At the time of the Munich crisis – not very. For several reasons. Facing a much stronger and more populous Germany, the Czechoslovak government decided to build a series of border fortifications in the 1930s, discarding the other option of a more mobile defense. The Maginot line was an obvious inspiration, and in autumn 1934, a couple of months after the first funds were earmarked for the construction of these fortifications, a Czechoslovak delegation visited France, and in early 1935 French advisors arrived in Prague.

Realizing the exceedingly difficult scenario a war with Germany would present, the military plans called for fortifications in the north to cover a fighting withdrawal to Moravia and Slovakia where the Czechoslovak forces would wait for a French counterattack.

In 1936 the government decided to build two lines of heavy forts in basically all viable approaches from Germany. Much of the border is mountainous, forested and difficult to cross, and remember that this is still before the 1938 Anschluss of Austria, limiting the shared border to the north and west of Czechoslovakia.

However, the plan had to be rejected due to outrageous projected costs and a building time of at least six years. A decision to limit the defenses to just a single line was taken, but even this was later deemed unfeasible. The idea of heavy defenses at all key parts of the border was abandoned or rather modified yet again in 1937, and these were to be built only in selected areas mostly in the north of the country.

This new plan instead called for over fifteen thousand lighter structures and pillboxes with overlapping fields of fire spread fairly deep along the border – the "Light fortification, Mk. 37" also known as "řopík" (after "ŘOP", the acronym for the government agency responsible for these works), a concrete bunker usually armed with machine guns and housing roughly between a couple of men to a squad. In addition, tank traps, barbed wire and minefields were also to be deployed.

In total, 1276 pieces of heavy fortifications and 15 463 of the lighter ones were to be built over a period of ten years to spread the still exceedingly high costs.

Herein lies the problem: Before the German occupation, the construction of only 263 heavy bunkers was finished, and during the time of the Munich crisis, only a small number (near Bratislava and in the northeast of what is now the Czech Republic) were in a state of war readiness and adequately equipped. Light fortifications were about two thirds complete with some ten thousand pillboxes ready. Furthermore, this was only after the annexation of Austria, extending the German-Czechoslovak border significantly and to regions with only light defenses.

The fortification system also had several weaknesses. It lacked any active anti-aircraft defenses, something only exacerbated by the general inferiority of Czechoslovak air force to its German counterpart. Anti tank combat was also a concern, as several bunker variants had only limited fields of view for their guns, and the number of anti tank assets was generally low, with heavy mines not available in any significant numbers. One solution to this problem would be the use of heavy fire support bunkers, but not a single one of those was armed before Munich. Inadequate troop training for operating in fortifications, and the possibility of a rear attack either by paratroopers or local Germans also were causes for concern.

With the German forces now threatening the lightly defended south, the north and west fortifications unfinished, and perhaps above all with the outcome of Munich meaning they would stand alone – and possibly be branded as causing the war – Czechoslovakia was in a very difficult position.