Neville Chamberlain dies in 1937

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pugsville
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Re: Neville Chamberlain dies in 1937

#31

Post by pugsville » 07 Sep 2018, 07:33

Futurist wrote:
07 Sep 2018, 04:14
The Red Army doesn't have to get permission from Poland and/or Romania before they cross their borders. Rather, they can simply invade one or both of these countries.
I just don;t see Stalin doing that. if the West are fighting Germany good form his point of view. if the Germans invaded either he would act but I just don;t see him acting unilateral by invading.

ljadw
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Re: Neville Chamberlain dies in 1937

#32

Post by ljadw » 07 Sep 2018, 09:41

Futurist wrote:
07 Sep 2018, 02:49
pugsville wrote:
06 Sep 2018, 13:48
ljadw wrote:
06 Sep 2018, 09:30
And,what would have been the outcome of the war in 1938 ? The Czechs would have been defeated in two weeks ,and liberated by the Soviets 6 years later .
A French/British DoW in 1938 would not have helped the Czechs, as the French/British DoW in 1939 did not help Poland .Poland was defeated in a few weeks, the 7,5 million Czechs would not last longer .That's why the Czechs agreed to Hitler's demands : the Czechs were doomed if they fought and doomed if they did not fight .Whatever they did, Hitler would be in Prague,Benesj would not be in Berlin .
I agree that the Czechs would have gone down if a few weeks, the only chance would have been Poland joining, but that was unlikely.

Britain and France might have been better off going to war in 1938, while they were not well prepared, neither were the Germans, and the Germans ability to conduct a successful war against France was much less in 1938 than it was in 1940. It's quite conceivable it could lead to a Anglo-French victory in 1941-42 without the Russians getting half of Europe.

Poland was equally doomed in 1939 and they fought. Humans are only semi rational at best.
The Soviets would have also fought had Czechoslovakia been invaded in 1938, no?
No : they could not and would not .


ljadw
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Re: Neville Chamberlain dies in 1937

#33

Post by ljadw » 07 Sep 2018, 09:44

Futurist wrote:
07 Sep 2018, 04:14
pugsville wrote:
07 Sep 2018, 03:02
Futurist wrote:
07 Sep 2018, 02:49
The Soviets would have also fought had Czechoslovakia been invaded in 1938, no?
Soviet interventionism was viewed as very problematic. No one was keen to get close to the soviets, and certainly the states in between Poland and Rumanian had very very firm views that the Red Army should never be allowed on their soil. So Britian and France were very reluctant to work with the soviets, and the extreme intransigence of states like Poland and Romania made any Soviet intervention difficult.

Stalin was quite happy to fight Germany as long as Britain and France were already fighting Germany seriously. Though there are problems with how that can come about.
The Red Army doesn't have to get permission from Poland and/or Romania before they cross their borders. Rather, they can simply invade one or both of these countries.
Both Poland and Romania had a treaty with France that obliged France to help them if they were attacked by the SU .The role of Poland and Romania in The Little Entente was to keep the SU out of Europe .

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Re: Neville Chamberlain dies in 1937

#34

Post by OpanaPointer » 07 Sep 2018, 12:18

pugsville wrote:
07 Sep 2018, 03:05
OpanaPointer wrote:
07 Sep 2018, 00:18
So is that a yes or a no?
My current view is not immediately, if Britain decides against war i can't see Churchill returning in any cabinet capacity, once Britain is at war it's quite likely he could be appointed to the Admiralty or war related post and quite easily become PM , but sort of more likely the worse the war goes.. But I am reading about the internal British politics of this period right now so my view might well change.
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Re: Neville Chamberlain dies in 1937

#35

Post by Gooner1 » 07 Sep 2018, 16:11

pugsville wrote:
07 Sep 2018, 03:02
Soviet interventionism was viewed as very problematic. No one was keen to get close to the soviets, and certainly the states in between Poland and Rumanian had very very firm views that the Red Army should never be allowed on their soil. So Britian and France were very reluctant to work with the soviets, and the extreme intransigence of states like Poland and Romania made any Soviet intervention difficult.
Romania and the Soviet Union did have something of a rapprochement in the 1930s though probably not to the extent that Romania would allow transit rights to the Red Army. Overflight rights to the Red Air Force OTOH may have been tolerated.

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Re: Neville Chamberlain dies in 1937

#36

Post by pugsville » 08 Sep 2018, 04:59

Gooner1 wrote:
07 Sep 2018, 16:11

Romania and the Soviet Union did have something of a rapprochement in the 1930s though probably not to the extent that Romania would allow transit rights to the Red Army. Overflight rights to the Red Air Force OTOH may have been tolerated.
To where? Czechoslovakian bases? I can see it being done, I can't see it making much of a difference, propaganda for the Soviets about what good world citizens they are maybe,

Romania is much more likely than Poland to allow transit of the Red Army. Poland it's almost inconceivable no matter what, Romania merely extremely unlikely. Maybe a small force but that's not enough to make much difference.

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Re: Neville Chamberlain dies in 1937

#37

Post by lahoda » 29 May 2020, 23:28

ljadw wrote:
07 Sep 2018, 09:44
Both Poland and Romania had a treaty with France that obliged France to help them if they were attacked by the SU .The role of Poland and Romania in The Little Entente was to keep the SU out of Europe .
Poland was not a member of the Little Entente. It was Romania, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia and the role of the treaty was to keep Hungary at bay.
France was obliged to help Czechoslovakia in case of attack, and we've all seen how creative French managed to be in Munich 1938. Given the strength of France's trade unions and socialists in general, and overall society paralyse, there might even be a communist revolution in France in case SU attacked any county which France was obliged to help.

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Re: Neville Chamberlain dies in 1937

#38

Post by lahoda » 29 May 2020, 23:38

pugsville wrote:
06 Sep 2018, 13:48

I agree that the Czechs would have gone down if a few weeks, the only chance would have been Poland joining, but that was unlikely.

...

Poland was equally doomed in 1939 and they fought. Humans are only semi rational at best.
I agree that Czechs would have gone down in few weeks if they had to cope with Wehrmacht of 1939/1940 which also included a substantial amount of weaponry procured well, ehm, in Czechoslovakia. Germany was not in shape to launch successful attack in 1938, they hardly managed to move troops to Vienna earlier that year, and there were no hostile activities. Czechoslovakia would fought in 1938 if France gave them the same level of support as it was given to Poland (even the phoney war was better than being marked as country that started the war, and get dissolved in Germany as a result). Not just Germany was much weaker in 1938, Poland had no fortified mountains on the border, the outcome of such campaign of 1.7 mil strong attacking army against 1.2 mil strong defenders would be very different

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Steve
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Re: Neville Chamberlain dies in 1937

#39

Post by Steve » 30 May 2020, 00:37

Hi, the German minority in Czechoslovakia was a bit over 20% so presumably they also made up about 20% of conscripts. If Germany had attacked would the Czech army have called up German conscripts? Would the Slovakian element in the Czech army have stayed loyal to Czechoslovakia?

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Re: Neville Chamberlain dies in 1937

#40

Post by pugsville » 30 May 2020, 02:29

lahoda wrote:
29 May 2020, 23:38
pugsville wrote:
06 Sep 2018, 13:48

I agree that the Czechs would have gone down if a few weeks, the only chance would have been Poland joining, but that was unlikely.

...

Poland was equally doomed in 1939 and they fought. Humans are only semi rational at best.
I agree that Czechs would have gone down in few weeks if they had to cope with Wehrmacht of 1939/1940 which also included a substantial amount of weaponry procured well, ehm, in Czechoslovakia. Germany was not in shape to launch successful attack in 1938, they hardly managed to move troops to Vienna earlier that year, and there were no hostile activities. Czechoslovakia would fought in 1938 if France gave them the same level of support as it was given to Poland (even the phoney war was better than being marked as country that started the war, and get dissolved in Germany as a result). Not just Germany was much weaker in 1938, Poland had no fortified mountains on the border, the outcome of such campaign of 1.7 mil strong attacking army against 1.2 mil strong defenders would be very different
yeah I agree with much of this. Austria, Cezch, Poland a nice series of warm up drills/campaigns for the German army But once Austria was occupied it did much to make Czechoslovakian border harder to defend.

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Re: Neville Chamberlain dies in 1937

#41

Post by lahoda » 30 May 2020, 11:04

pugsville wrote:
30 May 2020, 02:29
yeah I agree with much of this. Austria, Cezch, Poland a nice series of warm up drills/campaigns for the German army But once Austria was occupied it did much to make Czechoslovakian border harder to defend.
Obviously, the extended border vwith Germany via annexation of Austria didn't helped the defense of Czechoslovakia, but it was also not an automatic defeat. Contrary many claims of "non-existent" fortifications on border of Austria, the line was completed and unlinke Maginot line, Germans needed to find a way through, not around. There were very few heavy buildings and no artillery in the forts, but the line of pillboxes was impressive and Wehrmacht would need to find a way to deal with them. Heavy machine guns were able to penetrate even Panzers II. While Wehrmacht practiced assaults on the pillboxes, they somehow forgot that attacking one box will make them vulnerable of the shooting from the next pillbox in the line. They might have a very difficult time getting through and the casualties might be enormous. Were Germans ready for that?
Attacking from Austria would represent a substantial logistic challenge for Germans. While it is true that Prague and Brno are very accessible for German aircraft, the same is true for communication hubs in Austria. Linz is only 30 minutes away, and Czechoslovak Air Force was ready to execute bomb raids there. The size of the Bomber Command was not that big (compared to Luftwaffe) and majority of the Czechoslovak planes were obsolete, but were Germans ready to repel the attacks? B-71s would be a difficult opponent even for Bf-109s and Luftwaffe was not ready to do any sort of night defense - the towns were not even instructed to do the blackout, making the task for MB-200s easier. Unlike Czechoslovak Air Force, which was dispersed on field airfields, Luftwaffe was concentrated on handful of airfields (especially in Austria) - any successful raid could be disastrous. Even the air superiority was not a given fact, it would need to be fought.

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Re: Neville Chamberlain dies in 1937

#42

Post by ljadw » 30 May 2020, 20:46

Steve wrote:
30 May 2020, 00:37
Hi, the German minority in Czechoslovakia was a bit over 20% so presumably they also made up about 20% of conscripts. If Germany had attacked would the Czech army have called up German conscripts? Would the Slovakian element in the Czech army have stayed loyal to Czechoslovakia?
The only who were loyal to CZ were the Czech.

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Re: Neville Chamberlain dies in 1937

#43

Post by ljadw » 30 May 2020, 20:51

lahoda wrote:
29 May 2020, 23:28
ljadw wrote:
07 Sep 2018, 09:44
Both Poland and Romania had a treaty with France that obliged France to help them if they were attacked by the SU .The role of Poland and Romania in The Little Entente was to keep the SU out of Europe .
Poland was not a member of the Little Entente. It was Romania, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia and the role of the treaty was to keep Hungary at bay.
France was obliged to help Czechoslovakia in case of attack, and we've all seen how creative French managed to be in Munich 1938. Given the strength of France's trade unions and socialists in general, and overall society paralyse, there might even be a communist revolution in France in case SU attacked any county which France was obliged to help.
But the Soviets were not planning to invade Poland and to occupy it ,because Germany would not tolerate it and because the Kremlin knew from the past that a Soviet occupation of Poland would only cause the USSR problems . And the future corroborated this .

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Re: Neville Chamberlain dies in 1937

#44

Post by lahoda » 30 May 2020, 21:40

ljadw wrote:
30 May 2020, 20:51
But the Soviets were not planning to invade Poland and to occupy it ,because Germany would not tolerate it and because the Kremlin knew from the past that a Soviet occupation of Poland would only cause the USSR problems . And the future corroborated this .
That's true, but it has nothing to do with Little Entente.

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