War in 1938!

One correction

One correction. The Germans were producing synthetic rubber at this point, just nowhere near enough to run their economy.
 
The Czechs will last a few weeks at most.
The British in this time will be lucky to have landed a division or two.

And you'll note that the Germans, after crushing poor Poland fairly comprehensively, waited nine whole months to re-organise, plan, and replenish before moving against the west. You apparent expect them to eat the Czechs for breakfast (the Czechs, sheltering in strong positions at the tops of mountain passes which General Beck resigned for fear of storming, will give them one hell of a case of indigestion) and then immediately round on a France. This is silly.

The French if they move at all wont risk a plunge into Germany.

Not in three weeks, certainly. In nine months? People are actually not automata and their plans change as circumstances do. The FRench planned to eventually attack (and win) in 1940, so why not in their superior situation of 1938? And why will the attack not be moved forward in the face of the encroaching Red Badness?

(If the Poles sit out, as I consider likley, and the Soviets are only able to accomplish bits and pieces, France will take its time; but it has all the time in the world.)

That will then give the Germans a window of opertunity to drive into France in Winter as Hitler wanted to do in 1939.

So let me get this straight: after attacking the Czechs in September 1938 or so, the Germans are rearing to blast into France by December 1938?

You may wish to consider why Hitler's impatient 1939 scheme was quietly but unanimously rejected by the German generals.

The Soviets even if attack through Poland right away may well be held long enough for this.
If they wait then even better.

So the Germans are now effortlessly fighting the two front war which they founded their strategy on not fighting?

It could end up with a worse situation for the allies with Germany with a lot more allies in Eastern Europe.

Who? A quisling government in Prague, perhaps? As I said, a Czechia occupied against military resistance will probably prove almost as much of a partisan headache as Poland was. The Slovak quislings will also be less credible. The Germans will lack the means to make Horthy throw his cherished caution to the wind, Romania will have no reason to be disillusioned with the Entente yet, and the Bulgarians aren't stupid enough to try anything.

In conclusion, I give in. There is nothing to be gained by arguing with a man thoroughly convinced by Hitler's own lunatic ravings that he should have started the war in 1938 who ignored any facts he is presented with.
 

kenmac

Banned
And you'll note that the Germans, after crushing poor Poland fairly comprehensively, waited nine whole months to re-organise, plan, and replenish before moving against the west. You apparent expect them to eat the Czechs for breakfast (the Czechs, sheltering in strong positions at the tops of mountain passes which General Beck resigned for fear of storming, will give them one hell of a case of indigestion) and then immediately round on a France. This is silly.

The Czechs were not so confident.
The Czech Generals advises Benes they would not hold longer than a month.


Not in three weeks, certainly. In nine months? People are actually not automata and their plans change as circumstances do. The FRench planned to eventually attack (and win) in 1940, so why not in their superior situation of 1938? And why will the attack not be moved forward in the face of the encroaching Red Badness?

The longer the French wait which they will the better.

(If the Poles sit out, as I consider likley, and the Soviets are only able to accomplish bits and pieces, France will take its time; but it has all the time in the world.)

If the Poles refuse Soviet entry and the Soviets dont push them for it Germany will be in a much better possition and France much worse.

So let me get this straight: after attacking the Czechs in September 1938 or so, the Germans are rearing to blast into France by December 1938?

That was Hitlers plan in 1939 after Poland.

You may wish to consider why Hitler's impatient 1939 scheme was quietly but unanimously rejected by the German generals.

It was more to do with Hitler waiting for or rejecting the plans for the invasion.

So the Germans are now effortlessly fighting the two front war which they founded their strategy on not fighting?

It will be a one front war if the Soviets dont move and even if they do they will have a decent allie in Poland who they can aid to an extent while they move West.

Who? A quisling government in Prague, perhaps? As I said, a Czechia occupied against military resistance will probably prove almost as much of a partisan headache as Poland was. The Slovak quislings will also be less credible. The Germans will lack the means to make Horthy throw his cherished caution to the wind, Romania will have no reason to be disillusioned with the Entente yet, and the Bulgarians aren't stupid enough to try anything.

Czechia will be to small a nation to offer any sort of effective resisitence.
Slovakia will be independent and Hungary will one a chunk of it as well as being concerned by the Soviet threat.

In conclusion, I give in. There is nothing to be gained by arguing with a man thoroughly convinced by Hitler's own lunatic ravings that he should have started the war in 1938 who ignored any facts he is presented with

Hitler didnt want war in 38 or 39 atleast not with the West.
But if it had came early it is not going to be easy like all the anti-appeasment crowd make out.
 
Will

I do not want to re-open the "would germany gulp down Czh or would it choke on it" question.
Churchill was of one opinion, Hart of another, Carr of another again, Manstein of a fourth one and Benes of a fifth.
Maye they could, maybe they couldn't.
Certainly lacking Sudetenland the thing would be difficult.

What I am pointing out is that it is not unreasonable that the western powers would take their time and basically make a fake war (like the weird war OTL 1939 on the western front), since for the public opinion the germans were just stepping into their own home.
Germany claim on Sudetenland was accepted by most of the people who lived in western europe, and I am not talking of the governments here: I am talking of public opinion.
Barring a Pearl-Harbour event, you cannot wage a war against public opinion, expecially not one in which you lead the offensive.

Even the reduction of Bohemia to a protectorate (which was against international law), was not an unthinkable event: we are talking here of a 1800-minded generation, who clearly distingushed between Minor and Major Nations, and (colonialistic-like) accepted the fact that a Major Nation had the right to rule on a few Minors.

Not wanting to irk anyone's national pride, but it is quite clear that at the time Germany was included in the Major club, while Czecho-Slovakia was not
 
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What I am pointing out is that it is not unreasonable that the western powers would take their time and basically make a fake war (like the weird war OTL 1939 on the western front), since for the public opinion the germans were just stepping into their own home.
Germany claim on Sudetenland was accepted by most of the people who lived in western europe, and I am not talking of the governments here: I am talking of public opinion.
Barring a Pearl-Harbour event, you cannot wage a war against public opinion, expecially not one in which you lead the offensive.

I'd agree with this. Also, everyone thought that WW2 would be just like WW1 ie eternal stalemate (apart from the ones who thought that it would just be one long bombing campaign). There was a very strong desire not to go through that again.
 
Reminds me of Hearts of Iron: CZH declares war on POL! POL declares was on YUG! Bolivia declares on Argentina! Argentina declares on Greece! Greece declares on Japan! :p
Japan declares war on Canada! Canada surrenders. :p (I live there, I can say that. :p)
 

Blair152

Banned
But presumeably with France and Great Britain at war with Germany in support of the Czechs, the Little Entente is holding together, and Rumania will face heavy western pressure to allow the Soviets through. Frankly, in this scenario, with Hungary sticking it's revanchist head up, i bet the Rumanians and Yugoslavians would honour their alliance with the Czechs and come into the war. They both know they are next on the "Greater Hungary" list. Hang together or hang separately as it were.
Correct me if I'm wrong here. But wouldn't this end up just like Poland on 1 September 1939? Britain and France offer to fight for Czechoslovakia, Hitler
invades, Chamberlain says if you're not out in three days, we're declaring
war. Hitler's retort: "MAKE ME!" Three days later, Chamberlain calls Hitler's
bluff, and declares war on Germany. France then follows Britain's lead. Am I wrong here?
 
With regards to "the Germans' own home", such remarks were made most clearly and generally earlier, over the Rheinland and Anschluss. By the time of the Sudetenland Crisis, British public opinion was rather more complex, and somewhat self-contradictory. There was a very general understanding that Versailles had been too harsh on Germany, but whether Germany's brutish manner of taking the Sudetenland was at all justified depended on the philias of whoever you were speaking to. Broadly, the left was pro-Czech and the right pro-German, but that's very broad: Winston Churchill and his set stick out like a sore thumb, of course; whereas, as George Orwell famously observed, the most ideologically convinced pacifists on both sides of the spectrum allowed implicit Naziphilia into their arguments.

People didn't, when you got down to it, want a war, but the general euphoria of it not happening was carefully manipulated by Chamberlain's government, who did things to the poor BBC that you wouldn't get away with today; and nevertheless it faded fast, and the government's policy became more and more disconnected from public opinion, which was increasingly suspicious of Germany and resolved that Britain had to show its strength against the next German demand.

When the crisis came, Chamberlain himself wavered, but public and parliament became increasingly sanguine; and once the war began, of course, there was a sense of almost apocalyptic fulfilment (various people, from the king down to the ranks, expressed perverse satisfaction at how shit the situation was after the fall of France) which gave birth to the genuine refusal to contemplate surrender (sometimes, as it turns out, the patriotic and stereotypical version of history actually has all the evidence behind it; and the Churchill government made contingency plans to carry on the war in Great Britain and after it fell).

This is to do with the ills of British society in the "anxious decade" and how feelings of uncertainty, disillusionment, division, and falling behind the dynamic power of fascism and communism were all ultimately poured into the titanic struggle in which there was an audible sense that after the malignant outgrowth of everything that had been done wrong since the first war, the Nazis, had been destroyed, Britain would start everything over again.

It's a fascinating subject, but British social history isn't what we're discussing: the point is that the British people would certainly be no less willing to fight for the Czech democracy than they were for the Polish junta, and given time an eventual offensive against Germany on behalf of the Poles was planned (the "Phony War", although it was allowed to continue by dithering Entente governments, arose from military miscalculation, not diplomatic calculation), the Entente would, with time, certainly make one on behalf of the Czechs.

Now, in keeping with my word I am not responding to kenmac; I merely wish to point out that he is impossible to reason with, the proof of which he neatly provided in his last post, in which he:

-Repeatedly makes the German situation out to be "better" without giving any qualifications whatever as to who it is better for (Nazism) or, more importantly, why.

-Acts as if an estimate of one month of armed Czech resistance scuppers my argument, despite my argument assuming only three weeks of resistance as I have clearly stated.

-Repeats arguments in lieu of making rebuttals ("Hitler planned to attack France the winter after Poland!" "Yes, but Hitler as we all know was an ambitious nutter and in this case, as with Sealion, not even he was willing to try it." "But Hitler planned to attack France the winter after Poland!").

-Brushes Czechia (alone, not CZS) as "too small" to gum up the wheels of his Nazi conquering-machine, despite it being considerably larger than Norway, which gummed up said plenty (to say nothing of the considerable effort made by the Czech resistance OTL: for a nation betrayed by its allies and left without military strength, they have a pretty strong record of killing Nazi governors and retaking their capital).

-Generally betrays a blind conviction that Germany Always Wins Always.

This isn't a debate between people who like Czechs and people who like Germans. It's not a secret that I like Germans (I also like Czechs). This is a debate between rabid Germanophiles and people willing to let their scenarios be influences by fact.
 
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With regards to "the Germans own home", that remark was made most clearly and generally earlier, over the Rheinland and Anschluss. By the Sudetenland Crisis, British public opinion was considerably more complex, and to an extent contrdictory. There was a very general undertsnaidng that Versailles had been too harsh on Germany, but whether Germany's brutish manner of taking the Sudetenland was at all justified depended on the philias of whoever you were speaking to. Broadly, the left was pro-Czech and the right pro-German, but that's very broad: Winston Churchill and his set stick out like a sore thumb, of course; whereas, as George Orwell famously observed, the most convinced pacifists on both sides of the spectrum allowed implicit Naziphilia into their arguments.

People didn't, when you got down to it, want there to be a war, but the general euphoria of it not happening was carefully manipulated by Chamberlain's government, who did things to the poor BBC that you wouldn't get away with today; and nevertheless it faded fast, and the government's policy became more and more disconnected from public opinion, which was increasingly suspicious of Germany and resolved that Britain had to show its strength against the next German demand.

When the crisis came, Chamberlain himself wavered, but public and parliament became increasingly sanguine; and once the war began, of course, there was a sense of almost apocalyptic fulfilment (various people, from the king down to the ranks, expressed perverse satisfaction at how shit the situation was after the Fall of France) which gave birth to the genuine refusal to contemplate surrender (sometimes, as it turns out, the patriotic and stereotypical version of history actually has all the evidence behind it; and the Churchill government made contingency plans to carry on the war in Great Britain and after it fell).

This is to do with the ills of British society in the "anxious decade" and how feelings of uncertainty, disillusionment, division, and falling behind the dynamic power of fascism and communism were all ultimately poured into the titanic struggle in which there was an audible sense that after the malignant outgrowth of everything that had been done wrong since the first war, the Nazis, had been destroyed, Britain would start everything over again.

It's a fascinating subject, but British social history isn't what we're discussing: the point is that the British people would certainly be no less willing to fight for the Czech democracy than they were for the Polish junta, and given time an eventual offensive against Germany on behalf of the Poles was planned (the "Phony War", although it was allowed to continue by dithering Entente governmentsk, arose from military miscalculation, not diplomatic calculation), the Entente would, with time, certainly make one on behalf of the Czechs.


While I agree on some of your points, I think that you are confusing pre-war with post-war way of thinking.
In pre-war erurope a colonial mindset was still accepted as a reasonable way of thinking and the division between major (ruling) powers and minor (ruled) nations was not a taboo.
In this framework of mind, I do not see the image of a "British people willing to fight for the Czech democracy" fitting: some degree of elasticity wold appear much more probale to me in re-adjustments of borders and of spheres of influence.
To say it with other words, the annection of sudetenland (which was done according to the will of most people in the region), and the eventual war on Czecho-Slovakia do not appear to me enough to trigger the (propaganda-boasted) elan necessary to wage an offensive war.
In the case of the Sudetenland, the concept expressed for the rhineland applies again (their own home), and the refuse of czech government to negotiate on a german-inhabited area could presented as a legitimate casus belli.
(I agree on your arguments regarding intormation manipulation by the Chamberlain cabinet; on the other hand you must convene that there were some by the Churchill cabinet later, too).
Regarding the aggression to the Czech "core" (i.e. not-sudetenland), according to today's standards this would clearly be an break of the law of nations and a likely cause of war.
According to 1938-standards, however, that could be viewed as a re-adjustmet of influence spheres, such as italian annexion of Ethiopia or Albania, since what is a commonly accepted principle now (sovereignity and more-or-less equality between states) was not then (when a colonialist mentality was accepted).
The midde-aged man in the Entent (expecially if he was a bit old-minded) was likely to have a train of thoughts like this:
A de facto alignment of several lesser nations (belgium holland) is something no one could deny: if germany is to be brought in the "concert of nation" again, some concessions were to be given to it: Czecho-slovakia is an acceprable sacrifice for the west; it is germany courtyard, after all

Regarding the "tecnical" fact if the phony war was a military calculation or a miscalculation, this is a different subject on which we do not have the same opinion, but what I am trying to point out here is that the wage of a defensive war at the time was public-opinion induced, if not enforced
 
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While I agree on some of your points, I think that you are confusing pre-war with post-war way of thinking.
In pre-war erurope

Britain was not part of pre-war Europe, or any other Europe. :p;)

(To be less facetious, "Europe" includes London and Moscow. I consider it too big to make useful generalisations about in social history or any other kind of history.)

a colonial mindset was still accepted as a reasonable way of thinking and the division between major (ruling) powers and minor (ruled) nations was not a taboo.

There's merit to the view that Britain refused to take small eastern European countries seriously (simply vile things were said about them among backwoods conservatives fairly high in the hierarchy), but that didn't amount to a "colonial" mindset as seen in the Empahr. Orwell commented specifically on the hypocrisy of a British Conservatives who wants self-determination in Europe but not India. The idea that doing that sort of thing to white people was a bit far, old boy! went back to the Boer War, of course, and had caused quite the stir.

In this framework of mind, I do not see the image of a "British people willing to fight for the Czech democracy" fitting: some degree of elasticity wold appear much more probale to me in re-adjustments of borders and of spheres of influence.

I never said that Britain would fight on behalf of the Czechs, only that we could. Obviously some "elasticity" was palatable, since it didn't mean the end of Chamberlain's credibility and government; but as all I'm saying is that Britain would fight if called on, it seems to me that to disagree one would have to believe that between the autumns of 1938 and 1939, some dramatic change made the British people ready to fight for a cause still more obscure to them than the Czech one. Correct me if I'm wrong.

To say it with other words, the annection of sudetenland (which was done according to the will of most people in the region), and the eventual war on Czecho-Slovakia do not appear to me enough to trigger the (propaganda-boasted) elan necessary to wage an offensive war.

Now you are ascribing European attitudes to British people, and dangerously. "Elan" is (of course) a French idea. I disagree with any broad strokes when it comes to how and why nations fight wars, but I can say with certainty that 1930s Britain wasn't looking for "propaganda-boosted elan", it was looking for something that would grind up all social and political ills and mix them together, so that although the anxieties of the decade could be resolved by having one's house bombed, eating a lot of turnips, constant moaning, and grim determination: things British society felt comfortable with.

In the case of the Sudetenland, the concept expressed for the rhineland applies again (their own home), and the refuse of czech government to negotiate on a german-inhabited area could presented as a legitimate casus belli.

This is actually expecting British people to keenly scan the diplomatic correspondance try to detect the truly guilty party. In the circumstances, that's not what people wanted to do. We wanted to smack ours hands together, roll up our sleeves, and say "Right, until we win, then".

Poland was run by a gang of colonels, and the immediate casus-belli was transparently German city of Danzig. A dictatorship menaced another dictatoship. Yet when it came to it, the British people not only did as I predict above; once our army had suffered a humiliating defeat and our principal ally had left the war, and with the USSR widely perceived as pro-German, American involvement not yet significant, and the talk of the town being how heroically we had managed to run away, the British people chucked out a wavering government to bring in a hardline war-candidate.

You seem to be ignoring the actual events of OTL to repeat justifications of appeasement that were a bit highbrow for most people at the time.

(I agree on your arguments regarding intormation manipulation by the Chamberlain cabinet; on the other hand you must convene that there were some by the Churchill cabinet later, too).

Of course there was. "In wartime, truth is so precious that it must always be surrounded by a bodyguard of lies." - Churchill. But...

- War measures, war meaures. Defence of the realm. Doing our bit. Every country accepts that war is a differant matter; and historically, war with the Nazis had been pretty decisively vindicated.

- I am British and therefore regard everything with cynicism. I'm not arguing for or against wings of the Conservative party, I'm simply stating what I believe are facts about British public opinion.

Regarding the aggression to the Czech "core" (i.e. not-sudetenland), according to today's standards this would clearly be an break of the law of nations and a likely cause of war.
According to 1938-standards, however, that could be viewed as a re-adjustmet of influence spheres, such as italian annexion of Ethiopia or Albania, since what is a commonly accepted principle now (sovereignity and more-or-less equality between states) was not then (when a colonialist mentality was accepted).

Britain doesn't require referendums before war is declared: that's a decision for the government, and Chamberlain, who eventually did fight over Poland, would have done it over Czechia is the Germans insited on giving him no alternative. He did mobilise our forces and issue gasmasks.

Once war is declared, the attitude of 30s Britain isn't "Oh, the Germans were only adjusting their sphere of influence, let's make peace", it's "Well, war, I suppose. Bloody hell."

The midde-aged man in the Entent (expecially if he was a bit old-minded) was likely to have a train of thoughts like this:
A de facto alignment of several lesser nations (belgium holland) is something no one could deny: if germany is to be brought in the "concert of nation" again, some concessions were to be given to it: Czecho-slovakia is an acceprable sacrifice for the west; it is germany courtyard, after all

This imagines a creature known as an "Entente middle-man", ignoring the huge differences between the countries and within them. That quote accurately reflects the thoughts of many right-appeasers about why they were offering Hitler free stuff; but once he's turned it down, that's no longer relevant. The arch-appeaser himself was willing to become a war-leader once a country he had been willing to sell out (Poland) was finally attacked openly.

Regarding the "tecnical" fact if the phony war was a military calculation or a miscalculation, this is a different subject on which we do not have the same opinion, but what I am trying to point out here is that the wage of a defensive war at the time was public-opinion induced, if not enforced

So what happened to British public opinion that changed it afterwards? And why did the French generals make offensive plans and even launch an abortive offensive? And why, most importantly, would a public opinion that supposedly forced a defensive strategy on Chamberlain grow impatient with the timidity of his military endeavours and replace him with a die-hard kill-Hitler-or-die-trying sell-our-souls-and-granny's-silverware war candidate?
 
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So what happened to British public opinion that changed it afterwards? And why did the French generals make offensive plans and even launch an abortive offensive? And why, most importantly, would a public opinion that supposedly forced a defensive strategy on Chamberlain grow imaptient with the timidity of his military endeavours and replace him with a die-hard kill-Hitler-or-die-trying sell-our-souls-and-granny's-silverware war candidate?

To say it in four words, Churchill happened to them. :D
And of course, his position was made stronger by several Hitler's lies (Sudetenland is the last thing I'm asking to Europe, ... Well, make it Bohemia too .... uhm, what about Danzig? ... Ribbentrop and Molotov are shaking hands: would this say anything on other-than-danzig Poland?)
Note that in this thread all these things had not happened yet.

Regarding the let's-roll-up-the-sleeves-and-do_our-job mentality, I think that it was rather enforced by the churchill cabinet (and thank heaven for him doing so) with a skilled use of mass-medias rather than being the prevalent humor at the time (of course, "stereotypical" charatcterization help, thus the values of the british bulldog had an appeal to the english character).

Another subject that I would like to hint is that it appears quite probable to me that a bit of re-writing has been done by a winning side a bit ashamed of its early behaviour.
 
To say it in four words, Churchill happened to them. :D
And of course, his position was made stronger by several Hitler's lies (Sudetenland is the last thing I'm asking to Europe, ... Well, make it Bohemia too .... uhm, what about Danzig? ... Ribbentrop and Molotov are shaking hands: would this say anything on other-than-danzig Poland?)
Note that in this thread all these things had not happened yet.

Again, this is expecting British people to be extremely calculating and make detailed analyses of the diplomatic situation all the time. How often do people do that even today, rather than just follow their prejudices? If you read the letters page of almost any British newspaper of the period, you'll find two people having an angry debate about the Spanish Civil War, and given that both will invoke vague "British interests", it's pretty clear that what they're really debating is the social issues close to them. People preferred to think of the European powergame as a battle between Big Forces. That a system of shifting spheres of influence. This contradiction is a longstanding phenomenon in Britain: witness our severe schizophrenia over Bulgaria in the last century.

Anyway, what evidence is there that Churchill "happened to us"? Unelected premierships are perfectly normal here; but everybody had to admit that the response to "Blood, sweat, and tears" from the public was enthusiastic (including Goebbels, who even tried without much success to make his own propaganda machine a bit less vainglorious and more nitty-gritty in response).

The only parliamentary reference we have to go by is 1945, when the British people elected by a landslide... the chief of the left anti-appeasers and Churchill's #2 man during the war, Clem.

Regarding the let's-roll-up-the-sleeves-and-do_our-job mentality, I think that it was rather enforced by the churchill cabinet (and thank heaven for him doing so) with a skilled use of mass-medias rather than being the prevalent humor at the time (of course, "stereotypical" charatcterization help, thus the values of the british bulldog had an appeal to the english character).

It certainly existed before Churchill. There was, as I said, almost a sense of relief at losing our ally, and people were so enthusiastic about Dunkirk that Churchill himself reminded them that it was actually a defeat.

Oh, and though I normally try to turn the other cheek, when it comes to who's character has the most grim determination I have to correct this: bugger the "English character", I'm Scots. :p

Another subject that I would like to hint is that it appears quite probable to me that a bit of re-writing has been done by a winning side a bit ashamed of its early behaviour.

If you search for my name and "Chamberlain" and "appeasement", you'll find me having a lengthy debate with SteveP, who believes that British policy was reasonable and not in the least motivated by pro-fascist sentiment; whereas I rip into British policy and attitudes with some gusto, if I may say so myself.

There has been revisionism, and I try to fight it. From both sides.
 
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If you search for my name and "Chamberlain" and "appeasement", you'll find me having a lengthy debate with SteveP, who believes that British policy was reasonable and not in the least motivated by pro-fascist sentiment;


Depends what exactly you mean by "Pro-Fascist".

There were certainly plenty of people (mostly on the right) who viewed Fascism as a lesser evil to Communism, and hopefully a barrier against it. Likewise, there were those (mostly on the left) who thought the reverse. The point, imho, is that both groups were mainly defined by what they were against. The "pro-Fascists" were primarily anti-communists, and the "pro-communists" primarily anti-fascists.

This explains their paradoxical reaction to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. By any rational calculation, this should have deterred Britain from going to war, but in fact it did the opposite, marginalising the opposition essentially to the CP at one end and the BUF at the other. This was because both wings had been kicked in the teeth by their pet dictators. Hitler had shown that he wasn't there to protect the English upper classes from Bolshevism, while Stalin had revealed that his main concern wasn't protecting Brits of any social stratum from the Nazis. Anti-fascists and anti-communists abruptly found themselves on the same side - much to their mutual embarrassment.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong here. But wouldn't this end up just like Poland on 1 September 1939? Britain and France offer to fight for Czechoslovakia, Hitler
invades, Chamberlain says if you're not out in three days, we're declaring
war. Hitler's retort: "MAKE ME!" Three days later, Chamberlain calls Hitler's
bluff, and declares war on Germany. France then follows Britain's lead. Am I wrong here?
No. What follows, I expect, is pretty OTL, too: the French have their asses handed to them. With neither CHL nor Hurricanes in any numbers (forget Spits), RAF has its head handed to it. Winston (presuming he still becomes PM) is forced out when BC proves unable to strike back. (It's been established since Guernica & Shanghai there's a political need to strike back, or the government fails.) His replacement makes peace? Probably. Hitler, being Hitler, invades the SU anyhow. Probably Japan attacks Pearl Harbor anyhow, tho it's conceivable the '38 border clash with the SU, coincident with the German attack, brings Japan into Siberia without U.S. involvement at all. Can you feature "Neutrality Patrol" out of Manila? Shaw & Downes taking the place of Greer & Rueben James & bringing the U.S. into the war?
 
The big difference in this 1938 scenario compared to OTL's 1939 is that the Soviets are already in the war. France and Britain might be tempted to sit back and watch to see how the war against the Soviets develops, before launching any major attacks against Germany. They don't want the commies ending up with Poland and Germany, and might even consider joining the war against the Soviets on the German side if things get bad enough. Of course if the Entente does end up siding with the Germans against the Soviets it would be on the Entente's terms.

Of course this would all depend on how well the Poles do against the Soviets. I personally think that the Poles would do a much better job against the Soviets in '38 than they did against the Germans in '39. A victory without German help is unlikely, and even with German help things might not go well for them in the long term. Germany would definitely be weakened fighting the Czechs, as their army was no pushover, and the German army of 1938 was nothing close to the army that blitzkrieged through Poland in 1939, let alone France in 1940. As the Soviets ramp up their war effort in '39 and '40, they will eventually be able to overpower the Germans and Poles, at least without the later receiving Entente help.

The Entente has the choice of either plunging headlong into Germany(in a a war that they must have expected to be bloody and slow like the last) and gifting Poland to the Soviets by causing a German-Polish collapse on both fronts, or sitting back and picking a winner at their liesure and on their terms. The French might actually prefer the former, but the British would almost definitely prefer a more cautious and anti-communist approach.
 
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No. What follows, I expect, is pretty OTL, too: the French have their asses handed to them. With neither CHL nor Hurricanes in any numbers (forget Spits), RAF has its head handed to it. Winston (presuming he still becomes PM) is forced out when BC proves unable to strike back. (It's been established since Guernica & Shanghai there's a political need to strike back, or the government fails.) His replacement makes peace? Probably. Hitler, being Hitler, invades the SU anyhow. Probably Japan attacks Pearl Harbor anyhow, tho it's conceivable the '38 border clash with the SU, coincident with the German attack, brings Japan into Siberia without U.S. involvement at all. Can you feature "Neutrality Patrol" out of Manila? Shaw & Downes taking the place of Greer & Rueben James & bringing the U.S. into the war?

You havn't actually bothered to read the order of battles of the air forces for the two sides, have you....
 
I see a recursive pattern here

Where? Hitler made a wide variety of illogical decisions (eg, failing to acquire the Sudetenland by stealth, using a cover of democracy, which would have vastly increased his credibility; chasing Jewish wealth, intelligence, and sympathy out of his country before investing vast resources in their extermination in the middle of a shooting war) which can mostly be traced back to rabid anti-Semitism, Slavophobia, or the breakneck pace at which he re-armed Germany. Where's the recursion there? I'm not saying Hitler was mad because Hitler was Hitler, I'm saying Hitler was mad because of the lunatic phobias and obsessions that hampered his own leadership.
 
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