How prepared was Czechoslovakia to fight a defensive war against Germany in 1938?

by will5stars

Obviously Czechoslovak industry and military equipment made up a huge chunk of the German war effort in the early years of the war. What if that was turned against the Germans during the Munich Crisis? Could Czechoslovakia bloody the Germans enough to prevent their own collapse?

TobbeLQ

This is a bit iffy, as the question (to me, I could be wrong)balances on the edge of alternate history, so don't be surprised if you get a lot of different answers here.

There are some heavy factors weighing against Czechoslovakia.

Firstly, though Czechoslovakia had an impressive advanced industrial economy, and could produce her own tanks, artillery, and aircraft, it would be unwise to exaggerate its vitality. The Czechs were still woefully inferior to the Germans in terms of industry and economy. For example in the year 1938 Germany had a GDP of $351.4 billion, representing nearly nine-percent of the global total. Against this the Czechs compared unfavorably with but $30.3 billion comprising slightly less than one-percent of the world's total.

Secondly, after the Anschluss, Czechoslovakia found herself surrounded on all sides. Germany was definitely hostile, but remember that at Munich, both Poland and Hungary were also hostile, albeit more passively than Germany. Poland spirited away with Zaolzie after the Munich Agreement, and in the First Vienna Award, Hungary, with the help of both Germany and Italy, took Southern Slovakia from Czechoslovakia. Now, it is less likely that Hungary and Poland would take advantage of Czechoslovakia if Great Britain and France had said "no" to Germany regarding the Sudetenland, but their eager eyeing of Czechoslovak territory was something that needed to be taken into consideration.

As of October 1938 the Czech Army had a paper strength of six-hundred and fifty thousand men divided between forty-two divisions and two independent brigades, with a little over five-hundred tanks. Germany in the same month disposed for action against Czechoslovakia of nine-hundred thousand men divided into forty-eight divisions, including three Panzer and four motorized divisions counting over twenty-six hundred tanks. The Luftwaffe at the time counted some twenty-eight hundred aircraft to Czechoslovakia's somewhat less than nine-hundred machines.

This gave Germany a considerable preponderance, and since Germany had much greater territorial depth and surrounded Czechoslovakia on three sides, the advantages lay distinctly with her.

Thirdly, and probably most important, is that Hitler did not choose October (or any other dates, Rhineland, the Anschluss, the invasion of Poland and so on and so on) on a whim. Germany is quite defensible from the west, facing France. The re-militarization of the Rhineland was a key step in Hitler's policy towards the east, for Germany's naturally formidable geography was quickly supplemented by man-made fortifications.

So let's say France declared war when Germany tried to take the Sudetenland (or later when they took the rest of Czechia which happened in March), Germany would of course concentrate the bulk of her forces in the east to eliminate isolated Czechoslovakia, meanwhile standing on the defensive against France. In the spring the snows of the mountains swell the banks of the river, impeding movement. Where mountains themselves are, it's exceptionally difficult. In the autumn, by contrast, the mountains being to freeze. Snows fall heavy on their peaks. This greatly increases the strength of the defense. For France to attack the Hunsrück or the Black Forest while the passes and summits were covered in snow was a most formidable undertaking.

The French would be faced with the substantial obstacles of the mountains of western Germany, the Rhine, and the man-made fortifications of the Siegfried Line. They feared attacking them under any circumstances, but now they would be faced with attacking them in conditions of heavy snows in the mountains and a Rhine whose banks were swollen with autumnal rains.

The same thing happened in 1939 when Germany invaded Poland. Even had they wanted to, France was stuck on the other side of the border, powerless to render any support. By the time major military movements could be conducted, Poland had already fallen and Germany had entrenched themselves along the Rhine.

kaik1914

Czechoslovakia never expected to win the war with Germany. It was expecting a hard fight and inflict a lot of damage where the occupation for Germans would be looked as unworthy of the cost. The military doctrine operated with that scenario that if it could slow-down the German advances, it would give the French enough time to mobilize. The country was estimating to hold the onslaught for 10 to 14 days. The retreat toward central Slovakia would be accompanied with a with an orderly withdrawal of the armed forces. The mountainous terrain of Slovakia was considered as the last resort and could prevent the German occupation of it (Slovakia in 1944 held that territory 60 days against Germany during the uprising). The armament industry was in 1936 moved eastward to support the military, lets be a military facilities in Moravia (Uh. Brod, Vsetin, Bojkovice), or Slovakia (Dubnica).

The military readiness was based on fortified mountain passes and series of bunkers in open valleys between the mountains to deter, slow, or prevent the German invasion. In 2018 discussions among various Czech historians, the fortification created a false sense of security. Much of the military budget was used on the fortifications, but the military training and readiness was neglected, which was seen in the I. mobilization of 1938. By then, the army lost a significant preparation to train soldiers and the disunity between the military leaders on the next course of action eventually played toward the Benes capitulation.

Additionally, the country was also disintegrating, as Slovaks in the late 1930s aligned their interest with Germany. They have not seen the republic as the country of Czechs and Slovaks, but an extension of Czechs over Slovakia. While the situation in Slovakia was for Slovak far better than they had it under Hungary, the political aspiration after 20 years in freedom and democracy, pushed Slovakia to utilize on the Sudeten crisis to achieve an autonomy. It will be questionable, if in the war within the Czech lands, would Slovak political leadership risk a devastation of their country as well. The Slovak, Sudeten German ethnic makeup and the hostility of Hungary and Poland toward Czechoslovakia made much of the defensive plannings obsolete.