Poland not Czechoslovakia

What if Hitler had attacked Poland taking back former German territory and possibly then the rest of Poland like he did with Czechoslovakia?

Would France, Britain and Russia been drawn into full scale war with Germany or would they have done something similar to what they did at Czechoslovakia?
 
Besides international outrage and likely much swifter intervention, Poland was far to strong at the time for Germany to invade at the time it invaded Czechoslovakia, it would be a disaster for Germany, allied intervention or no allied intervention.
 
What if Hitler had attacked Poland taking back former German territory and possibly then the rest of Poland like he did with Czechoslovakia?

Would France, Britain and Russia been drawn into full scale war with Germany or would they have done something similar to what they did at Czechoslovakia?

After Hitler took Prague Britain and France were only willing to fight to the last Pole. Before that they were in full appeasement mode. Their involvement would not be likely.

Besides international outrage and likely much swifter intervention, Poland was far to strong at the time for Germany to invade at the time it invaded Czechoslovakia, it would be a disaster for Germany, allied intervention or no allied intervention.

Stalin would have been happy to offer a helping hand in case of any problems.
 
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Poland was far to strong at the time for Germany to invade at the time it invaded Czechoslovakia

Poland in March 1939 was too strong for Germany to invade? Ridiculous.

The balance tipped in favour of Germany a long time before that, by 1936/1937.
 
What if Hitler had attacked Poland taking back former German territory and possibly then the rest of Poland like he did with Czechoslovakia?

Would France, Britain and Russia been drawn into full scale war with Germany or would they have done something similar to what they did at Czechoslovakia?

How would Hitler have even been able to attempt this? If Hitler had tried anything against the Polish Commonwealth, they'd have marched right over Germany, just like they did in WWI after Germany provoked them that time. Really, it's a wonder Poland restrained themselves after Hitler went after their fellow Slavs in Czechoslovakia.
 
How would Hitler have even been able to attempt this? If Hitler had tried anything against the Polish Commonwealth, they'd have marched right over Germany, just like they did in WWI after Germany provoked them that time. Really, it's a wonder Poland restrained themselves after Hitler went after their fellow Slavs in Czechoslovakia.

Is this a DBWI?
 
Before that they were in full appeasement mode. Their involvement would not be likely.
Not entirely correct, they were in a "oh crap, we don't have an army to stop this madman, we should stall for time to build an army" mode.
 
If the question is about Hitler turning up the aggression in Poland instead of the annexation of Czechia in or around March '39 it might not involve the Allies; after all they only stopped with the appeasement once he invaded lands that didn't have lots of Germans in them.

My predictions: Allies do nothing initially and it comes to a shooting war between Poland (like hell are the Poles ceding territory willingly at this point;) ) and Germany.

With the Wehrmacht less well prepared, no or later Soviet intervention in the East (probably an after-the-fact treaty to appease Stalin with historical or near-historical territorial division) and maybe a more complete mobilization in Poland, the war lasts longer, say 3-4 months, until the Poles are defeated, and the Wehrmacht's casualties are probably over 200k all told with >60k dead (OTL, Poland was the Nazis' firs campaign and they actually did horribly for casualties given the vast superiority they had - in excess of 50k casualties out of which almost a third died outright).

Hitler being Hitler occupies it all, not just the border claims (and gives Stalin the east), and the Allies are furious at him for it. If they don't declare at once to take advantage of the Wehrmacht being (bloodied) in Poland, they will the next time Hitler puts a half a toe out of line.
 
THe "needing" Czeck arms is largely a myth - at least in regard of the attack on Poland - even units established in Czechoslovakia (E.G. the 10 th Panzerdivision were formed with units detached from other - established units)

All Infantry divisions were equipped with German weapons (1.-4. Aufstellungswelle)

Only beginning with the 5. Aufstellungswelle (September - 93.–96. ID, 98. ID) the Germans began to use Czech made weapons. (and in the case of Case Yellow its was "only" 350 of 2500 German tanks that were czech made).

The most important contribution was the long border that could be used for attack.

So from a military POV its possible to attack poland without first occupying Czechoslovakia.

From a political POV I assume that the occupation of "rest" czechoslovakia triggered the British and French comittment - So taking the Sudetenland and the shifting the attention to Poland (I assume a Molotov-Ribbentrop variant is still in force) has a cjhnce to catch the french and Brits before they could committ themseves to come to Polands aid.

So if Germany attacked Poland in spring 39 it might make a short war gaining Danzig the corridor and maybe some more border adjustment but the Entente might threaten war and < rump poland (like a rump Czech republic might survive).
 
OP, IIRC, Poland had no Sudetenland equivalent to speak of.

Maybe you could, marginally, get a Quisling Silesia or Kashubia ? But that's about it. The German nazis invading Poland in the exact same vein as Czechoslovakia I don't see happening.
 
OP, IIRC, Poland had no Sudetenland equivalent to speak of.

Danzig is the only somewhat similar thing.

Not entirely correct, they were in a "oh crap, we don't have an army to stop this madman, we should stall for time to build an army" mode.

It won't make a difference at this point. After Hitler broke the Munich agreement, war seemed imminent. This is not to say that Britain and France were completely oblivious to what was going on before that point, but it took the breaking of Munich for them to view the situation as urgent. In this scenario no similar event has occurred. So I wouldn't even expect guarantees designed only to divert German aggression away from themselves, let alone military intervention.

This, by the way, might butterfly the Polish-German conflict altogether. Hitler's original plan was to draw Poland into the Axis and use it to fight the USSR. If Britain and France don't even pretend that they want to help Poland, this can succeed.
 
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(and in the case of Case Yellow its was "only" 350 of 2500 German tanks that were czech made).

Oh, maybe even less. There is the small detail that they were real tanks, with suitable armor for their time and 37mm guns + MGs, as opposed to some nearly 1,000 Pz Is which were actually 2-crewman tankettes armed only with MGs and another 1,100 Pz II very light tanks with their 20mm gun, of marginal use both against personnel and tanks.

The most important contribution was the long border that could be used for attack.

Yes, well, the end part of that lengthened border came with its own second-tier divisions, three Slovakian infantry divisions. While we're at it, we might remember them too.

So from a military POV its possible to attack poland without first occupying Czechoslovakia.

Possible, sure.

From a political POV I assume that the occupation of "rest" czechoslovakia triggered the British and French comittment - So taking the Sudetenland and the shifting the attention to Poland (I assume a Molotov-Ribbentrop variant is still in force) has a cjhnce to catch the french and Brits before they could committ themseves to come to Polands aid.

You should detach the British from the French here. The former provided their guarantee to Poland after the Germans dropped their mask in Prague, but the latter were already Poland's allies.
 
You should detach the British from the French here. The former provided their guarantee to Poland after the Germans dropped their mask in Prague, but the latter were already Poland's allies.


Valid point - but in hindsight I believe the French looked to London first when deciding policy vs Germany
 
OP, IIRC, Poland had no Sudetenland equivalent to speak of.

Maybe you could, marginally, get a Quisling Silesia or Kashubia ? But that's about it. The German nazis invading Poland in the exact same vein as Czechoslovakia I don't see happening.

Are you sure? What about the German lands (West Prussia, Posen and Upper Silesia) lost at the end of World War One. Didn't they have very large German populations.
 
Are you sure? What about the German lands (West Prussia, Posen and Upper Silesia) lost at the end of World War One. Didn't they have very large German populations.
No, or at least not any more. Most of the areas Germany lost in WWI did not have a German majority. Well, Danzig still had a German majority. Some towns at the border had a German majority at least in 1918 and some parts had voted to remain part of Germany (even if they didn't have a German majority), but were forced to become Polish. But these were only small border areas. Most of the areas that became Polish had a Polish, Silesian or Kashubian majority.
 
So the only real option for a similar Sudetenland would be in Danzig and few boarder areas.
Would their be any areas of Poland that could be disputed as part of a so called Polish Sudetenland?
 
So the only real option for a similar Sudetenland would be in Danzig and few boarder areas.
Would their be any areas of Poland that could be disputed as part of a so called Polish Sudetenland?

The Sudetenland was a continuous German-majority area along the border with some 3.5 million Germans. In Poland there were only tiny "islands" where Germans were a majority. The number of Germans in the whole of Poland at the time was less then a million, including Germans living outside the pre-1914 German border in places like Łódź.

I suppose a few border villages or towns mostly populated by Germans could be found, but they'd be too small to be worth bothering about, and someone cheeky could point out that analogous border villages full of Poles who had actually voted to join Poland in the last plebiscite could also be found on the German side...

The (non-German) populations of the corridor and Upper Silesia had already identified with the Polish nation before WWI, pretty much no chance of any separatism there.

So it's only Danzig.
 
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