Czech not giving in in 1938?

[The Red]

Of course I'm not proposing Soviets in Berlin: that's silly. But I am proposing that a German-Soviet war is no kind of "dream" unless the Germans are going to win. If they can scrape a draw, why do it?

Why is that silly? Germany and Poland against the Soviets and the Czechs would be more likely to go the Soviets way than the other.

 

[Mikestone8]

Of course I'm not proposing Soviets in Berlin: that's silly.

What's silly about it? It sounds only too possible to me.

Indeed, I suspect that was one reason why the Czechs chose not to fight alone. If all it would mean is that they get occupied by Stalin instead of Hitler, then why fight? Is the difference between the two really great enough to be worth sacrificing any lives for?

 

[I Blame Communism]

Why is that silly? Germany and Poland against the Soviets and the Czechs would be more likely to go the Soviets way than the other.

I think the Soviets could win, but winning will mean an altogether different thing. Britain and France, not having fought a war of mass-mobilisation against the Nazis or been occupied, are not going to be keen on red Europe, and Stalin is not keen on risking more general involvement, so I think a Soviet win would probably mean the Voluntary Incorporation of the Grateful Baltic Peoples who we Intervened to Protect during the War against Fascism, a revision of Poland's borders, a round of Finlandisation and Interbellum Turkisatian, and so on. Like OTL a defensive buffer, but less extensive.

 

[I Blame Communism]

What's silly about it? It sounds only too possible to me.

Indeed, I suspect that was one reason why the Czechs chose not to fight alone. If all it would mean is that they get occupied by Stalin instead of Hitler, then why fight? Is the difference between the two really great enough to be worth sacrificing any lives for?

When you're a Slav, defo ("My son won't die a shepherd!"); not to mention all the votes the Czech commies were getting even before the war.

The reason the Czechs decided not to fight was because their allies had left them in the lurch - the USSR probably wasn't going to fight (they weren't actually committed to if France didn't, IIRC) as they were very worried at being decoyed into it by the Entente: my scenario rests on the escalation of a Polish-Soviet FUBAR - and they didn't particular want to be blown up to make things easier for the other powers in a war that they didn't know was going to be fought.

 

[Zaius]

Would the Soviets actually want to go all the way to Berlin? They undeniably have the upper hand if the war becomes protracted, but they would have to overrun the whole of Poland and half of Germany including its capital. It would have been a long and difficult struggle. And Britain and France might turn against them.

What's silly about it? It sounds only too possible to me.

Indeed, I suspect that was one reason why the Czechs chose not to fight alone. If all it would mean is that they get occupied by Stalin instead of Hitler, then why fight? Is the difference between the two really great enough to be worth sacrificing any lives for?

I think it is risky to assume that resistance would have automatically resulted in a Soviet occupation. Even the Polish/German - Czechoslovak/Soviet war in itself is rather unlikely. Why would Benes have considered it the only (or even the most probable) alternative to submitting to German demands peacefully?

 

[The Red]

I think the Soviets could win, but winning will mean an altogether different thing. Britain and France, not having fought a war of mass-mobilisation against the Nazis or been occupied, are not going to be keen on red Europe, and Stalin is not keen on risking more general involvement, so I think a Soviet win would probably mean the Voluntary Incorporation of the Grateful Baltic Peoples who we Intervened to Protect during the War against Fascism, a revision of Poland's borders, a round of Finlandisation, and so on. Like OTL a defensive buffer, but less extensive.

Whilst that outcome may be preferable to the British and the French, I can't see Hitler going for it, I could see him opting to fight till the end rather than endure humiliation at the hands of Stalin and Benes.

Of course if this happens Britain and France may be forced into intervene so that Germany and Poland (at least some of it) don't go red, of course this won't be very difficult as public opinion begins to resemble this:

 

[Eurofed]

Leaving more to build all those tanks that Germany doesn't have? We're not adding and subtracting from the '39 or '41 numbers here. The German army of '38 is smaller and severely underarmoured even before its arduous battle with the Czechs.

But Germany is eventually going to go build some more tanks, and the Soviets too, no doubt, aren't they ? How long do you picture this war would last ?

Of course I'm not proposing Soviets in Berlin: that's silly.

OK, as long as that is taken off the table, a lot of my objections disappear.

But I am proposing that a German-Soviet war is no kind of "dream" unless the Germans are going to win. If they can scrape a draw, why do it?

Well, nobody said that Hitler's dreams were actually any feasible or beneficial to his own people, even from an amoral perspective. But this scenario looks like it would screw Germany much less than OTL and it would be the kind of strategic scenario Hitler wanted to get in Europe (regardless of how it would actually turned out; I meant "dream" in that sense).

How isolationist now? I am only talking about measures already taken in terms of re-armament - measures that certainly entered German calculations.

Oh, US (and Entente) rearmament is all good. What I meant is that FDR would not have the political ground to undermine German war effort in any way. In other words, Germany would be free to trade with the USA.

People aren't going to get amnesia. They made these offers and Hitler refused. They're going to keep hoping for the success of appeasement - if the same people stay in charge - but there was always a large element of caution in the policy.

Caution is all good and of course the Entente is not going to disarm just because Hilter and Stalin are duking it out in Eastern Europe. What I meant is that a German-Soviet war makes a well-armed Germany look a bit less threatening to the Entente, since it makes look like those weapons are not most likely aimed to them. Odd political butterflies can always happen of course, but I see nothing in this scenario that makes it any probable that the Churchill-Eden faction is going to seize control of the Conservative Party in 1938-40, or even after Chamberlain dies. And for all that I know, the Conservatives are most likely to win the 1940 elections ITTL.

It is interesting that, after lecturing us about how presidential leadership doesn't mean you can just do whatever, you apparently assume that prime-ministerial leadership does.

Point taken. But then again, this kind of war in Eastern Europe is not going to discredit Chamberlain's policy.

So in spite of the fact that it's not winter... and it's a series of foresty and swampy tracts and a heavily fortified isthmi which negate numerical advantage... it will be just like that war the Soviets won on the battlefield when they rolled up their sleeves and went at it?

Oh, I have no doubt that in the end, even the crappy 1938-40 Red Army is going to overrun and crush the Poles (or the Romanians, hypothetically speaking) in an effectively solo fight, just as it did with the Finns. The manpower and industrial equation would be unsustainable. But to do it before the Germans can deal with the Czech and re-equip, this may be a different matter.

I don't see what's so great about a war with the Soviets that you don't expect to win.

In all likelihood, they lose it much less bad than OTL.

It seems to me that you feel compelled to argue that practically any PoD benefits the German regime. This one doesn't. That's why they decided, after assesing the situation, not to have a war in 1938.

TTL scenario is quite different both from the case where the Entente backs CZS and from the OTL case, however.

I take issue with the terminology of Puir Wee Nazis.

I used "gangbang" in a morally neutral way, just to remark the massive unbalance of forces. No question that IOTL the Nazi brought it on themselves.

 

[Eurofed]

I think the Soviets could win, but winning will mean an altogether different thing. Britain and France, not having fought a war of mass-mobilisation against the Nazis or been occupied, are not going to be keen on red Europe, and Stalin is not keen on risking more general involvement, so I think a Soviet win would probably mean the Voluntary Incorporation of the Grateful Baltic Peoples who we Intervened to Protect during the War against Fascism, a revision of Poland's borders, a round of Finlandisation and Interbellum Turkisatian, and so on. Like OTL a defensive buffer, but less extensive.

As long as this is what we mean when we talk about a realistic Soviet victory, it's fine with me.

 

[Major Major]

You forgot something:

The Führer sat at his desk in the Chancellery, trembling with joy as he reviewed the dispatches from the front. The machine of mobilization was rolling, and now that the white-livered Judaified French and British had caved in before his Indomitable Will, he would crush the inferior Slavic subhuman Czechs like an eggshell.

An aide entered. Hitler looked up, and saw the barrel of a pistol pointed at him. The man bellowed in a mock Austrian accent, “HASTA LA VISTA, BABEE . . .”

Read The Oster Conspiracy of 1938: The Unknown Story of the Military Plot to Kill Hitler and Avert World War II, by Terry Parssinen (2003; HarperCollns: ISBN 0-06-019587-8). There was a coup plotted against Hitler and the triggering event was to be a declaration of war against Czechoslovakia. The Army knew it would be a hard war and they were not ready for one. Some thought they had to take the ultimate decisive step . . .

Book:
http://www.amazon.com/Oster-Conspir...=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1316885998&sr=1-1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRxaXmXvjnU&feature=related

 

[Barbarossa Rotbart]

If Germany had declared war on Czechoslovakia in 1938, then a military coup would had happened replacing Hitler's 'Führerstaat' with a military dictatorship. He did not knew that only the peaceful solution of Munich saved his regime (and brought his critics to his side) and that the war he wanted would have been his end. So it is very unrealistic that the Second World War could have started in 1938

 

[ivanotter]

On the coup theory. William Shirer does not exactly give it many chances. He basically calls these atempts feeble and not having a chance of success.

 

[Barbarossa Rotbart]

There is a difference between the failed assassination attempts and the plan to depose Hitler if he starts a war themilitary believes that they cannot win. The success of Munich killed that plan and allowed Hitler to start his war one year later, because now even the military believed that neither France or England would help Poland against Germany after they did not help Czechoslovakia.

 

[Eurofed]

On the coup theory. William Shirer does not exactly give it many chances. He basically calls these atempts feeble and not having a chance of success.

I'd put much more credit on modern scholarship on the German Resistance than on Shirer. His work showed major failings, such as a crude understanding of German history (his idea that there is a direct evolutionary path from Luther to Hitler is laughable) and ignorance of the nature of totalitarianism. The book shows the typical anti-German bias of immediate post-war interpretations of Nazism. As such, it is to be expected that he would neglect the efforts and accomplishments of the German Resistance.

 

[Mikestone8]

On the coup theory. William Shirer does not exactly give it many chances. He basically calls these atempts feeble and not having a chance of success.

And even if it does, what then?

The army did not disagree with Germany's claim to the Sudetenland (though they might have given Danzig a higher priority) only to its timing. Do the powers reject the claim in 1938 only to concede it to another (equally undemocratic) German government a few years later?

Also these Prussian generals were themselves a pretty antisemitic lot, so there is no reason to assume that the Nuremburg Laws will necessarily be repealed. Without benefit of hindsight (even Kristallnacht was still in the future, never mind the Holocaust) would other powers have any reason to suppose that a change of government in Berlin would even help the Jews much, if indeed at all?

 

[Eurofed]

While it is extremely likely that the Nazi regime would be overthrown by a military coup if the Entente sides with Czechoslovakia (the coup was well prepared, and had strong backing in the officer corps, that unversally dreaded this war), this scenario is however quite different.

ITTL the Entente powers have assented to the Munich Agreement, that removes the threat of a war with them, and gives Germany a green light to invade a defiant Czechoslovakia. Germany may be slightly weaker in 1938 and CZS a slightly tougher nut than Poland but I do not believe for a moment that it would entail any more than a slightly longer time for Germany to overrun it even in a worst case scenario. So IMO it is not any believable that the Heer would dread a solo war with CZS to the point of launching a coup.

Soviet intervention makes things more... volatile and difficult to predict in this regard.

 

[Eurofed]

The army did not disagree with Germany's claim to the Sudetenland (though they might have given Danzig a higher priority) only to its timing. Do the powers reject the claim in 1938 only to concede it to another (equally undemocratic) German government a few years later?

If a different German government makes its irredentist claim on the Sudetenland in a more diplomatically polite way, that stresses ist national self-determination nature, quite likely. Say a post-Nazi government tones down rearmament (necessary anyway to stabilize the German economy after Hitler's reckless expenditures) and seeks a detente with the Entente, and in a few years renews the claim on the Sudetenland in the form of an internationally-monitored plebiscite, instead of immediate military occupation like Hitler asked, it is quite likely that any Entente government but the most rabid anti-Germans would agree. The Sudetenland Germans were still 90% of the population of the region, and they had never given consent to their incorporation in CZS.

In late 1930's all continental Europe short of Benelux and Scandinavia was not democratic. The Entente powers dealt with it all the time nonetheless. And if the Sudetenland Germans prefer national reunification under a junta regime than to be a minority in a democratic country, it's not the business of third party foreign powers to deny them.

Also these Prussian generals were themselves a pretty antisemitic lot,

Actually they were themselves a pretty anti-Polish lot, but antisemitism was not really more strong or widespread among them than among the rest of the Western elites.

so there is no reason to assume that the Nuremburg Laws will necessarily be repealed. Without benefit of hindsight (even Kristallnacht was still in the future, never mind the Holocaust) would other powers have any reason to suppose that a change of government in Berlin would even help the Jews much, if indeed at all?

In all likelihood, they would fairly swiftly repeal the Nuremburg Laws, if nothing else for the reason that it wins them easy brownie points with the influential Jewish lobby in the Western powers with no domestic political cost (the German people at large is at worst indifferent to those laws).

 

[Snake Featherston]

The Czech defying the Munich Agreement would be Hitler's dream scenario. Now he can proceed to invade and annex all of Bohemia-Moravia with the blessing of a Britain disgusted with Czech bullheadedness. The French won't do anything without British support, and the Poles are in all likelihood going to support Germany for a piece of the action, even more so and especially if they even suspect that the Soviets are behind Czech defiance.

No way the Czech can win in a solo fight, the Germans can easily bypass Czech defenses by going through the Austrian section of the border, and the Slovaks cannot be relied upon to fight for Czechoslovakia, they were on the brink of secession and switching to the side of Germany (and if they weren't, Hungary can be expected to jump in to grab in, which is part of the reason the Slovaks were willing to switch sides).

If the Soviets actually escalate the situation to military intervention, this becomes even more of Hitler's dream scenario, he can fight the Soviets with an alliance with Poland and the benevolent neutrality of Britain and France.

Actually the only power equipped at all to fight WWII as we know it at this point is the Soviet Union. They only have to be better than the Powers of 1938. They go in and it's a short and ludicrously short at that German curbstomp. Romania actually offered to railroad Soviet troops through its territory in 1938, so the Germans start invading Czechoslovakia and face 1 million well-armed troops only to realize that the sheer quantity of Soviet forces is also en route to smash them......

And they won't have any Land-Lease. And the Red Army was much more of a mess in 1938-39 than in 1941, when serious action had been taken to correct the flaws revealed by the Winter War. While the Poles are fighting the war they long prepared for.

While the German army's pitifully short of tanks and has nothing whatsoever to fight even a short war, much less one against the USSR of 1938. The only beneficiary of this war is the Soviet Union, the purges haven't completely slaughtered its officer corps here and with an enormous amount of armor v. a state which needed a full third of its armor from the very factories it has to fight for here......Stalin's wet dream is this scenario.

Again, if the Entente drops appeasement at Munich, there won't be any war since German generals put a gun to Hitler's neck as soon as he starts making belligerant rumors.

Why people have to try forcibly defaulting any conceivable alt-WWII scenario to the OTL anti-German screw-up or worse, regardless of actual circumstances ? Despite what some may think, the supreme concern of the universe is not to screw Nazi Germany even if man-eating demons invade the Earth.

Because the USSR was the professionals in the evil dicks sweepstakes where the Nazis were incompetent, self-destructive amateurs?

As long as this is what we mean when we talk about a realistic Soviet victory, it's fine with me.

If you're thinking Shattered World, it ain't gonna happen. Fighting 1 million Czechs + the Soviet army can only end one way for Germany's generals, and that's Germany winding up in the Soviet sphere along with Czechoslovakia and Poland. A Wilhelmine state that survives could win another war with the USSR due to having the right-sized army and logistical network to do that, Nazi Germany needs the USSR to fuck up to win, it cannot win on its own power.

 

[Snake Featherston]

I think the Soviets could win, but winning will mean an altogether different thing. Britain and France, not having fought a war of mass-mobilisation against the Nazis or been occupied, are not going to be keen on red Europe, and Stalin is not keen on risking more general involvement, so I think a Soviet win would probably mean the Voluntary Incorporation of the Grateful Baltic Peoples who we Intervened to Protect during the War against Fascism, a revision of Poland's borders, a round of Finlandisation and Interbellum Turkisatian, and so on. Like OTL a defensive buffer, but less extensive.

Depends on how stupid Hitler is in this scenario, if he thinks it's an easy chance to get Lebensraum early and then reality sets in......

 

[Snake Featherston]

While it is extremely likely that the Nazi regime would be overthrown by a military coup if the Entente sides with Czechoslovakia (the coup was well prepared, and had strong backing in the officer corps, that unversally dreaded this war), this scenario is however quite different.

ITTL the Entente powers have assented to the Munich Agreement, that removes the threat of a war with them, and gives Germany a green light to invade a defiant Czechoslovakia. Germany may be slightly weaker in 1938 and CZS a slightly tougher nut than Poland but I do not believe for a moment that it would entail any more than a slightly longer time for Germany to overrun it even in a worst case scenario. So IMO it is not any believable that the Heer would dread a solo war with CZS to the point of launching a coup.

Soviet intervention makes things more... volatile and difficult to predict in this regard.

Eurofed, I get that you think that when the Nazi Party's created generals claimed they hated Hitler then that you took them seriously. The problem is that as with most of what you say about Nazi Germany reality completely contradicts this.

 

[The Red]

While it is extremely likely that the Nazi regime would be overthrown by a military coup if the Entente sides with Czechoslovakia (the coup was well prepared, and had strong backing in the officer corps, that unversally dreaded this war), this scenario is however quite different.

ITTL the Entente powers have assented to the Munich Agreement, that removes the threat of a war with them, and gives Germany a green light to invade a defiant Czechoslovakia. Germany may be slightly weaker in 1938 and CZS a slightly tougher nut than Poland but I do not believe for a moment that it would entail any more than a slightly longer time for Germany to overrun it even in a worst case scenario. So IMO it is not any believable that the Heer would dread a solo war with CZS to the point of launching a coup.

Soviet intervention makes things more... volatile and difficult to predict in this regard.

You're overestimating the Germans and underestimating the Czechs. The Czechs were much better armed than the Poles and the Germans are weaker than they were in 1939 with few Panzer 3's and 4's. Also unless the Poland are involved from the start they're attacking mountainous fortifications instead of flat plains as well. This is going to take several months and cause high German casualties.