"Czechoslovakia '38-What If They'd Fought?"

[Patrick Edwin Cooley]

Hello!

Can anyone provide any information and/or links on
The Internet to material on this topic?

I got this topic from the title of an article in
"Command" magazine.

My elderly uncle told me once that Adolf Hitler was
scared s tless of Czechoslovakia's military
capabilities, particularly the "Skoda" works.

Thank you all very much!

Yours sincerely,

Patrick E. Cooley

[hauptmannn]

The Czech army was indeed formidable for one.

The Czechs had an army of 42 divisions and two brigades - more than 600 000 men and 4 air regiments. The Czechs had 350 tanks and 73 tankettes, along with about 70 armoured cars.
The Czech army had the world's highest amount of automatic weapons per soldier (1/7 soldiers) in September 1938 and plenty of excellent artillery.

http://www.thirdreichforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=30130

Skoda was a famous company which made guns and during ww1 they made one of the biggest guns in the war.

[maltesefalcon]

The book "What If" has an excellant chapter on what would have happened callled The War of 1938.

In it, the myth of German superiority at the time is dispelled. In fact, they were no where near ready for a major conflict.

If you check various sites on the net, you will see that much of the equipment used against France and Britain in 1940 was made in the crucial year previous.

Chamberlain's lack of fortitude lost all of the Czech army and its manufacturing capability to Hitler. More importantly, since Russia was the only one to stand up for the Czechs at Munich, the Western lack of resolve drove Stalin to align with Hitler for fear of being isolated.

[Germania]

It could be the start of WWII or start of an regional war! Hard to say!

[Glynwed]

Numbers of weapons of Czechoslovak army in 1938:

1.280.000 soldiers
217.000 horses
26.000 motor vehicles

207.200 pistols
1.536.000 hand-grenades
864.500 rifles
34.500 light machine-guns LK vz. 26
7.100 heavy machine-guns TK vz. 24 (old style)
1.600 heavy machine-guns TK vz. 37

600 anti-tank guns 37 mm
230 anti-aircraft guns 20 mm (Oerlikon)
90 anti-aircraft guns 80 mm
140 anti-aircraft guns 83,5 mm (old style 1922)

15 heavy armoured cars vz. 27
50 light armoured cars vz. 30
70 tankettes vz. 33
50 light tanks vz. 34
300 light tanks vz. 35

900 mine-thrower 80 mm
200 mine-thrower 90 mm (old style 1917)
240 mountain guns 75 mm (old style 1915)
270 light guns 80 mm (old style 1917)
600 light howitzer 100 mm (old style 1914/1919)
100 heavy guns 105 mm
340 heavy howitzer 150 mm

370 fighters Avia B-534
60 light bomber and reconnaissance aircraft Avia B-71 (soviet SB-2)
50 heavy bombers MB-200
300 light bomber Letov Š-328
100 light reconnaissance aircraft Aero A-100/Ab-101

[Owain Glyndwr]

If they had all this why didnt they fight when the germans moved in to occupy the rest of Czechslovakia?

[Tim Smith]

Three reasons:

1) Because the Sudenland that they'd had to give up to Hitler in 1938 consisted of the most defensible mountainous terrain on the German/Austrian borders. Without the terrain advantage, the Czechs could not hope to resist the Germans for long - they were in the same position as the Poles in 1939. The Germans were surrounding them on three sides and could just drive down from the mountains into the Bohemian central plain.

2) The Czechoslovak nation was splitting apart by 1939 - the Slovaks in eastern Czechoslovakia wanted independence and were counting on the Germans to give it to them. So that means the Czechs in Bohemia would be fighting on their own, with the Slovaks fighting against them.

3) They believed, probably correctly, that Britain and France would not help them if they did fight, since Hitler would present the issue as a Slovak bid for independence which the Allies would find it difficult to dispute politically.

[Glynwed]

In 22.September 1938 the Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia became Army General Jan Syrový (from 1933 the General inspector of Czechoslovak army). In 1968 he answered this question:

Reporter: From your rank of General inspector you have the perfect overview about our army, about it’s strength and war potential. Can we defend by our own?

General Syrový: Alone we have not any chance to success. It was clear view of the whole our command staff. I know, the enthusiasm of people was great, soldiers want go to fight, but we can’t lead the peoples to slaughter.

In the same year (1968), the Major Commander of Czechoslovak army, Army General Ludvík Krejèí, answered the same question:

Reporter: What was your opinion, when France and England throw us to Hitler?

General Krejèí: I realize, that if we stay alone, we can defend ourselves for some time, how the Fortune will patronize, but we can’t win.

[maltesefalcon]

Further to Tim Smith

To add to your response, not only the terrain in the Sudeten land was important. They had a Czech version of the Maginot Line line on their frontier.

Although it was incomplete in 1938, it was still a formidable obstacle, captured without a shot due to Western intransigence.

If I sound emotional about this, it's because I am. I believe a serious effort in Munich would have prevented Hitler's occupation of Czechoslovakia and may have led to his downfall.

[Tim Smith]

I agree with you.

The best time to confront Hitler would have been March 1936, over the Rhineland, but the British and French people just didn't care at that time and had virtually no idea what Hitler and the Nazis were all about.

Czechoslovakia October 1938 would have been the next best option. Hitler really wanted a war with Czechoslovakia (alone, without Allied support). If the Allies had backed the Czechs to the hilt, Hitler may have backed down.

At the worst, he would do what he did over Poland in September 1939 - assume the Allies are bluffing and invade anyway. Then WWII starts 11 months early - but that could well have worked to the Allies' advantage. Although the Allies were unprepared for war in 1938, especially in terms of airpower, the Germans weren't in great shape either.

Unfortunately, Hitler's strategy of bluff and bluster worked, and in 1938 the Allies (especially the French) believed the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe to be much stronger than they actually were. This frightened them off over Czechoslovakia and convinced them to bide their time while Germany grew stronger.

Further to Tim Smith
If I sound emotional about this, it's because I am. I believe a serious effort in Munich would have prevented Hitler's occupation of Czechoslovakia and may have led to his downfall.

[maltesefalcon]

Hitler himself said that if Russia France or Britain had actually showed some backbone and mobilized their forces, he would have backed down.

There need not have been any actually fighting, just the threat. As I said earlier, many German generals at the time secretly hoped for a small fiasco to overthrow Hitler. I believe Beck was in the thick of this.

Remember, though the people loved Hitler at the time, the High Command considered him a Bohemian upstart, beneath contempt. It was not until after the fall of France that they began to believe in his "vision".

[kevin]

The army of Czechoslovakia in 1938 was by no means small and was well equipped and could boast of natural defences. However the population contained large minorities. Slovaks, Germans, Hungarians and Poles might not have fought as willingly. One need only remember the way that Slovenian and Croatian units melted in 1941.
Britain and France were not willing to go to war at this stage. The only country that might have influenced events was the Soviet Union but its representatives wre not even invited to the Munich Conference.

[Reviewer]

Numbers of weapons of Czechoslovak army in 1938:

1.280.000 soldiers
217.000 horses
26.000 motor vehicles

207.200 pistols
1.536.000 hand-grenades
864.500 rifles
34.500 light machine-guns LK vz. 26
7.100 heavy machine-guns TK vz. 24 (old style)
1.600 heavy machine-guns TK vz. 37

600 anti-tank guns 37 mm
230 anti-aircraft guns 20 mm (Oerlikon)
90 anti-aircraft guns 80 mm
140 anti-aircraft guns 83,5 mm (old style 1922)

15 heavy armoured cars vz. 27
50 light armoured cars vz. 30
70 tankettes vz. 33
50 light tanks vz. 34
300 light tanks vz. 35

900 mine-thrower 80 mm
200 mine-thrower 90 mm (old style 1917)
240 mountain guns 75 mm (old style 1915)
270 light guns 80 mm (old style 1917)
600 light howitzer 100 mm (old style 1914/1919)
100 heavy guns 105 mm
340 heavy howitzer 150 mm

370 fighters Avia B-534
60 light bomber and reconnaissance aircraft Avia B-71 (soviet SB-2)
50 heavy bombers MB-200
300 light bomber Letov Š-328
100 light reconnaissance aircraft Aero A-100/Ab-101

hmmmmmmmm, no wonder that Hitler wanted Germany to re-arme...

What weaponery did Germany had at the time?

[Reviewer]

The army of Czechoslovakia in 1938 was by no means small and was well equipped and could boast of natural defences. However the population contained large minorities. Slovaks, Germans, Hungarians and Poles might not have fought as willingly. One need only remember the way that Slovenian and Croatian units melted in 1941.

Agreed, also there is a factor that no one have put forward yet, blitzkrieg.

[Doppleganger]

The army of Czechoslovakia in 1938 was by no means small and was well equipped and could boast of natural defences. However the population contained large minorities. Slovaks, Germans, Hungarians and Poles might not have fought as willingly. One need only remember the way that Slovenian and Croatian units melted in 1941.

Agreed, also there is a factor that no one have put forward yet, blitzkrieg.

Blitzkrieg in 1938 was not fully developed and would have been unsuccessful IMO. The Wehrmacht did not have the necessary machines in production and co-operation between the Luftwaffe had not yet been properly established. Furthermore, the defensive terrain around the Czech/German border was unsuitable for armoured operations. The acquisition of the Skoda Works contributed a great deal to the early development of Germany's Panzerwaffe.

A full Czech armed resistance to the German annexation would have been nothing short of a disaster for Hitler and who knows, may have lead to his removal.