Not quite sure the League would unify and all immediately oppose Germany. When Italy invaded Ethiopia, when Japan caused trouble in China, the League protested a bit but did nothing much more than that. Munich was the straw that broke the camels back.
I'm not "sure" either but the League was a thing that did exist, until Munich broke its back. It troubles me absolutely no one on this thread takes its existence into account, even just to dismiss it. Up to Munich, the dithering of the League reflected the dithering of France and Britain, its backbone. And surely that did a lot to undermine its potential already. As a practical matter, there is nothing the League can do to protect Czechoslovakia; the other nations bordering on the Reich were sympathetic to Germany or teetering on the edge of joining the Axis (Hungary, Italy), the three northwestern kingdoms of Denmark, Netherlands and Belgium, Yugoslavia and Switzerland. And Liechtenstein and Luxembourg in all their might! So there are no real prospects for action I suppose. However the OP, vague as it is, does premise that Britain and France show the resolve to declare war if Hitler attacks Czechoslovakia and does not tie that republics self defense in any way either--so Hitler is being told take a hike. We might consider whether even confident the two superpowers will follow through and not rest until either they are conquered, exhausted after giving their all, or Czechoslovakia is liberated, Benes, or someone replacing him after he is thrown out, might consider surrendering and hoping they get points for that from Hitler anyway, because of the impracticality of any of these powers, or the Soviets, coming directly to their aid. The OP assumes though that the Czechoslovaks do fight.
In the circumstances, the League as such accomplishes nothing perhaps, in the first months of the war anyway. But anyway I do think the British and French will attempt to make it the vehicle of their war against Hitler, just as the UN was eventually created as another packaging of "the Allies." I suppose it will be in abeyance even in this sense since nations bordering on Germany either don't want to or don't dare (except for Czechoslovakia anyway) to be seen voting for a League disciplinary action against Germany. Initially the League will simply remain silent on the war and will be irrelevant I suppose. But this will change later, especially if France does not fall; eventually the next nation in Hitler's path will have a real choice, to either submit or join the allies, and the others will be stricken completely or represented in Geneva by governments in exile, and at some point this League will retroactively vote to support the Anglo-French war as a League action and organize the completion of the war. This League in turn will be a rubber stamp for joint Anglo-French decisions, but there will be some political value in maintaining it, as a vehicle for communication and coordination of the war effort recruiting everyone outside Axis control, and postwar as a peacekeeping organization. It may not be even as effective and important overall as the UN has been, but it will fill that role rather than reinventing this wheel I think, because I think what killed the League was Munich. The idea of collective security was dead when the two main bastions of it decided to treat an innocent nation like so much fish bait. That is not happening here.
Plus Belgium and the Netherlands were pretty desperate to appear and act strictly neutral, to the point that they didn't invite the Allied troops in, even in March 1940 when it was obvious that the Germans were going to invade in the very near future. Why would that change with a 1938 war?
I have to remember that I wrote a whole lot more than I posted and edited it down for courtesy, which I guess I will not get any thanks for! Impossible to please people. Anyway, I have to concede this is basically true...but what it means is that as OTL, if Hitler is going to attack France through Belgium he must also attack the Netherlands at the same time, because if he does not the Dutch must face that either they throw in with Britain for what help the Commonwealth can give or they might as well surrender.
Or...third option..prepare the defenses, and prepare to join the Allies if Germany does attack. As pointed out in A Blunted Sickle, the Netherlands at least had a serious plan of self-defense that involved flooding the polders and retreating to the far west, evacuating the people and defending behind a huge moat this would create. Since the 1938 war is a new setting, if Hitler is going to do everything he did OTL because that worked, we have to do the dice rolls over again. Until reading A Blunted Sickle, I assumed that the events of spring 1940 were all pretty much fated, foredoomed by the basic strategic situation including the Fall of France. Now I stopped reading that other TL because I decided the author had some unreasonable stances, although those were not related to the subject at hand. It undermined my confidence, but at the time the case was being presented for Germany's OTL success being a matter of good fortune for them and that it was entirely possible, with no ASB stretches or Hail Mary Passes to narrate the success of the Anglo-French plan of defense of France. The POD happens after the Germans try and to a point succeed in the Ardennes drive through Belgium; after this, debacles the author claimed were avoidable by reasonable means were in fact avoided and the Anglo-French lines solidified instead of disintegrating. IIRC Paris falls but the lines hold, and the German salient that impetuously took the city is cut off and German drives to restore contact fail, leaving the Germans to be compressed and eventually defeated in the city, at bitter cost, but the city is liberated. The lines hold and then I started losing interest and stopped following to avoid fighting over peripheral issues like say ABM design. Both the Lowland kingdoms retain parts that are unconquered by Reich forces as well (Belgium's being pathetic acres, but the Dutch plan works pretty well and the besieged kingdom is supported by sea as well as being gradually partially evacuated. Anne Frank lives!)
So...was Sickle Cut a perfected machine certain to work and doom at least France to fall? I used to assume so, that Hitler just had overwhelming force.
@ObssesedNuker's argument is that he thinks Germany's kit and training were better ready than France and Britain's, not in fall but in
Spring 1938, therefore anything Hitler 1940 could do relative to these two powers he could do better in 1938, granting his war machine was a lot less than it would be a year later, the same was true but worse for France and Britain, so simply by following Hitler's successful steps of OTL but substituting Czechoslovakia for Poland, he surely would be at least as successful earlier. Now accepting that logic is a big pill to swallow for several reasons. I am skeptical that the established powers were that weak, that the long term investment they had already made in training men and acquiring equipment was utter crap. He has me perhaps if I want to argue the French could actually advance into Germany more easily because I supposed and others affirm, fortification of the borders to 1939-40 levels was just beginning and all Hitler had to stop French forays would be men and mobile kit. I mainly wanted to raise the possibility of the French actually invading as something Hitler would have to parry by detaching much of what he would want to deploy against Czechoslovakia there instead, and on the borders of the northwest coastal lowland kingdoms and Poland too, in minimal prudence--if he left those borders undefended my substantial manned forces, that's an invitation for an easy invasion or preemption in the case of northern kingdoms and Poland. This will not happen because Hitler will of course guard these frontiers, but those guards are not available to attack the Czechs! Although I identified a couple sources of small elite forces with recent combat experience France and Britain have that either Germany does not have at all or are not available because his impetuous acts of war strands them in Spain, but these are admittedly small and probably put to better use drilling the existing levy of recruits.
Another question we will recur to is how much time does France have. But surely Czechoslovakia must be taken first of all, and a month is ridiculously quick for that. The Western Allies and neutrals have at least that long then, and I claim, longer. Anyway, in addition to the current crop of universal male service conscripts, France has its entire male adult population of serving age as reservists who have already undergone basic drill. Their rustiness makes them even greener than the current youth conscripts, but that is a lot of numbers. Many of them have living and personal memory of fighting in the Great War. Given even a month to draft and arm and resume drill, if it is a matter of saving the Republic and defeatist officers betray them less, these French assets clearly ought to count for something. And the essential point is to remember, whatever Hitler had in 1939 and '40, he had far less, in numbers, quality and training in 1938. So...any point not already factored in in ObssessedNuker's claims before counts for more against the smaller, weaker, technically less developed and less trained year-before German forces. And a big part of what enabled the Wehrmacht to grow to 1939 levels was Czechian plunder, which he starts not owning. He will own it before his troops wheel west to attack the nations of the entire European Atlantic seaboard, to be sure--but as smoking, depleted ruins, not as warehouses full of fresh kit ready to paint or sew swastikas on and the factories that made them ready to churn out state of the art lines to Reich order and be adapted to the most advanced German designs. Those factories he captured whole OTL, here he will find them wrecked. Eventually he will be able to exploit Czechia but there will be a delay first, and so he will remain behind his OtL 1939-40 curve indefinitely. There is no opportunity to surge ahead he did not have OTL.
so--Belgium may be doomed to go down exactly as OTL. We have to factor in the Belgian order of battle and plans as well, and see if they were augmented a lot OTL between 1938 and 1940. If they were not, or not as much as France and Britain were, then it follows German forces are relatively weaker than in OTL 1940 and either Hitler must devote more to that project relatively or risk good fortune OTL not falling his way in the ATL. There's a couple dice rolls right there. Then if they carry out their prime mission with success, they face the French and I suggest there are just a whole sequence of dice rolls there too. But this is getting away from the Lowlands!
Meanwhile either Hitler compensates for being weaker by focusing more tightly on fewer objectives, and in this case skips attacking the Dutch at all, who are only too happy to stay neutral as you say. But seeing the fate of Belgium in appalling detail right before them, they must decide between the three options above. Join with Britain immediately and hope the Commonwealth can shore them up enough to break the coming storm, and soon enough; throw in the towel and negotiate for Hitler's good will and hope they made the right choice, doubling down on helping Hitler break Britain and whatever else his Aryanness demands of them on whim. Or, wait but dry their powder and prepare to jump into Britannia's plump loving arms the moment Hitler makes his perhaps inevitable false move. The terrible example of poor Belgium will surely be instructive and guide improvements in the defensive plans, which are respectable even against concentrated Wehrmacht power.
OTL Hitler could afford to strike both kingdoms simulataneously and that is what I guess he will feel he can and must do here too. This minimizes Dutch chances of coming out ahead of OTL, but we have to examine that moat defense concept of theirs to see if it might plausibly stave off the whole Reich or not, and if it can--another roll of the dice that will differ from OTL! The Dutch may roll snake eyes as OTL but if the plan is good enough they might save most of their people and be a thorn in Hitler's side.
...
The scenario has the German attack start on October 1. Not sure where the spring 38 attack idea came from?
ObssesedNuker. He chose to identify the vague POD as the observation by Hitler that the French and British are going to honor the former nation's treaty obligation to deter attacks on Czechoslovakia by means of promising to declare war on whomever might attack, and thus that negotiations would gain him nothing but delay. On ON's theory that time was more on Allied than Axis side, he says Hitler's obvious move in that case is to strike at CZ early as possible, which is May. Then he makes the to me absurd assumption that that nation will fall by the start of June, and so he can wheel onto at least the three Atlantic coast targets immediately, or anyway as fast as logistically possible--presumably by his figuring well before Bastille Day and if possible a month before. This gives France and Britain six weeks tops, assuming both governments declare war on Germany in turn the day Hitler attacks CZ.
Now I say, first of all, Czechoslovakia is not just equal to Poland. In their own defense they are I think clearly superior. In statistics they look identical perhaps, but to begin with CZ has a more defensible frontier. They are probably more alert to the danger of a German attack than the Poles were. Setting that aside, they are a First World nation more or less, high literacy, high industrialization, high tech generally. That's why "Bohemia" was so valuable to the Reich, and that's why they will defend more effectively than Poland could...even against forces identical in composition and training to those that faced Poland. The simple fact that the Poles were jumped by the Soviets from behind while engaged for over two weeks with the Germans should cause anyone, even ON, to grant the Czechs at least 50 percent more time aside from any other arguments!
So we are now at at least six weeks to Poland's 4, all you grant them anyway below (I reconcile Wikipedia's claim of "over a month" with the earlier fall of Warsaw by supposing pockets of Polish resistance fought on a week or two more). So maybe 7 weeks to Polish 5? You, ON and others might set the higher technical and cultural level, in terms of institutions like republican/parliamentary democracy, at naught if you like, I think it buys them some more time, we are up past 2 months already in my reckoning.
And then, the key point ON seems to overlook--Germany may or may not be relatively stronger than France or Britain versus OTL 1939-40. That is a relevant argument to have versus the Western front. But Czechoslovakia is what it is, and the German forces are what they are. The relative comparison here is, how does what Hitler can thrown at CZ, bearing in mind he would be insane to leave the French frontier denuded of troops to parry any French forays (he thinks these are impossible, but as noted, German material defenses, minefields and so on, are not what they were during the Sitzkrieg of OTL) so we have to deduct these--by ON's own arguments they can hardly be proportionally less than they were OTL, and in fact it seems plain they must be absolutely larger, to substitute for lack of built fortifications. A certain level of force of certain quality is available to Hitler to attack the Czechs, and if someone says the Hungarians will augment it--OTL Hitler had the entire freaking Soviet Union to augment his attack on Poland! So I might have to redact my 50 percent credit for not facing a second attacker, but then substitute a ratio of what the Soviets threw into seizing East Poland versus what the Hungarians could come to the table with on days' notice in 1938. It will probably be at least as good as a 3/2 ratio, don't you think? And if the Hungarians don't come in, so much the better for the Czechs and Slovaks!
We need numbers here, I do not have them, but I am confident (force available for attacking Czechoslovakia 1938 with what aid Hungary might give<(force available for attacking Poland 1939 plus what the Soviets did bring OTL). How much less I do not know, but a factor of two seems entirely plausible. If it were that, then even yanking out my 3/2 bonus for no Russian attack since there could be a Hungarian one instead and all that is factored in in the above inequality, but standing pat as I do on bonuses for fortification and a more developed modern society, one month for Poland OTL easily becomes three to reduce CZ. Now the ratio might be less than two above, and people may pooh pooh the notion that the fortifications matter or that the Central European republic is inherently stronger man for man because of a higher level of development and superior political culture as I hold, and whittle that down. But ON is clearly going too far in assuming it can be expected to fall in exactly the same time it took to bring down Poland, with a smaller, weaker German force attacking! I think two months is verging on wehrebooism and three is a sober number, but if someone like
@KACKO weighs in agreeing two is about right, I will defer to him. And be very skeptical about the siege lasting longer than 3 months unless someone makes a solid case. But one month is insane. Two months is generous to the Germans and stingy to the Czechs IMHO.
Therefore stipulating ObssessedNuker's theory Hitler would strike in early May, it will not be until early July he can turn elsewhere, at the earliest, and I think more likely, August. This buys France and Britain at least two and as many as three months to get organized and start going on a war footing, and call forces in from across Commonwealth and Empire, including France's Empire.
Everyone else seems to be assuming instead that Hitler will waste the spring and summer negotiating only to learn at the last minute the two powers have gotten their resolve up and decided to back Benes unconditionally sometime in the early fall. On one hand this means Hitler, fully intending to have Czechia for his own one way or the other, has been building up for an autumn campaign. Perhaps he underestimates CZ as badly as ObssessedNuker does, and figures if he attacks October 1 he will have it before Halloween. In this case I would give CZ at least the solid three months in view of Hitler's arrogance bogging his attackers down in November! Also if the Entente leaders are at least considering defending their own honor enough to keep the commitment, I think the Czechs too will be preparing for war also, perhaps more than OTL.
Then even if he secures Bohemia before Christmas, Hitler can't attack anywhere else until March or so. This buys the Western allies and dithering neutrals five months of grace, more like six probably.
On ON's timetable modified by a decent respect for Czechoslovak powers of resistance, compromising on the stingy two months, surely some time must elapse between the collapse of CZ at the end of June and the start of the strike on the three western colonial nations...I would think August 1 would be the earliest that could begin. Note also that if CZ can hold out a full three months, now Hitler is starting in September! In the former case, France has had three months to organize. In the latter, if the French can also per A Blunted Sickle avoid what was arguably bad luck, Reich forces are bogged down in northern France when winter comes. The Great War veterans of the Wehrmacht will have a sense of deja vu...so might the French and British, but this time they know this war was not something wished on them by their own foolish governments but entirely by Hitler's will. It will make a difference I think.
If I'm understanding what everyone has written so far right, France only began serious mobilisation a few days before Munich was signed. That being the case, how is France going to launch a proper offensive (not a 10km joke like OTL) AND push the Nationalists back in Spain (by Oct 1938 the Republicans were basically screwed unless outsiders funnel stacks of men in immediately), while scrambling to assemble a bigger army before the Germans come knocking? And during the middle of winter at that?
As for me, while I obviously am rolling my eyes at ObssessedNuker's astonishing confidence in the premature Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe of 1938, I think his timetable of Hitler striking at CZ in May is actually very reasonable and in my posts I was taking him at his word. This is bad news for France and for Britain, but good for Spain; the civil war is not so near endgame, whereas Hitler's action has marooned the German contingent of volunteers and given France good reason to take the gloves off and go in deep and hard there. When we say France was not mobilized, that surely does not mean France had no troops whatsoever able to do anything, only that the levels of force required for a serious war with a serious peer power are not there. For defense against Germany France relied on the Maginot Line, and Hitler has in ON's version of the OP which I accept as far as POD goes, committed to attacking CZ. He cannot come in full force against France for some time, so given the force multiplication the Maginot Line gives, it is only necessary to man those lines adequately, and entirely possible to scrape together an expedition to defeat the Nationalists in Spain and if possible capture or kill the Germans there. A lot of suitable men for soldiering in the French Army are engaged as volunteers in Spain, the sooner they are brought home the better, and cleaning out a nest of fascists on their southern border is worthwhile. Having done that Spain goes from running sore and possible threat to mildly useful ally, perhaps the Republicans even send some token troops and declare war on Germany.
In other versions on the other hand, Hitler not attacking CZ until say October, I admit the calculus is more dicey for France mainly due to the Republicans being on their last legs and a lot more territory to take back from Franco. But then again they have all winter to do it. In this dimension I like ObssessedNuker's timetable better--if Hitler is really going to attack it would be in character to do it sooner rather than later.
Warsaw surrendered on September 28. That's a month.
That's kind of nitpicky and quibblesome, since the relevant end of hostilities date is the day that the main body of attackers quell the last major bit of resistance and it can be assumed the rest of the trouble can be handled by occupation forces. What we need to know is, how long was it before Hitler could withdraw the major part of the attack force? I looked at Wikipedia and they said "over a month" and I rolled with it, and in view of pockets of stubborn resistance requiring the whole army to stay ready to hand it seems more appropriate a time frame.
I found this page that gives the strength that the CZE forces would have in Fall Grun:
http://blitzsrbija.proboards.com/thread/15/armed-forces-czechoslovakia-september-1938
Simplifies down to:
1.28M men in 34 divisions
300 Pz35 tanks
120 tankettes
2650 artillery-level guns
Wikipedia gives Poland's 1939 force as
1M men in 39 divisions
210 tanks (7TPs?)
670 tankettes
4300 "guns"(presuming mostly artillery?)
Chuck in the border forts, the forces are about equal.
Haven't managed to find Germany's forces for 10/1/1938 yet, but if we can assume 50-60 divisions and put some on the Rhine frontier and elsewhere, they're certainly big enough to beat CZE. Is 2 months a fair amount of time to say CZE lasts?
I've made my cases for crediting multipliers to CZ for terrain well fortified, lacking a backstab as awful as the Soviet attack on Poland OTL and arguable stuff about superior technical levels and having real democracy and so forth. And then the big big question we have to look at German numbers to answer is, how much smaller and weaker is the 1938 force available versus that available in 1939, and that is the major determinant right there. At least two months and I think three must be realistic, and possibly even longer. I won't argue past three though. And I can live with two if ObssessedNuker will agree it has to be at least that long!
Wasn't the purpose of seizing Norway mainly to stop the British taking it and then wrecking the trade with Sweden? Because Britain won't be in a position to attack Norway in 1938, probably not in 1939 either.
- BNC
Why not? What Britain needs to do that is sealift capability and if there is one nation on Earth that had that in 1938 it is the British Empire. They have the ships certainly. Do they have the men? Certainly not for taking on Hitler mano a mano in Continental Europe they don't. But Norway is a much smaller problem.
OTL they were determined to stay neutral and would not consider joining the Allies freely.
But..your dubiousness about Britain being able to take Norway is far better directed at Germany. Again we face the vexed question of how much weaker the Reich is a year--or per ON's advanced timetable for the attack on CZ, 16 months, earlier than when war broke out OTL. Hitler cannot invade Norway without ships. There was some airlift involved and some paratroopers I believe, but even if we pretend the Luftwaffe had the same abilities in summer 1938 as in early spring 1940, which is patently absurd in itself, to use them he must tip his hand by invading Denmark first. Now for once I won't suggest this is a problem; even relatively doubled or tripled in strength versus the Reich Denmark is sadly still but a speedbump. Even if by some miracle of accelerated development the same airlift capabilities used in March 1940 could be employed any time between May and September 1938, without the seaborne component of the German invasion, the airborne troops will be eaten alive by Norwegian defenses, weak as they are. Hitler needs to have ships to send the troops and navy capital ships to defend the troopships. I don't think all the fleet elements used in early 1940 in this daring gamble were all extant in operational condition in 1938, nor did the Kriegsmarine have older more obsolete models--per Versailles, they had nothing but some coastal patrol boats. Cutters will not cut it! Meanwhile there are far fewer U-boats and none of the OTL surface raiders sent out to distract the RN with. The RN has little better to do than to make sure Hitler does not pull off a stunt like this.
OTL we don't know what effect Hitler's invasion of Denmark would have had on Norwegian opinions about their options. It certainly would tend to make the case for joining the Allies outright, the question is how much? Without invading Denmark first Hitler cannot sustain his threat against Norway at all, but this telegraphs his intentions. He has no resources such as he had on the sea in 1940.
Meanwhile from a standing start, Britain has all the ships to spare to invade Norway ten times over. What she might lack was men...but the nature of British experience as an Empire is that in addition to big wars, there are always lots of little conflicts. Britain's standing land forces are small, but she has some commandos and such on call all the time.
A British and German invasion of Norway are two different things then. Hitler's major reason was to secure Swedish iron supplies, which had to go through the Atlantic port of Narvik in winter. But given he would invade at all, he would impose Nazism on the nation. The Norwegians generally, with remarkably few exceptions, wanted none of that. But Britain would be making no such demands. Britain's purpose would be to deny the iron to Germany and preempt Germany taking Norway as an asset. A secondary issue was that whichever side Norway belonged to would determine the options of Sweden. A neutral Norway would be satisfactory to Britain if it meant they shut down their trade with Germany and Germany was never in a position to take Norway. Then Sweden too would have the free choice of whether to lean toward Axis and Allies, and to maintain neutrality against both--again if Sweden only did not trade with Germany Britain would want nothing more. But both nations did trade with Germany.
However, unlike say the Netherlands, if Norway did voluntarily join the Allies, she should be quite safe behind the lines of the Royal Navy. Hitler had nothing in the way of sea power and could only get it if he were allowed to conquer Europe in freedom. Otherwise he could never challenge the RN. U-boats change the picture a bit, but the RN and merchant shipping face a much lower U-boat threat in 1938 than two years later. And what few U-boats Hitler already had, were smaller and less capable than those built later OTL. Norway could much more reasonably accept British essential terms and Britain could readily afford to compensate the Norweigians handsomely for any losses due to Allied war interests.
So, then, first Britain has lots of time before a German strike at Norway is a threat. Secondly, Norway is more likely to see the writing on the wall in that time and choose in self interest to at least favor the Allied side and shut down the iron shipments, knowing the RN would block any attempt by Hitler to invade. And should a German invasion threaten and Norway remains stubborn, a British invasion would be a different kind of thing than a German one. Much smaller in scale mainly concerned with seizing some ports and then negotiating from strength for acceptable terms from Norway, with offers of more than sufficient compensation on the table for anyone whose interests might suffer (except Quislings of course).
The British then are not in the same race against time regarding Norway as OTL since Hitler can't go there anyway for some time. Their interest remains strong, and so does their case for Norway joining the Allies, especially if Hitler makes his own examples by invading Denmark. If the matter comes to a head it will be later, when Britain will certainly have men to fill her troopships, and Norway would be helpless against the RN's full power. Therefore, knowing that the British will not demand onerous conditions, surrender is an easy option. Britain can leave the legitimate government of Norway in place and the mission be quite accomplished. They already have more than enough ships, and if some weird circumstance required them to secure Norway by force as early as May 1938, suitable men for this limited job are surely available among Britain's experienced Marines and commandos.
