Sudetenland Crisis

I fail to see why the Soviets would risk so much just over Czechoslovakia, especially as early as 1938. As for Poland, that's just a natural target. The eastern bits certainly are.
Perhaps the reason to aid Czechoslovakia would be to "ally" themselves against German aggression towards the east and in turn check it's power. Nazi and Communist Ideology were at ends, and if the Soviet Union had territorial ambitions where the Germans were trying to take over, why wouldn't they fight? And even if this turned into a major debacle, it's not like Germany could seriously threaten the Soviet Union any time soon.

And given how the OTL Cold War panned out, getting both Poland and Czechoslovakia into the Soviet sphere of influence/control was quite crucial as a long-term plan for the USSR.

That may be true but I don't see anyone being able to predict the post WW2 world. And wouldn't coming to the aid to Czechoslovakia only allow the Soviets more influence within the nation? A mutual assistance treaty could be signed between the two powers after such a conflict (much like the one's drafted between the Baltic nations and the Soviet Union, generating the same out-come.) and no regional power could do anything about it even if they wanted too.
 
I've read that preparations for the Coup were quite advanced and they were put on hold by fact Chamberlain arrived to Germany after escalating the German demands in Godesberg. This is also hard to verify. Obviously, there might be no coup, or totally failed coup. But to say there was no chance of it ever happening doesn't sound correct IMO.

Fair enough.

As to the Soviets: they might fight, they might not. If they do fight, geography and the effects of the purges will get in their way. The latter will be solved with time and battle experience... and with much less damage compared to history since the Germans won't be any position to launch a invasion into the heartland of the USSR like IOTL. The former is more of a tricky problem since even if Romania allows transit there is only so much of the Red Army they'll let through. One interesting spin is if Poland does what it does IOTL and tries to capitalize on a Czechoslovakian collapse by snagging some territory the Soviets might decide that the Poles have aligned with the Germans and try to invade through them.
 
The main catch concerning Poland being, that the interwar relations between CSR and Poland weren't the best. Poland had some longer-running disputes over some coal fields in the Těšínsko/Teschen area, and to a lesser extent, over a few square kilometers in the Oravan and Spiš borderlands too. You need to give 1930s Poland a better reason to care about Czechoslovakia.

Infamously, when Czechoslovakia basically disintegrated, Poland was more than happy to get some of those little disputed areas, as if it mattered at all, given what would happen to the country in a few months after that. Bad, bad OTL precedents to the diplomatic relations between the two countries. So, firstly, what could help would be an earlier POD, at least a few years back - with Czechoslovakia and Poland sorting these interwar era disputes in time and perhaps fostering more mutual cooperation.

On other side, Czechoslovak generality urge president Benes to solve dispute with Poland by diplomatic means before Munich in order to gain their neutrality in coming conflict with Germany even with price of letting Poland to gain disputed territory. Shortly before Munich president Benes I believe wrote letter with such a proposal to Polish minister of foreign affairs (or somebody else?).
 
I finished and uploaded the video just now. If anyone wants to check it out the link is here: https://youtu.be/TwRV4-EkAR4
I do want to do a more detailed version of this. However, I'm not exactly all that knowledgeable about tactics, equipment and the overall situation. If anyone would be willing to work with me or just offer solid information, that would be very helpful.
 
I finished and uploaded the video just now. If anyone wants to check it out the link is here: https://youtu.be/TwRV4-EkAR4
I do want to do a more detailed version of this. However, I'm not exactly all that knowledgeable about tactics, equipment and the overall situation. If anyone would be willing to work with me or just offer solid information, that would be very helpful.

Thanks for the video. Really appreciate someone is interested in matters of the beginning of the WW II. However, I feel the proposed outcome is not very realistic.

What are my arguments : While Hitler maintained that his "last" claim is to bring Sudetendeutsche back to Reich (ignoring the fact they never been a state in the history, just german speaking minority-turned-majority on a specific area of country), this was not his goal. He (at least in 1938) needed to take over the entire Czechoslovakia economy, getting Skoda works was as important as raiding banks and Czech gold reserves.
While getting german speaking areas under Nazi control was indeed doable, it would be a fatal defeat for Hitler and his regime.

I think following scenarios were much more probable (in no particular order) :

1) Hitler would postpone the attack to 1939, and the reality would change significantly (Western allies would no longer accept "Munich" solution, as they got extra half year for rearmament, both Czech and German forces would be stronger compared to fall '38 and Germany would get on a brink of economic collapse, with anti-Hitler coup possible)

2) Hitler would attack as intended on 10/1/1938, but the attacks would fail miserably (Wehrmacht won't be able to cope with light bunkers without major loss of soldiers, logistic would be total mess, divisions won't be at their proposed strength, paratroop operation turns into total disaster, Luftwaffe would find weather not to their liking and run out of petrol/spare parts/pilots soon) and it gets blocked by the cold winter of 1938. Hitler is victim of a coup or economic collapse or both.

3) German forces finds a successful way around/through fortifications, paralyse Czech air force, get into flatlands and starts effective blitzkrieg which proves too much for Czechoslovak army, where morale gets low and tension between nations plays significant role. The whole country is occupied in matter of weeks before Western public opinion can force their governments to change "Munich" stance and Czechoslovakia dissolves in German Reich. My guess this was the single most important factor why (CS president) Benes decided not to fight.
If this is rapid, it is the most close outcome to the real life scenario.

4) German progress is slow but significant but is slowed down to crawl due to lack of fuel/trained personal/spare parts. This and public opinion of Western countries brings France and UK into war. USSR enters the war too. Poland needs to choose a side very quickly. Germany probably capitulates at some point.
 
1) Hitler would postpone the attack to 1939, and the reality would change significantly (Western allies would no longer accept "Munich" solution, as they got extra half year for rearmament, both Czech and German forces would be stronger compared to fall '38 and Germany would get on a brink of economic collapse, with anti-Hitler coup possible)
If you make the attack wait until 1939 then that just brings alot of extra factors into play that I really didn't want to go into due to time constraints for the video.
The German and Czech armies wouldn't be that much stronger, The Germans were able to double the amount of divisions they had under arms after the conquest of Czechoslovakia, I'm not sure if they would be able to match that sort of production. The Czechs had a mobilized army of ~ 1.4 million (I've seen estimates higher and lower, for the video I used 600,000 front-line troops.) which out of a population of 13 million is rather large. France and Britain may still view this only as appeasement, and might try to convince the Czech government to just give in on the demands.

2) Hitler would attack as intended on 10/1/1938, but the attacks would fail miserably (Wehrmacht won't be able to cope with light bunkers without major loss of soldiers, logistic would be total mess, divisions won't be at their proposed strength, paratroop operation turns into total disaster, Luftwaffe would find weather not to their liking and run out of petrol/spare parts/pilots soon) and it gets blocked by the cold winter of 1938. Hitler is victim of a coup or economic collapse or both.
The Czech's plan wasn't to hold the Germans on such a wide front, on the flanks of their lines were plains area and they wouldn't have the advantage of the mountains. Here the Czechs did put heavy fortifications that would be hard to break, from their the center would be withdrawing and the flanks turn into the new front.

3) German forces finds a successful way around/through fortifications, paralyse Czech air force, get into flatlands and starts effective blitzkrieg which proves too much for Czechoslovak army, where morale gets low and tension between nations plays significant role. The whole country is occupied in matter of weeks before Western public opinion can force their governments to change "Munich" stance and Czechoslovakia dissolves in German Reich. My guess this was the single most important factor why (CS president) Benes decided not to fight.
If this is rapid, it is the most close outcome to the real life scenario.
Blitzkrieg only works if you have enough tanks and enough skill to pull these off and I'm not sure that the Germans at this moment would be able to do so. Their tanks would have be driven through the mountain passes (I'm assuming that the heavy fortifications at Brno and Pomerania are holding) and would be only really able to attack the rear-guard of the retreating enemy, Czechoslovakian plans were to retreat to the border of present day Slovakia and hold the Germans at the mountains their. At that time, Soviet formations coming in through Rumania would likely be able to make the defenses very strong, and also by the period of time, German fuel would be nearly depleted.
The German army had only enough fuel for about three weeks of combat, and once their tanks and air formations couldn't be used anymore, the superior Czech infantry (and whatever air and mechanized units are left) could turn the tide.
 
If you make the attack wait until 1939 then that just brings alot of extra factors into play that I really didn't want to go into due to time constraints for the video.

Yep, agree on that, postponing the attack would create a different scenario, with many new factors. It is clear why you excluded this.

The German and Czech armies wouldn't be that much stronger, The Germans were able to double the amount of divisions they had under arms after the conquest of Czechoslovakia, I'm not sure if they would be able to match that sort of production. The Czechs had a mobilized army of ~ 1.4 million (I've seen estimates higher and lower, for the video I used 600,000 front-line troops.) which out of a population of 13 million is rather large. France and Britain may still view this only as appeasement, and might try to convince the Czech government to just give in on the demands.

Czechoslovak army was already mobilised, so it wouldn't be that much stronger. Advantage of Czechoslovakia was that there was already 2 year mandatory service without any interruption, but mass of German population had no military service time. Wehrmacht in 10/1938 was very different to Wehrmacht in 9/1939, they got better equipment plus had extra year to work on training. Huge difference.
For Czech side, the difference would be extra time would give luxury to have much more complete fortification system (more weapons, especially heavy ones, equipment such as ventilation which would make bunkers much more sturdy obstacle).

The Czech's plan wasn't to hold the Germans on such a wide front, on the flanks of their lines were plains area and they wouldn't have the advantage of the mountains. Here the Czechs did put heavy fortifications that would be hard to break, from their the center would be withdrawing and the flanks turn into the new front.

Disagree on this. There is no place that Czechs would intentionally abandon. Have you seen the country ? The borders are natural fortification. There were plenty of fortifications all around the country (although most of it was just a light bunkers, as there was not much time left after annexation of Austria), but there was no way around like in the case of Maginot line. Germans would need to find a way through and it was not given they would succeed (at least not with what they had in 10/1938) I believe it is not that unrealistic that Germans would collapse on borders as they were clearly unprepared for a war and would be shocked by the casualties. Take in account that Fall Gruen called for swift action before Czechoslovakia will have chance to mobilise the army, but if attack happened on 10/1/38 the Czech army would be in full strength while Germans would struggle to be in expected numbers. Bombing of Linz railway could cut the whole south army off, for example. Czech routes were much shorter.

Blitzkrieg only works if you have enough tanks and enough skill to pull these off and I'm not sure that the Germans at this moment would be able to do so. Their tanks would have be driven through the mountain passes (I'm assuming that the heavy fortifications at Brno and Pomerania are holding) and would be only really able to attack the rear-guard of the retreating enemy, Czechoslovakian plans were to retreat to the border of present day Slovakia and hold the Germans at the mountains their. At that time, Soviet formations coming in through Rumania would likely be able to make the defenses very strong, and also by the period of time, German fuel would be nearly depleted.
The German army had only enough fuel for about three weeks of combat, and once their tanks and air formations couldn't be used anymore, the superior Czech infantry (and whatever air and mechanized units are left) could turn the tide.

Main German attack was supposed to happen from west-south towards Pilsen. If they managed to get through the border fortifications, terrain would start to be much more friendly for blitzkrieg type of war plus they would probably find a way how to deal with fortifications for this to happen. Germans needed to be extremely effective due to their lack of fuel/ammo/spare parts, but it was possible to happen.

The plan to retreat to Slovak mountains was counting on supporting strike of French army, not just Russian forces. The reason was to keep the core of the army intact for joint counter-strike. Also note Pomerania is somewhere else, not in former Czechoslovakia. Brno was not that fortified, but there were strong armies around (and Czechoslovakian Army HQ, in Vyskov)
 
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