Rozcestí slepých uliček. Mnichov 1938
A Forked Cul-de-sac: Munich 1938

Summary/Abstract: The events connected with the ceding of the Czechoslovak borderlands in the autumn of 1938 raise the eternal question of how a Czechoslovak-German war would have been decided. Of the several historians and writers who have recently tried to answer the question most agreed that in the event of such a war an isolated Czechoslovakia would have been defeated. In this article the author – with the support of primary and secondary sources – considers the alternatives to the developments in autumn 1938 in the event that Czechoslovakia had decided to defend its territorial integrity. He casts into doubt the general belief that war would have broken out immediately after Prague rejected the Munich Agreement. The reason is that the Wehrmacht was in no position in late September 1938 to begin an immediate attack. Moreover, in the event of rejecting the Munich Agreement the Czechoslovak Government would still have had to agree to the Franco-British plan to cede border areas to Germany. It is, the author argues, diffi cult to link the outbreak of war with 30 September 1938. The scenario of the possible course of a Czechoslovak-German war which he presents therefore develops from 21 September 1938, when the Czechoslovak government had an opportunity to refuse the Franco-British plan. In that case, the Czechoslovak army would have been mobilized and a German attack would have followed. The Wehrmacht would have tried, using tanks and the Luftwaffe, to break through the Czechoslovak defensive lines, the backbone of which was the border fortifi cations, and to make it impossible for the Czechoslovak army to retreat to Slovakia. No country would have come to the aid of Czechoslovakia; it would have had to rely solely on itself, and ultimately would have had no choice but to accede to German demands. The Bohemian Lands would have thus been occupied by the Germans, and Slovakia would have gained its independence. The result of such a war, the author argues, would have not differed much from the actual developments, for the fate of Czechoslovakia in 1938 was sealed by its unfavourable international political situation and the Western great powers’ genuine lack of interest in its fate. A possible war would have changed little in those respects.

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