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warspite1 -> RE: Did Neville Chamberlain do the right thing? (11/11/2019 6:22:07 AM)
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ORIGINAL: Capt. Harlock
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So if Britain and France had taken the role of the aggressor prior to (and then instead of) Munich, would the US really be as inclined to assist or would they have taken a truly neutral stance?
But would US assistance have been needed? I think the most logical date for intervention by the Western Allies would have been September 18, 1938, after the formation of the Sudetendeutsches Freikorps and the beginning of the undeclared German-Czechoslovak war. True, the British army wasn't up to snuff at that point, but from what I've heard, the French army was still superior to the Wehrmacht. Germany gained a rich haul of armaments after seizing Czechoslovakia. If the French had moved before that had happened, I think the result would have been a Nazi defeat. More, France could certainly have gotten assistance from the Czechoslovaks, and quite possibly from the Poles.
warspite1
Well those keen to see the worst in the actions of Chamberlain and Daladier – have the ‘certainty’ they can never be wrong, whereas we know, with hindsight, what the policies of the key players actually led to; WWII, The Holocaust, The Atomic Bomb, The Iron Curtain, The Cold War and whole manner of death and destruction in between.
Those who say other action should have been taken can be comforted by the fact that, had that action been taken, everything would have worked out splendidly….
1. The most logical date for intervention.
You have ignored all the practical arguments that have been exhaustively laid out for Britain and France not intervening (which I’m not going to repeat again); very real and very practical issues, and haven’t sought to argue against them, but instead blandly state a ‘logical date’ based on hindsight. You know that Roosevelt, even once he realised that Hitler needed stopping, was limited by public opinion. But you ignore that Chamberlain and Daladier were so constrained. As leaders of democratic countries they had the same problems as Roosevelt.
2. The British Army wasn’t up to snuff.
What does that actually mean? Just how many fully trained and equipped divisions do you believe the British could field at that time? It wasn't simply a case of not being up to snuff, but that in 1938 the French would have been pretty much on their own.
3. The French Army was still superior to the Wehrmacht.
Well that rather depends on what you mean by superior. The same was being said of the French army a year later – although there are also comments made at the time by British officers and others that things were not all as they appeared when it came to French preparedness. The army was not in a good way from a leadership perspective (as was proven 2 years later), defence was the watchword, not offence, there was no will to go to war, and financially France was in no state to go to war either.
4. Would US assistance have been needed?
Well that is a key question isn’t it? No one, and certainly not me or you, knows how Case Green would have panned out, and what it would have led to. But you can simply assume it would have all worked out fine. You assume that the German Army could not have overcome the Czechs, that France would have been in a position to undertake an offensive in the West (that it couldn’t a year later) – you ignore the possibility that France would simply have adopted the same sit and wait strategy as was actually employed from September 1939, that the German generals would have grown a set (that they didn’t in 1938 and when they (too late) did, they weren’t successful), that Poland may have piled in, regardless that they had concerns of their own to the east.
What we DO know however, is that if 1938 doesn’t pan out as you think, then how does the rest of the world see Britain and France now? It’s not difficult to imagine the headlines in Washington and elsewhere. These two old crumbling empires have started yet another war in Europe, and for what? Because Germany – so desperately wronged in 1919 was simply trying to right the wrongs of Versailles, because 3m Sudeten Germans, wanting Wilson's right to self determination, wanted to live under German rule. If those are the headlines in Washington, one can only imagine the ‘I told you so’ attitude in Ottawa, Canberra, Wellington and Pretoria.
So, Case Green goes better than expected (or worse from the French point of view), the French and British adopt the same wait plan as 1939 as they build up, seeing the way the wind is blowing, the Poles (who in reality eagerly gobbled up some of Czechoslovakia at Munich) take advantage of the Czech’s position and grab those territories instead of attacking Germany. Hungary, seeing the weakness of the West, does the same. The Soviets can’t help the Czechs directly without attacking Poland and, seeing the inadequate response of the French and British, decide to sit tight.
In a scenario where the Germans defeat the Czechs, then yes, damn right the US will be needed, but in this scenario the French and British are the villains of the peace, not Adolf Hitler who only ever wanted peace.....
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