What If Neville Chamberlain and Edouard Daladier Had Stood Up To Hitler At Munich in 1938?

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BAYLOR

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We all know how both men gave into Hitlers demand to surrender The Sudetenland section of Czechoslovakia to German and the Nazis at at Munich in 1938 to forestal war and as Chamberlain said "Guarantee Peace in our Time " after the agreement. Both men knew that their countries were not ready for war and doing what they did would buy them more time. Germany wasn't ready for war at that time either. The territory contained all the Czechs critical border defenses with which they were render defenseless. not long after Hitler took what was left of country not long after.

What if Chamberlain and Daladier stood up to Hitler and told him point blank the they would go to war with Germany over Czechoslovakia? How would Hitler have reacted if faced with such opposition? Would it have emboldened opposition to Hitler at home? What WWII had started in 1938? Would there have even been a world war at all?

Thoughts?:)
 
The war would probably still have started as the German generals - and probably Hitler - would have called Chamberlains' bluff and gambled that Britain was physically remote from Czechoslovakia and so couldn't intervene, and the French probably wouldn't intervene
 
Gramm838 said:
The war would probably still have started as the German generals - and probably Hitler - would have called Chamberlains' bluff and gambled that Britain was physically remote from Czechoslovakia and so couldn't intervene, and the French probably wouldn't intervene
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But in that scenario wouldn't the Czech Military in the belief that England and France were behind them have tried to make a fight of it ? They might not have prevailed against Germany but but it would have taken them a while to get through the Czech defenses and they done some damage to the german war machine.
 
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What would have happened? Well, we (the English that is, not necessarily the people here who may never have existed) would be speaking German and I would never have been born - my great-grandfather was Jewish.

Why? In 1938, Britain was hopelessly unprepared. The radar stations and fighter direction network weren't finished and the Spitfire was present in handfuls - not to mention an even worse lack of pilots than we had in the real timeline. And the Army was even shorter of equipment then than it was in 1939.

Chamberlain is unfairly maligned, IMHO.
 
At the time of Munich weren't some of Hitler Generals, fearful of war, plotting his removal?
 
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Mirannan said:
What would have happened? Well, we (the English that is, not necessarily the people here who may never have existed) would be speaking German and I would never have been born - my great-grandfather was Jewish.

Why? In 1938, Britain was hopelessly unprepared. The radar stations and fighter direction network weren't finished and the Spitfire was present in handfuls - not to mention an even worse lack of pilots than we had in the real timeline. And the Army was even shorter of equipment then than it was in 1939.

Chamberlain is unfairly maligned, IMHO.
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You are forgetting the major issue that was probably at the forefront of the German military minds when considering any action against Britain...the Channel.

They would had to have done what happened in 1940 anyway - smash France out of the war to gain access to the coastline, but they would still have had to take their chances at getting across the Channel. Irrespective of whether they invaded into Kent, or Essex, they would have found it impossible to support the landings.

The outcome of any war that started in 1938 would have been essentially the same as what happened after 1939.
 
We'd been disarming since the end of WW1 whilst Germany had been rearming. We'd have lost the war long before the US bothered to get involved. We'd all, US included, probably be speaking in German, Italian or Japanese now.

Chamberlin's mistake wasn't the appeasement it was not getting his arse in gear and rearming before he did. At least when the war did start we were in a slightly better position to actually fight it.
 
AnyaKimlin said:
We'd been disarming since the end of WW1 whilst Germany had been rearming. We'd have lost the war long before the US bothered to get involved. We'd all, US included, probably be speaking in German, Italian or Japanese now.

Chamberlin's mistake wasn't the appeasement it was not getting his arse in gear and rearming before he did. At least when the war did start we were in a slightly better position to actually fight it.
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Chamberlain does get unfairly blamed for what he did. He knew deep down inside that Hitter wasn't going to stop at Sudetenland, knew that war was inevitable. Did what he had to do to buy The Uk Time to rearm.
 
BAYLOR said:
Chamberlain does get unfairly blamed for what he did. He knew deep down inside that Hitter wasn't going to stop at Sudetenland, knew that war was inevitable. Did what he had to do to buy The Uk Time to rearm.
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Think most history teachers in the UK have been teaching that version for the last 30 years or so.

But it's what the media does. It's similar to the way Ramsay MacDonald was treated over decisions he made and we're watching it happen with Jeremy Corbyn now.
 
Gramm838 said:
You are forgetting the major issue that was probably at the forefront of the German military minds when considering any action against Britain...the Channel.

They would had to have done what happened in 1940 anyway - smash France out of the war to gain access to the coastline, but they would still have had to take their chances at getting across the Channel. Irrespective of whether they invaded into Kent, or Essex, they would have found it impossible to support the landings.

The outcome of any war that started in 1938 would have been essentially the same as what happened after 1939.
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Germany had a tiny Surface fleet and no real way to launch an invasion of England .

Would they have still defeated France ? Well if the Czechs had decided to fight germany that might have pulled away men and materials from the french campaign. It might have cause Germany to delay that operation given might french military more time to get their act together. The French did have a very large and fairly powerful army and though they were not as good at armored warfare as the Germans , their tanks were the equal of the Panzer 2's and 3 that they Germans had. A different outcome is a possibility here. One thing that might still been a problem was Germany had a better air force then France.
 
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AnyaKimlin said:
Think most history teachers in the UK have been teaching that version for the last 30 years or so.

But it's what the media does. It's similar to the way Ramsay MacDonald was treated over decisions he made and we're watching it happen with Jeremy Corbyn now.
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Back then what Chamberlain did looked very bad in the eyes of the media .
 
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AnyaKimlin said:
It did but what he did actually won the war.
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He did but the whole thing effectively ended his political career and on top of that, he was dying and knew it.
 
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AnyaKimlin said:
I guess. But I don't know too many people who were taught history even in the 70s who were taught he did the wrong thing.
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Chamberlain had no other good options in this situation . He simply did the best he could.


I think if Churchill had been in this situation , he would have had to do the same thing.
 
Harry Turtledove wrote a series dealing with a scenario where Chamberlain and Daladier made a far different choice .:)
 
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The mistake was not returning the Sudetenland. Many people had advocated that for some time and he was widely praised for it at the time. The mistake was guaranteeing Polish sovereignty. That was fundamentally a lie. The UK didn't have the capacity to prevent the invasion of Poland. But Polish leaders foolishly counted on Chamberlain's promise. If they had realized help was NOT coming, they could have gotten better terms. Hitler didn't originally plan on war with France or the UK. The objective should have been to encourage Hitler and Stalin to bleed each other to death while building strength. It could have been managed. French an Brit pols should have been more realistic about Eastern Europe.
 
Lew Rockwell Fan said:
The mistake was not returning the Sudetenland. Many people had advocated that for some time and he was widely praised for it at the time. The mistake was guaranteeing Polish sovereignty. That was fundamentally a lie. The UK didn't have the capacity to prevent the invasion of Poland. But Polish leaders foolishly counted on Chamberlain's promise. If they had realized help was NOT coming, they could have gotten better terms. Hitler didn't originally plan on war with France or the UK. The objective should have been to encourage Hitler and Stalin to bleed each other to death while building strength. It could have been managed. French an Brit pols should have been more realistic about Eastern Europe.
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Britain and France were too busy trying to by themselves the time to rearm. But then again, Germany at that time really wasn't ready for war. After they took Czechoslovakia , they pressed into service Czech Tanks and got control of the Skoda factor which enable them to get the necessary armaments to wage war.
 
The problem was not what Britain could have done, which was negligible, but what France could have done- but wouldn't. At that time, Germany would have had to devote so much of it's army to attacking Czechoslovakia that the French could have taken the Rhinland easily; a prospect that gave the German generals the fits.

Would Hitler have beaten Czechoslovakia? Yes. Would Germany have eventually pushed France back? Yes- but what would have happened in the meantime?
 
Lew Rockwell Fan said:
The mistake was not returning the Sudetenland. Many people had advocated that for some time and he was widely praised for it at the time. The mistake was guaranteeing Polish sovereignty. That was fundamentally a lie. The UK didn't have the capacity to prevent the invasion of Poland. But Polish leaders foolishly counted on Chamberlain's promise. If they had realized help was NOT coming, they could have gotten better terms. Hitler didn't originally plan on war with France or the UK. The objective should have been to encourage Hitler and Stalin to bleed each other to death while building strength. It could have been managed. French an Brit pols should have been more realistic about Eastern Europe.
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I think the Poles realised where England and France were, and knew that help was not coming. They may have thought the prospect of war with the Western Powers would have caused Hitler to back down, but realistically no Polish government would have given up Danzig.

As for Britain and France sitting back and letting Germany and the Soviet Union fight it out, Hitler knew he couldn't allow a two-front war for the second time. His aims were to give France a sharp defeat, leaving them unable to retaliate, while offering peace and non-interference with the Empire to Britain. Only with that secured could he turn on Russia.

But he did attack Russia without defeating Britain, didn't he? Because by that time he relised he couldn't force Britain to surrender, or even negotiate peace, and hoped to follow the Napoleonic idea of knocking out the only possible land ally while building up a self-sufficient economic zone.

Pat Buchanan's dream of Germany and the USSR exhausting each other while Britain and France built up their strength is just that.

‘It is a pity that our friends lie in between,’ said Gimli. ‘If no land divided Isengard and Mordor, then they could fight while we watched and waited.’

‘The victor would emerge stronger than either, and free from doubt,’ said Gandalf.
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