Was the Polish alliance with the UK and France a mistake?

Discussions on all aspects of Poland during the Second Polish Republic and the Second World War. Hosted by Piotr Kapuscinski.
steverodgers801
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Re: Was the Polish alliance with the UK and France a mistake

#211

Post by steverodgers801 » 11 Apr 2014, 18:34

WM, the Luftwaffe was not that strong and in terms of tanks the Germans only had PZ 1 and 2, so they did not the advantage they would later. The Czech tank at least as good as the PZ 2, the PZ 1 was obsolete when it was created.

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wm
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Re: Was the Polish alliance with the UK and France a mistake

#212

Post by wm » 03 May 2014, 21:30

Unfortunately the quality of that tanks matters little against the fact that the Germans needed advance only about a hundred miles to cut the country in half, leaving the disinterested Slovaks, Hungarians, Ukrainians in one half, and the Czechs in the other.
Even more - the Czech half would be populated in 25% by local Germans, the German bombers would need only 20 minutes to reach Prague, and in fact any other place inside of that pocket.


Sid Guttridge
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Re: Was the Polish alliance with the UK and France a mistake

#213

Post by Sid Guttridge » 08 May 2014, 13:26

Hi wm,

The Czechs were realists. They had planned fall back positions on much shorter lines to retire on and realized they could not hold Prague in the long run. They knew they could not beat Germany alone, but they might well hold out long enough for others to intervene. It would have been an enormous risk for Germany to have almost its entire active army tied down over the winter of 1938-39 against the Czechs.

Cheers,

Sid.

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wm
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Re: Was the Polish alliance with the UK and France a mistake

#214

Post by wm » 08 May 2014, 19:10

The problem is, from Prague to the center of the Czech Republic is maybe 50 miles, there was no place to fall back - except the poor, mountainous Slovakia. Hitler wouldn't mind, Slovakia would be the Ural mountains of his later plan for the remains of the Czechoslovak Army.
The mass of refugees from Bohemia and Moravia and the Czechoslovak soldiers would rather concern themselves with fighting hunger than the German Army.

And during the Great War Germany quite successfully fought France and the Russian Empire. Czechoslovakia wasn't an Empire by any stretch of imagination.

steverodgers801
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Re: Was the Polish alliance with the UK and France a mistake

#215

Post by steverodgers801 » 08 May 2014, 23:06

The key question is how long before Britain and France intervene if they do. Germany was in no shape to fight more then a quick war and there is no guarantee that Germany could simply march through Czechoslovakia. The Czech tanks forces were more then a match for the German in terms of quality and the German army was not yet the superb force it was to be. If the Germans did not win the war very quickly their economy would collapse assuming the allies at least started a blockade.
Even with a win if it was costly enough it would have set back Hitler's timetable for Poland for quite a while.

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wm
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Re: Was the Polish alliance with the UK and France a mistake

#216

Post by wm » 12 May 2014, 16:21

Probably never, the British Chiefs of Staff Committee said this in Appreciation of the Situation in the Event of War Against Germany, 14 September 1938:
Whereas at sea Great Britain and France have a marked advantage over Germany, on land and in the air they are at a disadvantage. Even if the Czechoslovak Army is included, Germany will probably be able to dispose as great, if not greater, strength than the combined strength of the three Allies. A bare comparison of numerical strengths, however, may be misleading. In the initial stages Germany is likely to employ a large proportion of her land and air forces towards obtaining a quick decision in Czechoslovakia; nevertheless she could still man her new field fortifications in the west in sufficient strength to render any initial French land offensive a costly and probably ineffective operation.
It is our opinion that no pressure that Great Britain and France can bring to bear, either by sea, on land, or in the air, could prevent Germany from overrunning Bohemia and from inflicting a decisive defeat on Czechoslovakia. The restoration of Czechoslovakia's lost integrity could only be achieved by the defeat of Germany and as the outcome of a prolonged struggle, which from the outset must assume the character of an unlimited war.

I would say the 300 slightly better Czechoslovak tanks wouldn't get a chance to fight the German tanks, because tanks generally don't fight other tanks, it is considered wasteful to do that.
They would be destroyed by artillery and the Luftwaffe, the Czechoslovak biplanes and those old Bloch MB.200s, looking like straight out of the Vulture Squadron, would be powerless to do anything about it.

steverodgers801
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Re: Was the Polish alliance with the UK and France a mistake

#217

Post by steverodgers801 » 12 May 2014, 22:26

The same staff members were telling Chamberlain that's thousands of German planes would destroy
London from the air. Was the Luftwaffe that good??? It had only been two years since Germany started rearming.

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Re: Was the Polish alliance with the UK and France a mistake

#218

Post by steverodgers801 » 12 May 2014, 22:47

Also the British staff was doing the worse possible scenario for anything they did and having the best possible outcome for anything the Germans did. The French army was greatly superior to the Germans, who had just started rearming. Hitler was exaggerating his strength to play on the allies fear of a war. I fail to see how Germany could have invaded Czechoslovakia and defended the border with France at the same time.

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Re: Was the Polish alliance with the UK and France a mistake

#219

Post by Gooner1 » 13 May 2014, 14:24

wm wrote:Probably never, the British Chiefs of Staff Committee said this in Appreciation of the Situation in the Event of War Against Germany, 14 September 1938:

"Whereas at sea Great Britain and France have a marked advantage over Germany, on land and in the air they are at a disadvantage. Even if the Czechoslovak Army is included, Germany will probably be able to dispose as great, if not greater, strength than the combined strength of the three Allies. A bare comparison of numerical strengths, however, may be misleading. In the initial stages Germany is likely to employ a large proportion of her land and air forces towards obtaining a quick decision in Czechoslovakia; nevertheless she could still man her new field fortifications in the west in sufficient strength to render any initial French land offensive a costly and probably ineffective operation."
Pessimistic analysis but quite possible I suppose. One has to wonder, however, that whilst the German army is conquering Czechoslovakia and holding the French army at bay what there is to stop the Polish army marching to Berlin.

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Re: Was the Polish alliance with the UK and France a mistake

#220

Post by steverodgers801 » 13 May 2014, 21:10

One classic technique is to only count a small percentage of one's own troops, say only troops within an area of the border and then to count every possible soldier on the other side regardless of how good they are. It is known as stated the staffers were telling Chamberlain that thousands of bombers could bomb London to bits when the DO 17 could not even reach England.

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wm
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Re: Was the Polish alliance with the UK and France a mistake

#221

Post by wm » 14 May 2014, 11:22

It's a mistake is overlook the fact that every third man in the Czechoslovak Army was a hostile German or Hungarian. Every sixth was an indifferent to the cause Slovak or Ruthenian, who probably saw nothing wrong in the desire of the Sudeten Germans to unity with their Fatherland.

And it would be eleven months between the Munich Agreement and the start of the WW2, it's hard to believe that millions strong German Army was radically improved in such a short period of time.

As to France and the UK they said clearly that they were not going to do anything, for them the unification of the German-populated areas with Germany was an acceptable price for peace.
Last edited by wm on 14 May 2014, 12:38, edited 1 time in total.

Sid Guttridge
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Re: Was the Polish alliance with the UK and France a mistake

#222

Post by Sid Guttridge » 14 May 2014, 12:07

Hi wm,

I would suggest that you are wrong about the Slovaks and Ruthenians. The minute Hungary was identifiable as being in the German camp, the Czechs' cause was theirs, because the Hungarians had territorial designs on both.

In the year between Munich and the outbreak of war the German Army was massively improved, both qualitatively and quantitatively. Here are a few examples relating only to the army:

1) It had called up a new conscription class (which was the equivalent in numbers to two years of French conscripts or three or four of Polish conscripts), and increased its available trained young manpower by a quarter.

2) It had completed the assimilation of the former Austrian forces.

3) It had acquired the weaponry of some 38 Czech divisions and division-equivalents, much of it of the highest international standard, plus some of the largest armaments plants in the world. The Sudetenland also added 46th Infantry Division to the German OB and other manpower to neighbouring wehrkreises. Nearly half the gun-armed German tanks (i.e. not PzKpfw.Is and IIs)at the outbreak of war were Czech.

4) It had nearly an entire year of additional breakneck German rearmament under its belt.

The German Army of the Munich Crisis was much weaker compared with its enemies than it was a year later. You not only have to add Czech armaments to German strength, but you also have to subtract them from potential Allied strength. The differential is around 76 divisions or division-equivalents!

Cheers,

Sid.

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Re: Was the Polish alliance with the UK and France a mistake

#223

Post by gebhk » 14 May 2014, 12:24

I would say the 300 slightly better Czechoslovak tanks wouldn't get a chance to fight the German tanks, because tanks generally don't fight other tanks, it is considered wasteful to do that.
This statement rather begs the question why all tanks designed since the early 1930s had (and have) an anti-tank gun as their primary weapon. As an aside, is there some readily available source for the exact numbers of Pz 3s and 4s in the line in late 1938?

There can be little doubt that the German armed forces were reinforced significantly between October '39 and September '39, both quantitatively and qualitatively (Pz 3 and 4 for example). Illustrative of both numerical and qualitative growth is the evolution of the luftwaffe figher capability. The modern fighter force doubled approximately in this time, with the bulk of the new arrivals, as I understand it being the significantly improved Emils, which were not available for war in 1938. Much of this development was fuelled by the boost to the economy (an economy which was in my understanding on the point of collapse in 1938) of Chech resources, including gold reserves as well as production facilities.

I would suggest that there can be little doubt that Germany was substantially weaker vis a vis the allies in 1938 than she was in 1939 both in military might and geo-strategic positioning. The interesting question in this fascinating 'what if' scenario is what Stalin would have done once Poland and France were embroiled alongside Czechoslovakia in a war with Germany. I suspect the teptation to grab this and that would have proved irresistible.

Best wishes
K

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wm
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Re: Was the Polish alliance with the UK and France a mistake

#224

Post by wm » 14 May 2014, 13:13

Let's not forget that Poland and France reinforced their armed forces in that period of time too, many of the Polish more modern weapons arrived just in time for the WW2.

It was four short months between gaining access to the Czechoslovak weapons and the beginning of the WW2, it's rather impossible to integrate new weapons and train soldiers in their use in such a short time.
In fact a war between Germany and Czechoslovakia in 1938 would give access to those weapons, Czechoslovak financial assets and industry five months earlier than in reality.

As to Hungarians, Hungary showed little hostility towards Czechoslovakia before the Munich Agreement. In fact they had to be prodded constantly by Germany and Poland to do something at last.

That nearly half the gun-armed German tanks means probably a hundred or so tanks, because Panzer IIIs were deployed in limited numbers during the September Campaign (not to mention the fact the armour of those tanks was so weak at that time they were easily destroyed even by anti-tank rifles - so their impact was limited) .

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Re: Was the Polish alliance with the UK and France a mistake

#225

Post by LWD » 14 May 2014, 13:44

gebhk wrote: This statement rather begs the question why all tanks designed since the early 1930s had (and have) an anti-tank gun as their primary weapon. ...
I don't believe that's quite accurate. For instance the M3 Medium tank had a low velocity 75mm gun as it's primary armament. Likewise some of the Soviet tanks were equipped with low velocity guns I beleive.

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