DBWI: The War That Came Late

So, I just finished Turtletaub's The War That Came Late, where the 1938 Munich Giveaway of Czechoslovakia doesn't fall apart and the German annex the Czech's land intact. And I have to say, it was pretty damn good.
There are a few liberties taken, especially in the early books (a Panzer Attack in the Ardennes is used to take out France, for instance), but overall its a really good read. I was a pretty big fan of the whole 'Hitler vs. Stalin' part of the war from OTL getting put on steroids (although, again, some liberties are taken: Germany, with only minor aid from a bunch of minor countries like Romania, manages to advance further than they did with the help of Britain and France in OTL).
What I can't decide is if Turtletaub's world is better or worse off than ours. Sure, he makes it so Japan's a lot weaker by late '44 and hasn't sowed half the Pacific with various diseases, but Stalin's grabbed a bigger chunk of Europe, a few million Jews are dead and Germany's been reduced to a pile of rubble.
So...any opinions on it?
 
I skimmed large sections, but did not read it throughly, so take these comments accordingly. Main thing that struck me was the dependency on the leaders of France, Italy, the USSR, Japan, to a lesser extent the US, and to a great extent Britain, going over their allowance in boneheaded decisions. Facist Germany almost gets a free pass on a extended series of high risk political ventures. It is true stupidity is endemic in human history, but the TL laid out in this book takes some sort of prize for it.

Maybe if I do read the books again the decisions will seem more logical, but thats my take at this point.
 
Maybe if I do read the books again the decisions will seem more logical, but thats my take at this point.

I read a lot of those as the Allies being more afraid of Stalin than Hitler; They might have been trying to use him as a buffer state against the Reds, maybe?
 

Archibald

Banned
a Panzer Attack in the Ardennes is used to take out France, for instance

Give Turtletaub a break, he drew inspiration from the 1870 Franco-Prussian war. He added some stupidity on the French HQ side, and voilà, poof, German breakthrough. Although he went a little too far in the allohistorical similitudes: having a flight of Amiot 143 shot down in a despair charge at the exact same place where in 1870 General
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Auguste_Margueritte
was mortally wounded in the great cavalry charge... oh please... HE WAS A LITTLE HEAVY HANDED THERE;
 
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The thinking seems more muddled that that. Some Brit or French leaders are presented as thinking this, a buffer, but the majority seem to be given by the author the idea that they were somehow inferior to the German military of 1936-38 & wanted to buy time to rearm. On the face of it this seems very stupid, but the author has multiple French and British military leaders All thinking the Germans far stronger than they were.

Beyond that I really need to read the book.
 
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