What if Poland had defeated the Blitz?

[jacobs_ladder2]

On a side note, Zalgiris , I did some research and I have to say you were right about the Welle Plan. It appears that the Poles were much more ready for war than I thought. The German efforts to secretly mobilize probably didn't have the importance that I originally argued.

I think the real issue would more closely have been the speed and efficiency of mobilization. From what I have read the Poles had serious problems getting everyone into the field. I need to look at this a bit more, but it seems to me to be a much more important factor.

On the other hand, after further research I am still unable to find any examples of the use of modern tactics having any appreciable effect on the campaign. The Polish army was encircled and beaten by the 9th of September with German infantry keeping pace or leading almost every panzer division.

The factors concisely listed by JasonC in his last post were the determiners. German superiority in manpower, firepower, mobility, communications and supply and Polish divisions stretched far beyond their capacity to defend such a massive frontier. The large encirclement of the bulk of the Polish army was the result of Army Group North attacking towards Warsaw. Polish forces found themselves withdrawing before they ever really had a chance to make a stand.

On the subject of quoting French officers, I can only say that I do not know what he was referring to. If he was referring to the standard German approach to operations during the Polish campaign then, I'm sorry, but he was full of crap, badly mistaken or seriously mislead.

Arguing about the source of the quote or its validity is really a waste of time. My suggestion is that no more effort be squandered on it.

Cheers

Paul

[jacobs_ladder2]

Originally posted by Sergei:

The argument here, anyway, is not about why Poland lost, but if Poland ever could have had any chances to hold out at least a tiny bit longer if her strategy hadn't been so poor against attacks coming from all directions.

Possibly, but I don't see why this is relevant. No one was coming to Poland's aid. Even if they had held out for twice as long (10-14 days instead of 5-7) I don't see how it would have made a difference.

Cheers

Paul

p.s. The argument started out as a debate over the existence of a "blitzkrieg" style campaign in Poland. Did we see anything new in 1939?

[SSgt Viljuri]

jacobs_ladder wrote:

Possibly, but I don't see why this is relevant. No one was coming to Poland's aid.

Interestingly enough, Poland's fate along with other smaller nations in Europe, was sealed when the Czechs didn't have the balls to defend Sudetenland in 1938.

Not forgetting the allied appeasement, but after this voluntary surrender, it was a done deal for the Nazis (and for the Soviets) to grab what ever they wanted, which they couldn't have done so easily otherwise.

The Czechs could have caused serious blows to the German war machinery, notwithstanding the fact that they would have had to fight alone. Basically they possessed enough equipment and fortifications to hold off the initial German attack. And then there could have well been a German military coup (Wehrmacht generals or so) to overthrow Hitler and his henchmen...

But they hesitated, especially since both the British and the French would have been hostile to the Czechs after the Münich agreement in September 1938. Not to mention their neighbouring countries...

But as we showed, determination can sometimes move mountains, and both Chechoslovakia and Poland were better armed than we were.

[Bigduke6]

Mr. Dorosh,

Just to be clear, I'm not arguing the Polish soldiers did not fight hard; v. Manstein and Gudardian make that obvious.

I am talking about tactical, operational, and even strategic inferiority as compared to Germany, and its impact on the Polish army's ability to hold out until England or France, or both, intervened against Germany. v. Manstein's evaluation of the Polish army as poorly-equipped and trained as compared to the German army is on pp 38-41 of my copy of Lost Victories. (Abridged English version).

Dupuy's Encyclopedia of Military History and Keegan's Second World War are other standard histories describing the 1939 Polish Army as an outdated force configured to fight a WWI-style war.

v. Manstein's comment on the multinational aspects of the Polish force is this:

"Apart from Marshal Pilsudski and one or two sober-minded politicians, probably no one in Poland ever quite realized in what a dangerous situation the country had landed itself by enforcing its unjustified territorial demands on the neighbouring states of Russia and Germany. Yet this same Poland numbered only 35 million inhabitants, of whom only 22 million were of Polish nationality (sic: "ethnicity" would be a better translation) the rest belonging to German, Ukrainian, White Russian, and Jewish minorities, all of which had been oppressed to one degree or another."

In terms of the Ukrainians, "oppression" included a government program settling Poles in Ukrainian villages and towns, preferential treatment to Polish children in the national school system, preferential treatement to Polish adults in the government, and a near-total ban on the Ukrainian language; the exceptions being local media and among families.

But the courts, the laws, all business documents - all of that was in Polish, in regions where well over 90 per cent of the population spoke Ukrainian. As nearly as can be told the Polish authorities did not murder Ukrainians, or use violence beyond the level of police enforcing a court order to remove Ukrainians from their land.

Rather, it was the policy of the Polish state to create a Polish nation through a policy of making non-Polish regions more Polish, through colonization. This skewed the law against ethnic Ukrainians in any dispute with an ethnic Pole.

This policy was dramatically more agressive than the one that went before it, that of Austria-Hungary, whose attitude towards ethnic minorities effectively was "Give them maximum autonomy as long as they pay taxes and send their quota of peasants into the army, and once they're in the army we'll do our best to keep them in ethically homogeneous units."

Am I overstating the resentment Polish interwar colonization policy engendered in its Eastern provinces? I don't think so. In 1943-44, when the Red Army came through, the Volyn and neighboring regions saw a massive ethnic cleansing by Ukrainians against Poles mostly, but also by Poles against Ukrainians. It is rather obscure in English-language histories, but it is a matter of historical fact that somewhere between 100 and 400 thousand villagers in the region murdered one another, as soon as the Germans pulled out.Tha'ts not insignificant.

Part of the killings were of course retaliations against collaborators, but more was just lignering ethnic antagonisms: the Ukrainians may have had their reservations about the Red Army, but in any case they wanted the Poles off "Ukrainian" land, and so tens of thousands of innocent Poles died.

Consider this ethnic antagonism somewere below the surface of the Polish national army, and contrast it with the systematic brainwashing Hitler's Germany performed on its military youth, and the German army's outstanding traditions of training and officer and NCO skill. Now ask yourself, which side's small units are going to fight harder? In my opinion, the answer was: Almost always, the Germans.

It is my further contention that an army that continually loses each time it tries to fight, is an army that will have morale problems and that, if the rot is unstopped, will probably lose its will to fight well before it is destroyed. Classic examples are of course Soviet forces in the western districts during Barbarossa, or Percival's forces in the Malay penisula.

My primary sources on the Ukrainian-Polish stuff are generally personal like your Panzer vet. I have yet to find a Ukrainian living in the region at the time, to contradict that description. Heck, a couple of months ago the Polish and the Ukrainian Presidents had a big ceremony admitting the mass murders of the 1943-44 period, promising Polish-Ukrainian friendship forever in the future, blah blah blah. It was pretty public and all over the news in the region.

None of this is particularly controversial, and if that's not enough for you I'll find some academic sources.

Again, I am not arguing as soon as Germany invaded the Ukrainians and Belorussians immediately took up arms against the Poles. I am arguing that the Polish army had a big problem with large numbers of those ethnic minorities were in the ranks, and the Polish high command needed to ask them to die defending Polish soil.

[JasonC]

For the record, I don't buy any of Big Duke's arguments about nationality based morale differences. I am sure there were morale differences, but not because of a great or lesser willingness to die for one's country. Wars aren't won by dying. The Poles' morale problem, which was very real, came from the strategic hopelessness of their situation.

On the importance of the Czech crisis preceding, I basically agree, up to one qualification. Polish security depended on other eastern Allies. France put together its diplomatic and military arrangements in eastern Europe in an attempt to replace the missing Russians, and recreate the two front threat of 1914. The Poles and Czechs were supposed to provide this. Clearly, even united they were nothing compared to actually having Russia in the mix.

The French were silly to write off Russia. The Brits were criminally insane to sell out the Czechs, and thereby break France's second best solution. After the Czech crisis, though, the Russians entertained offers from both the Germans and the British. The Germans could cynically bid higher because they were giving away other people's countries. But it was stupid of the Russians to think they could simply pocket those gains, turn Germany lose in the west, and not get killed doing so.

So, the other way the Poles might have survived, after the Czech crisis, is if the Russians publically gave a security guarantee to Poland. Which was in Russia's interest, though they were too cynical and short sighted to see it. (The Poles were also deeply suspicious of and anti-Russian, the country they had fought to break away from in 1920, which didn't help). Militarily, on their own, they had no chance, and any morale problems they had require no other explanation than their widespread appreciation of that fact.

[Glider]

Originally posted by Bigduke6:

...immediately took up arms against the Poles. I am arguing that the Polish army had a big problem with large numbers of those ethnic minorities were in the ranks, and the Polish high command needed to ask them to die defending Polish soil.

If those problems were anything like the problems the Kingdom of Yugoslavia had when facing the Germans in April 1941, they must have been very bad indeed.

In Yugoslavia the army practically fell apart along the ethnic division lines, with units firing at each other in some parts of the country, units composed of Croats overrunning the 4th Army headquarters, everybody suspecting everybody else...

Of course, I don't think it was nearly as bad in Poland... I am talking about a country that had far more serious ethnic problems and was facing the Germans after they overran most of the Western and Central Europe. But if Poland has similar problems even to a much lesser degree, they could have curtailed its fighting capability.

[Glider]

Originally posted by JasonC:

... The Poles and Czechs were supposed to provide this. Clearly, even united they were nothing compared to actually having Russia in the mix...

Didn't the Poles actually participate in the partitioning of Czechoslovakia? Didn't they seize one part for themselves?

Talk about diggining your own grave...

[roqf77]

"Duh, different people have different opinions on that. JasonC, Dandelion and Dorosh are not the Borg. Try to direct your question at someone.

The argument here, anyway, is not about why Poland lost, but if Poland ever could have had any chances to hold out at least a tiny bit longer if her strategy hadn't been so poor against attacks coming from all directions."

IF YOU DONT MIND TO MUCH I WONT ACTUALY.

[roqf77]

" Originally posted by JasonC:

After the Czech crisis, though, the Russians entertained offers from both the Germans and the BritishThe Germans could cynically bid higher because they were giving away other people's countries."

not to jump on to an anti jasonc bandwagon, but this is not true. the russians signed a deal with the germans becasue the british delegates that were sent to make a deal so to speak, were not given the authority to do so. This was taken as an insult by stalin. The deal with germany was probably more out of anger.

[Zalgiris 1410]

Originally posted by Sergei:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by roqf77:

i mean what is jasonc dandelion etc basicly arguing?

Jason is saying that Germany won the campaign because it was far more powerful than Poland, so differences in doctrine had little to do with it.

Dandelion is arguing that the Polish and German armies weren't as inequal in strength as Jason claims. </font>

[stoat]

I posted about Blitzkreig along time ago, and how it was debateable. I was told to go away. I guess I'm just ahead of the times, eh?

[Zalgiris 1410]

Dear stoat, you're welcome to join in on debating about the concept of Blitzkrieg by all means, please do so.

[jacobs_ladder2]

Originally posted by stoat:

I posted about Blitzkreig along time ago, and how it was debateable. I was told to go away. I guess I'm just ahead of the times, eh?

Are you referring to another thread?

[stoat]

Page two of this thread. I believe that it had been stated that Blitzkrieg had first been performed in WW1.

[Zalgiris 1410]

I assume stoat is referring to something he posted in another thread jacobs ladder2, hope to find out which.

It would be interesting and pertinent for the issue in this thread- the concept of Blitzkrig and whether the German invasion of Poland was one.

I think that JasonC doesn't have a good idea of what the concept of Blitzkrig is or at least he is posting with a very different definition of the term than I have and I think that most others do as well.

Munstein, when complaining about Barbarossa it of it not having proper strategic goals, put it something like this, that the Blitzkrieg method was an operational/tactical formula. The use of indirect approaches for the cutting of lines of communications and the surrounding of Soviet forces by mobile (mechanized) formations with air support and recce constitute the methods of this formula.

I am argueing that these techniques were actually employed in Poland in 1939.

BTW BigDuke6 you do realise that the Luftwaffe did have a similar number of Stukas and Me 110 fight-bombers in the Polish campaigne as in the West in 1940. Also many of the same German Officers were commanding Panzer forces in both campaignes, excluding of course Rommell. So if what happenned in the West was a Blitzkrieg then why not Poland. They were using the same techniques basically and the only major difference was Munstein's Sickle-snip Plan. (Paul how about that or did they suddenly all just magically become Blitzkreig-ites in May 1940?) :eek:

Another difference was the massing of the Stuka bombing strikes for the Meuse crossing of the Panzer Korps. Here they were employed in leiu of supporting artillery because of the circumstances. But as I said this only needs to occur as according to Guderine's doctrines when required. When not the Luftwaffe's funtion is recce and interdiction straifing and bombing as well as focusing upon the destruction or at least the disruption of concentrations of enemy forces.

The norrowest of guidence of armoured detatchments and the closest of direct air support imagined were not definative requirements of the Blitzkieg concept. Of course these kinds of force multipliers would have been appreciated and even desired back then but were not technologically capable of being executed. They did use rudimentory mothods of them in Poland, if fact they were very interested in trialing the new techniques that they had developed in these areas and the tests were promising enough. They did improve upon them later on during the war to be sure, but they definately used these virgin methods in Poland.

BTW It was an analytical report that Armenguad submitted to the French General HQ describing what in his analysis were the German methods employed in Poland to the best of his abilities and was not something that the guy just made up, thank you very much JasonC!

[ September 09, 2005, 08:17 PM: Message edited by: Zalgiris 1410 ]

[stoat]

No, unfortunately it was nothing that good. It was me placing Blitzkreig in WW2 and not WW1, and my being irked at every other German probe being referred to as a Blitz.

Maybe I should suck it up and put something together though, huh?

[jacobs_ladder2]

Originally posted by stoat:

No, unfortunately it was nothing that good. It was me placing Blitzkreig in WW2 and not WW1, and my being irked at every other German probe being referred to as a Blitz.

Maybe I should suck it up and put something together though, huh?

Right. That's what I thought. As I responded to you at the time, you didn't understand my post. I was not telling you to go home.

My statement was intended to be ironic. I was saying that "if, by Zalgiris' argument, there was blitzkrieg in Poland, then there must also have been one in WWI."

By all means, voice your opinion. I certainly don't want anyone to think I am telling people to simply "shut up".

Cheers

Paul

[Bigduke6]

While I am argueing with JasonC and in a more level headed debate with Big Duke6 (Paul)

I don't know who Paul is, but it isn't me.

Just for the record, v. Manstein's opinion was that Poland's main problem was its strategic position. He gave the Polish army's weakness (internal and organizationalviz. the Germans as a secondary, but nevertheless important problem. That evaluation makes sense to me.

I wonder if the Czechs would have been able to resist the Germans in 1938. Their strategic position was if anything worse than Poland's in 1939. OHH the Czechs had moderate fortifications and better terrain, plus the Wehrmacht was a lot less mechanized in 1938 than in 1939. And the Czech army had excellent small arms, which is not surprising. But then the good defensive terrain, the Riesengebirgen and so on, doesn't go on forever, and the northern Czech frontier was Sudeten. So I just don't know.

Benes seemed to think the Czech could hold out until foreign intervention could make their presence felt on the West Front, but Chamberlain obviously didn't buy the arguement, or at the very least didn't think it worth testing. There's a famous story about the top Czech general begging Benes for orders to fight the Germans even after the British sold the Czechs down the river, but Benes nixed the idea as disastrous for the Czech nation.

In my younger days I wrote a ferocious research paper arguing the Czechs should have fought come what may, but now I'm not so sure.

[Zalgiris 1410]

Sorry BigDuke6 I got confused, I should have typed 'BigDuke6 and Jacobs ladder2 (Paul)'.

The Czechs could definately have given the Germans a very hard time of it in late 1938, since a lot of the Sudetenland was good defensive mountainous terrain with some fortifications. They also had AFAIK a large army and quite a few good light tanks, T-35s mostly, while the Germans had few comperable at the time. That said apparently when the Germans occupied the protectorate over 6 months later well over half were found not to be mechanically functioning. But still the Czechs had better artillery than the rest of their other neighbours although I don't know how much the had. In the areas of ATGs and aircraft I don't know much either.

It is very interesting to consider this baering in mind the effects of the Munich Pact. The consequenses for Rumania was that she lost her main armourer as did Lithuania and I think Poland and Yugoslavia may have somewhat as well.

Consider this if the Czechs had of chosen to have resisted and performed reasonably enough there were quite a lot of geo-political stuff that could have come about. I don't think that the Slovakians would have rised up to separate in any way unless Prugue would have fallen. Hungary might have joined in the German attack at some point and that would have forced Rumania to have heavily consider intervening to help Czechoslovakia. That may have propted Bulgaria to attack her hoping that most of the Rumanian Army was devoted against Hungaria. That situation might by then have induced Yugoslavia to have attacked Germany, Hungaria and Bulgaria a situation inwhich the Croatians could have been more inclined to fight especially againt Hungaria while the Macidonians would definately have been keen to fight againts Bulgaria. :eek:

With all this going, and the probability that both France and Britain (and their World wide Empires) would have to choose to go to war against this Central Powers replica eventually, but at least likely, what would Poland have chosen to do? :confused: (Not to mention Stalin in the long run.)

BTW BigDuke6 do you still have the paper or at least remember your arguement or sources? :cool:

[ September 08, 2005, 11:03 PM: Message edited by: Zalgiris 1410 ]

[Zalgiris 1410]

Originally posted by stoat:

Page two of this thread. I believe that it had been stated that Blitzkrieg had first been performed in WW1.

Please say by who and provide a quote, its become a long thread, thanks stoat.

[jacobs_ladder2]

Originally posted by Bigduke6:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />While I am argueing with JasonC and in a more level headed debate with Big Duke6 (Paul)

I don't know who Paul is, but it isn't me. </font>

[Bigduke6]

Zalgiris,

Wow, a WWI scenario in 1938, what a concept! But the root of it happening is the proposition the Czechs can resist the Germans successfully.

I have the paper lying around at home and I'll dig it up if you want, but I remember the main arguements well enough. They were:

1. The Czechs had right fine weapons.

Besides the tanks and artillery you mentioned the Czechs had excellent small arms as least as good as the Germans', and if you are talking MGs, at that time the Czech MG was the best in the world. The air force was poor, but see below.

2. The Czechs from a morale and warfighting point of view were not pushovers.

The nation-building/mass propagandizing common to nationalism in the 1930s was alive and well in Czechoslovakia, and the Czechs, being Czechs, were a lot better organized that say the Poles or the Bulgarians. Mass public physical health exercises, youth camps, patriotic songs, media promoting the national ideal, etc. Also the economy was stable and growing, and the Czech population was, overall, pretty much as well educated as the German. Also militarism was pretty big there, after all it was the exploits of the Czech Legion in 1918-20 that pretty much put the idea of a Czech nation on the international map, and by 1938 all those guys were heroes in independent Czechoslovakia. Not to say the Czechs were Prussians, they never were, but Czechoslovakia in 1938 was not primitive or backwater - despite Neville Chamberlain's complaint he had never heard of the place.

So, the arguement goes, the individual soldiers the Czechs would have put into the field would not have been particlarly better or worse than the Germans'.

3. The Werhmacht 1938 was nothing close to Wehrmacht 1939.

The arguement here is that in 1939 the German military was tooling up, training, expanding, and in general in a state of flux. Vehicles were in short supply, and something like 2/3 of the German tanks that invaded Poland, either hadn't been manufactured or were being operated by the Czech army. There is plenty of evidence the German army when it entered the Sudetenland was far from ueber - western correspondents reported all sorts of busted panzers on the side of the road. Maintenance and movement of large formations takes practice, after all, and in 1938 the German army didn't have it.

(Interestingly the Soviets had the same problems invading Bessarabia and the Baltic states, but it took them until 1943 or so to get maintenance to the point where they could sustain an offensive. The Germans learned the lesson on how to keep a mechanized army going, and fixed the problem, in about a year.)

So the arguement here is that the Germans had neither the equipment nor the training to conduct a Blitzkrieg against Czechoslovakia. True the thinkers had a plan to make that possible, but the plan wasn't close to implemented by 1938. So if the German 1938 army had fought the Czechs, it would have been primarily infantry not mechanized warfare, and so the Czechs could have held out, rah rah rah.

4. Czechoslovakia's border terrain is really defensible.

I have been at alot of points on that border, and in most places the trees are too thick to get vehicles through any place except on the roads. Never mind lots of the ground is just too steep. The rough regions are not exactly suitable for deep, echeloned, defenses, but in 1938 even after Austria the German army, if it invaded Czecholslovakia, was going to have to punch through some pretty rugged terrain; like the Vousges or Huerntgen forest or maybe the Alpine foothills.

And then there's the weather. In the higher border regions it's nothing like Poland in late Summer: it's misty as heck in the morning and most of the time it's overcast or raining, and it only gets worse as winter approaches. The Czech crisis came to a head in mid-September, meaning the Luftwaffe wasn't anything close to a factor in a military equation, until real winter hit and the weather cleared, and that could be as late as January.

It ain't the Caucasus', but most of the Czech border regions are really tough terrain except for infantry. Plus in some places the Czechs had built fortifications. Again, the arguement is that if Germany's attack had been limited to infantry in predominantly mountain/woods terrain, that spells bogdown and WWI, rather than Blitzkrieg and WWII.

In my paper I argued the Western powers and the Czechs themselves were just stupid in neglecting all of this, and deciding to cave in to the Germans. At the time I was of the opinion the Czechs simply didn't need to: until Germany's size and industrial capacity came into play, it seemed to me like the Czechs had a right fine chance of holding the 1938 Wehrmacht in the border regions.

Now I am not so sure. Part of the border regions were of course the Sudetenland, and so Prague's northern front would have been effectively fought in enemy territory. The historical record makes clear the Sudeten Germans were overwhelmingly in favor of German annexation, and dealing with that would not have been the easiest thing for the Czechs to do, and what's more fighting to free the Sudeten Germans is a pretty good motivator for the Wehrmacht.

In the second place, there seems to be no reason to believe the Czechs, though probably brave and certainly well-armed, would have been able to deal with German infantry tactics, which had gone far past WWI. This is the effect of German superiority in officer and NCO training first and foremost, followed by the superiority of German thinking on the General Staff level.

The Czechs, as nearly as I could tell from my research, were still in the WWI mindset, and so it is at least possible that had it come to a fight, the Czechs would have set up in trenches and the German infantry would have infiltrated them a la Riga or Caporetto.

Which is an awful lot of writing for me to say: "I really don't know what would have happened."

The sources were primary and secondary stuff; the primary being first-hand reports about the Wehrmacht's development in 1938-39, plus a bit of first-hand stuff from Prague (I seem to remember I dug up the reports of the U.S. military attache), but mostly second-hand stuff on the Czech army. The rest was a standard military intelligence data crunch comparing forces and terrain and so on.

[roqf77]

well from frank mcdonough's hitler chamberlain and appeasement(not to be confused with r.a.c parker's chamberlain and appeasement.), check's had 34 fully equiped army divisions, to the germans 81(does not say what fully equped means). chech had 600 aircraft and germany 1,800. poland incidentay had 40 divisions and 500 aircraft.

[JasonC]

Czechs alone would have been toast, though they might have held out a while with mountains. Certainly much more defensible than Poland's long flat frontier stretching over 180 degrees of the compass.

But the whole point was the Czechs were not supposed to be alone. France had worked very hard in the interwar years to construct a system of alliances to contain Germany. That included Britain and Poland as well as the French. Simultaneously, not in sequence, those forces were considerably stronger than the Germans, numerically. And in total military equipment. And in economic power, provided the Brits were in the mix - though there the balance would have been more like equal.

The allies would have been on the defensive in the east, and would have needed to undertake some sort of offensive in the west. The diplomacy of the southern Balkans and of Italy would have been important. Perhaps German doctrinal advantages would have been both necessary and decisive in this hypothetical.

Just as likely, German generals might have feared a WW I repeat and deposed Hitler. Or they might have tried but failed, which might have caused internal divisions that weakened Germany, or might have just consolidated Nazi officers control of the army sooner - we don't know.

The French were not well prepared for this but it was their best shot, short of a Russian alliance. It is possible a united war threat by all 4 at Munich would have forced Hitler to back down without war. He would probably have tried again, but it might have taken 4 more years or so. (German industrial planning foresaw war by 1942. It came somewhat earlier than expected).

The Brits deliberately wrecked all of this because they thought it would produce a world war, which they expected to be as expensive in lives and treasure as WW I. They sought to avoid that expense by any means necessary. They did not think they were ready militarily. But throwing away both eastern minors because of preparedness concerns was stupid.

They lost more than 50 divisions that way, at trivial cost to the Germans. Indeed, with the advantage of Czech industry, Silesia raw materials from Poland, and greater experience, the campaign in the east helped the Germans, net, despite the causalties of the Polish campaign. Seldom has diplomacy so poorly served an alliance of great powers. Chamberlain simply stuffed it up, royally. The Germans could hardly believe their luck.

[roqf77]

"The Brits deliberately wrecked all of this because they thought it would produce a world war, which they expected to be as expensive in lives and treasure as WW I."

Actualy it was chamberlain who delibaeratly wrecked all of this. British public opinion wavoured, and political opinion was very split. It was not only churchill who was against the sudetanland agreement.