In high school history class it has stuck with me the quote from my professor, that said that the Czechoslovak army in 1937-38 prior to Munich conference was the best equipped and trained in the world and had the allies not thrown Czechoslovakia to the wolves we would have held out for long enough for the allies to intervene.
By giving Hitler the Sudetenland where all the forts and bunkers were situated (and still are), forcing Slovakia to separate or be eaten up by Hungary (not that certain fascist elements in Slovakia were hard to convince), the would be obstacle was eliminated and a new attack vector to Poland was opened.
Now how valid was the claim about the preparedness of the Czechoslovak army in a defensive conflict with the wehrmacht and could Czechoslovakia hold its own against them? Certainly the defenses in the Sudetenland were formidable but was the army really "the best in the world"?
Additinal question - was the "Munich betrayal" as it is called here really that significant or, considering the allies had to bide for time and couldn't have helped Czechoslovakia anyway, just accelerating the inevitable?
While Czechoslovakia heavily invested in its army in 1930s its quaility is often overstated.
Most unit being only formed during mobilization had also negative impact on overall levels of cohesion and training in individual units - for example peactime infantry regiment of 1600 men usually formed 2 two regiments of 3000 men each + number of smaller units.
Most of reservists would aso have problems with newer weapons systems introduced in second half of 30s - there was 81 mortar vz. 36, 37mm AT guns vz. 34 and vz. 37, 105mm gun vz.35, 75mm AA gun vz. 37. heavy MGs vz. 35 and vz. 37. Only about 4 annual classes of men had experience with these weapons during their service, so reservists were getting speedy rudiementary training during mobilization.
Composition of army also reflected overall population with about 30% army being made up by Germans and Hungarians....
But this had negative effect also - need to man long lines of fortification with high number of bunkers led to overstretching of units - there were infantry divions with sectors over 100 kilometres - in practice single infantry battalion would defend frontline of 10 - 20 kilometres with 1-2 batteries of artillery in support....
Manning of fortification with best troops also heavily reduced quality of divisions which were to be used as maneuver reserve after breakthrough - these were made up mostly from reservists with minimal numbers of AT weapons.
On northeastern border "heavy fortification" were build - these consisted of bunkers armed with heavyMGs and 47mm AT guns and "forts" which were to be armed with 100mm howitzers (none of these were instaled by the time of Munich).There were some heavily fortificated sectors, but there were also significant gaps and Germans were mostly planning to bypass these areas.
So overall effect of fortifications was somewhat mixed...