were exactly a major force.

 

[Henri McPhee]

What would have been the response in America if Czechs and Brits attacked Germany? Would it have reinforced as US isolationist position? Would Japan have moved on British far eastern possessions sooner?

That's an intelligent comment and, in my opinion, something that was in the mind of Chamberlain at the time.

Part of the trouble is that much of the hard documentary historical evidence is still secret, or been destroyed. It has been said that more documents have been found and revealed in places like Moscow and Prague in recent years. I still think the German-Soviet pact was a load of bullcrap, like the Munich agreement, and Stalin was a fool to not appreciate that at the time. Poland was pro-German at the time of Munich.

This is a bit of waffle about Poland and the Czechs which I admit comes from a Russian perspective:

https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201709291057809731-munich-agreement-uk-france-italy-nazi/

 

[Craig B]

This is a bit of waffle about Poland and the Czechs which I admit comes from a Russian perspective:

https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201709291057809731-munich-agreement-uk-france-italy-nazi/

It does, and it duly displays a striking omission. Can you spot it?

When Stalin later observed the Anglo-French hesitance to go to Warsaw's aid when Nazi Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, "he could only have concluded that his putative 'allies' would have left the Soviet Union in similar straits," Carley stressed.

When Word War II was over the question arose as to whom to blame for the catastrophe. Incredible as it may seem, the Western powers pointed the finger of blame at the USSR​

Yes, you've spotted it. The entire history of the period 1939-1945 is deleted from the Sputnik account. We have poor Stalin forced into the Nazi pact in 1939; then we're immediately at poor Stalin forced into the Cold War in 1945, and nothing at all in between! No invasion of Poland. No annexations of the Baltic states. No Winter War, no refusal to believe the evidence of Nazi intentions to invade the USSR ... nothing of any of this. Remarkable? No.

 

[ddt]

My error, sorry.
The wiki for the Siegfried Line has a nice map, and the building work for '39 was called Aachen-Saar. I should have said Saarbrucken.

The completed lines were about 30 miles back?

Thank you. Make that less than 30 km. For a measure of size on that map, put Aachen-Cologne at 100 km (actually a bit less I think). It says the "Limes" part of the Siegfried Line was started on in 1938, but also:

The Siegfried Line at the start of the Second World War had serious weaknesses. German General Alfred Jodl said after the war that it was "little better than a building site in 1939", and when Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt inspected the line, the weak construction and insufficient weapons caused him to laugh.

so it's not clear how much was finished at the time of Munich.

And Gamelin (the root of the French problems) was in charge as well. I really don't see the French being anymore proactive in '38 than they were in '39.

Oh yes, I agree.

 

[Henri McPhee]

It does, and it duly displays a striking omission. Can you spot it?

When Stalin later observed the Anglo-French hesitance to go to Warsaw's aid when Nazi Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, "he could only have concluded that his putative 'allies' would have left the Soviet Union in similar straits," Carley stressed.

When Word War II was over the question arose as to whom to blame for the catastrophe. Incredible as it may seem, the Western powers pointed the finger of blame at the USSR​

Yes, you've spotted it. The entire history of the period 1939-1945 is deleted from the Sputnik account. We have poor Stalin forced into the Nazi pact in 1939; then we're immediately at poor Stalin forced into the Cold War in 1945, and nothing at all in between! No invasion of Poland. No annexations of the Baltic states. No Winter War, no refusal to believe the evidence of Nazi intentions to invade the USSR ... nothing of any of this. Remarkable? No.

I agree that article has a Russian bias. We don't know for certain what Stalin was thinking at the time because it was secret, apart from that he was suspicious of the British. Personally, I think Stalin was fooled by Hitler with empty promises of land grabs in the Baltic states and Eastern Poland and that Stalin was complacent about the grave peril he was in. There is some background waffle about all this at this website:

http://spartacus-educational.com/2WWmunich.htm

Munich Agreement
Benito Mussolini suggested to Hitler that one way of solving this issue was to hold a four-power conference of Germany, Britain, France and Italy. This would exclude both Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union, and therefore increasing the possibility of reaching an agreement and undermine the solidarity that was developing against Germany. The meeting took place in Munich on 29th September, 1938. Desperate to avoid war, and anxious to avoid an alliance with Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union, Chamberlain and Daladier agreed that Germany could have the Sudetenland. In return, Hitler promised not to make any further territorial demands in Europe.

 

[Garrison]

I agree that article has a Russian bias. We don't know for certain what Stalin was thinking at the time because it was secret, apart from that he was suspicious of the British. Personally, I think Stalin was fooled by Hitler with empty promises of land grabs in the Baltic states and Eastern Poland and that Stalin was complacent about the grave peril he was in.

You do understand that the USSR actually got all those things? Hitler, for once, stuck to his bargain.

There is some background waffle about all this at this website:

http://spartacus-educational.com/2WWmunich.htm

And why exactly did you feel the need to reiterate the origins of the Munich conference? And quoting yet another second-rate source.

 

[ddt]

You do understand that the USSR actually got all those things?

And actually some more. In the original Molotov-Ribbentrop plan, Lithuania belonged to Germany's influence sphere, but that was amended to become Soviet. And when Stalin grabbed Bessarabia from Romania, he also grabbed the Northern Bukovina which was not planned. Hitler did not protest, but then Romania was particularly the whipping boy among his allies - losing about one third of its territory.

Hitler, for once, stuck to his bargain.

Cough cough. Hitler also stuck to the bargain of Munich - for half a year.

 

[theprestige]

You do understand that the USSR actually got all those things? Hitler, for once, stuck to his bargain.

I read it differently: The USSR thought they were getting those things, and actually Hitler went so far as to allow them to take those things... right before he reneged on the deal and set out to take those things back.