The Czech crisis

Hardly hindsight or wrong. as for the rest it's it simply doesn't hold up under the weight of history. Of course things are different in your own personal "reality".

 

Proofs that your knowledge of European history lacks even the elementary minimum .

Germany master of central Europe was no danger for France :that's why at the end of the twenties France decided to abandon Poland and CZ and to build the Maginot Line . Poland and CZ had originally as mission to replace Russia as ally,but vey soon it became obvious that France could have as ally or Poland or CZ,as bith countries were each enemies .

the whole of easten/central Europe was a minefield where every one was waiting to fly at the throat of the neighbour;if France supported A, B would be angry ,and the opposite, it it remained netral,they both would be angry . Therefore it was a wise decision of France to withdraw of this region ,which Austin Chamberlain declared at Locarno as not worth the bones of a British Grenadier .

Let's take something plausible

Border incidents between Poland and CZ escalate to a full-scale war .Lithuania attacks Poland to get back Wilna . The SU attacks Lithuania and the other Baltic states and Poland . Germany attacks Poland (or CZ or both) .Hungary attacks CZ but is attacked by Romania,which is invaded by the SU and Bulgaria which is attacked by Turkey and Greece, very soon however,both are fighting against each other .

Whom should France support ?

Before WWI, France had wisely abandoned its alliance with Russia to not get involved in the Macedonian and insoluble problems of central Europe,and it had chosen the Entente Cordiale with Britain .

20 years later, it was the same but much worse . :Britain who had refused to guarentee the borders in eastern Europe,was more important for France than the states of eastern Europe who had no military importance .

For Britain and France there was no objection for a German domination of eastern Europe as long there was no war .

See the visit of Halifax to Germany in november 1937 and the letter from the same Halifax in november 1939 to the British ambassador in Paris .

It was the same for France .

All the rest are the usual Churchillian and cold war nonses .

 

The French and British quit because it was clear that the German airforce would sink England and that Germany would easily all the allied armies in one battle

 

The French quit because they had given up CZ already in 1930. Britain quit because it never had guarenteed the borders of Cz and because it refused to be involved in these problems,which were not Britain's problem . There were a lot of stories about a LW attack on London,with devastating results, but these stories did not impress Chamberlain :for Neville, Sudetenland was not worth the bones of a British grenadier .

No one in Britain would fight to deprive the SD Germans of the right of self determination, but every one in Britain would fight if Germany attacked CZ . Thus the trick was to prevent war by forcing the Czechs to give up the SD and the Czchs need no pressure at all .No one wanted to die for the Sudeten.

 

Actually all this shows is that you have no idea of what a proof is and that your opinions are only very marginally related to reality.

Germany mastering Central Europe showed itself to be a threat to France a couple of times in the 20th century alone. Even without the wars it was a potential economic threat.

I don't mind if you live in your own "reality" I just wish you wouldn't keep trying to project it on to the real one.

 

Before WWI,the French policy was not to be involved in conflicts east of the Rhine : they refused to be involved in the problem of the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegowina in 1908, in the Liman von Sanders crisis,and even in 1914 they advised the Russians to be more moderate and they looked the other way when the Germans declared war on Russia .

For the French alliances east of the Rhine had as meaning only to get help if Germany attacked France, not to help these countries if they were attacked by Germany or to interfere if they were fighting between each other .

 

In regards to your post #46: What's your point? Indeed it can be argued that it supports the position that the French regarded German control of Central Europe as a threat.

As an illustration of why stating a more or less random fact and leaping to a conclusion is a long way from a proof let us examine the following.

This simply ignores the situation at the time. After WWI Germany was left relatively impotent as both a military and economic threat to France. The French position by the late 20's early 30's was again that Germany could and probably would be a threat again in the not to distant future. The chaotic nature of Eastern and Central Europe likely suggested that a fortification such as the Maginot line was more dependable. However it is obvious that a Germany dominating Central Europe is more of a threat than a Germany that doesn't. In addition not having fixed treaties with the miscellaneous countries in the region left France free to act in what she considered her best interest at the time.

 

It was obvious for the French that this was not so : they felt safe behind the Maginot Line .And it was also so that if France could not dominate Central Europe and calm down its allies, it would be very difficult for Germany to do it . And the more Germany was implicated in Central Europe the more the chance that it would crash with the SU .

The countries in this region were hostile to each other, and they would remain hostile to each other if Germany took the place of France .

 

LJAD, the French were eager for war against Germany in 1914, which is why their plan 17 called for an immediate invasion of Germany.

 

The Maginot was built to free up French troops so France could fight Germany. The failure of France and Britain besides fear of casualties was not understanding that the Soviet treaty gave Germany the resources it would need to survive blockade. The allies thought Germany would quickly collapsed as it did at the end of WW1

 

Oh no : plan 17 was an offensive plan, but did not call for an immediate invasion of Germany :it was a concentration plan ,in function of the German attack . And the French were not eager to fight in 1914:when Germany declared war on Russia , the French looked the other way .A war limited to Germany and Russia would have been a good thing for France : a lot of Boches killed and Germany broken .

 

A classic newbie mistake.

Deep in the Pentagon there are plans to deploy troops just about everywhere. It's what General Staff's do between wars to keep busy. France did want a chance to exact revenge for 1870 and reclaim her lost territories.

 

A classic mistake : revanchism was dead in 1914 : the results of the elections in 1914 was a clear victory for the anti army and anti Russian parties : the big winners were the socialists;Jaurès was ruling ,and if he had to choose, he would choose Germany, not Russia ..Germany was the leader of the socialist international movement,the French socialists could only dream of the concessions the SPD had exorted from the German establishment,while in France the answer was always to use the army against strikers . And Russia ... was considered as the enemy of progress ,the czar was Saddam Hussein, Assad, Putin , Trump.....

And the right -wingers ? Poincaré was a moderate, not hostile to Germany and very suspicious of Russia...

 

Some may have thought so in 1914 but history pretty clearly shows that this would not have been the case. It was Russia that was broken in WWI and without the Western Front the odds are Germany would have emerged stronger than it went into the conflict.

 

so the fact that French troops were to march into German held Alsace-Lorraine is not an invasion plan?????. The French rally cry at the start of the war was "a Berlin" onto Berlin. here are some quotes from the French army under Foch in 1914, Offensive with out hesitation and to the maximum. The offensive alone leads to result

 

And the German cry at the start of the war was : Nach Paris .

The Germans wanted war with France, they declared war on France inventing French air attacks on German cities and they invaded France BEFORE their declaration of war .

The French OTOH did nothing when Germany declared war on Russia (also using lies) ,the French did nothing when the Germans invaded Luxemburg and Belgium, they did even nothing when the Germans invaded France before their declaration of war . When general mobilisation was ordered, the French government ordered the French forces to retreat some 10 km from the border .

The Germans had an invasion plan : the infamous Schlieffen/Moltke plan .

 

And about the French alliances with Poland and Cz :they had as meaning 1 ) to preserve peace 2) to help France if it was yet invaded by Germany . But what was the use of these alliances if they would involve France in a war for something no one in France was interested ? =the Sudeten .

At the end of the twenties,the French decided that the Maginot Line was better than an alliance with CZ and Poland, and, given the French position,this was a reasonable attitude . Of course, the result would be that Poland and CZ would be endangered by the Germans, but this was not the problem of the French ..These alliances were a millstone around the neck of France . France could not help its allies and these could not help France .

 

LJAD, France could very easily have defeated Germany in 1938, but they had no will and they sat with their tails between their legs. The reason for the alliance between France and the Czechs was to prevent France having to fight with out allies, which is what they ended up doing. Do you seriously believe Germany could have fought a two front war??? IF the British had not been so willingly bamboozled by the Germans into believing that the JU 52 would wipe Britain off the face of the earth, they gave the French the excuse they needed to cower in fear. The tragedy is the allies gave Germany the time and resources to do exactly what they were trying to avoid doing. Their cowardice also convinced Stalin that it was pointless to work with the allies and thus he signed his treaty with Germany. I mean if Germany was so powerful in 1938 why not tuck and run in 1939,

 

No : the only thing the French were able to do in september 1939 (when they were stronger than in 1938) was the small Saar offensive,and the Germans had a numerical superiority .there was no cowardice from the French/British : if Germany had invaded CZ, there would have been a war .

And the reason for the alliance with the Czechs was to prevent France having to fight .

The respective strenght of France and Germany was NOT a determining factor in the non DoW in 1938 and the DoW in 1939:the reason of the 1939 DoW was that Germany invaded an other country which accidentally happened to be Poland, but if it had been Denmark, the French reaction would have been the same .

And it is not so that the British were stopping the French in 1938;the British attitude was only a pretext that the French used when the Czechs blamed them .

 

Balony, the Germans did not have numerical superiority in 1939, Von Leeb said the French could have walked right through if they had wanted to. If the German army was attacking the Czechs what forces would they have to fight the French??? IF Germany was that strong why not attack France at the same time?????