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WI Britain & France declared war on Germany right after occupation of Prague?

R

raharris1973

Well-known member
What if Britain, followed by France, declared war on Germany right after the occupation of Prague in March 1939.

Chamberlain does this in a fit of pique over Hitler pissing over Munich, riding popular outrage, while rationalizing that it frees Britain's hands to commence blockade and all-out economic warfare, including freezing of Czech funds in British banks.

Like in OTL, the ground war in Europe is 'phony' with no plan for an attack into Germany. It is even worse because the French are not ready for the limited Saar move of OTL.

With war declared and being fought at sea, London and Paris are not trying to calm matters and thus do not discourage any eastern neighbors of Germany, like Poland, from mobilizing.

Some questions follow:

Does Italy DoW the west in solidarity with Germany?

Does Italy still occupy/annex Albania on schedule in April 1939, or put that off in light of the new aggressive Anglo-French stance?

I assume Hitler starts making overtures to the USSR earlier for a nonaggression and especially a trade deal (or does he not?).
Is Stalin any less receptive to it than OTL?

Stalin is dealing with some broadly similar opportunities- to expand in Eastern Europe, and stand aside from a west vs Germany conflict. But he is dealing with a somewhat different set of evidence and historical record of western behavior compared to OTL, and earlier. Instead of seeing the westerners break a guarantee and promise a new one to Poland he's seen them sacrifice Czechoslovakia but declare war over it and blockade Germany, showing more seriousness. On the other hand, lack of a ground offensive still shows some unseriousness.

Will Germany attack west into France and the Low Countries in 1939? Or wait until 1939 for some reason?

If not attacking west ASAP, would Germany do any preliminary campaigns first against Poland or Denmark Norway to secure flanks, resources or borders?

How would any German 1939 campaigning do?

Additional questions would be if a spring 1939 DoW on Germany could hurt Britain or especially France by activating US Neutrality laws if the time and thereby preventing exports of any important munitions, aircraft or other materiel to the Allies in the spring and summer months of 1939?

Additionally is Britain and France being in a declared state of war with Germany before May 1939 forces Britain to make further appeasing concessions to Japan to prevent a diplomatic break and war on that front- perhaps having to hand over the silver in the vaults of Tianjin? Or could hotheads in North China and Japan see British encumbrance by war with Germany as an opportunity to drive them out of China by force that cannot be passed up?
 
raharris1973 said:
What if Britain, followed by France, declared war on Germany right after the occupation of Prague in March 1939.

Chamberlain does this in a fit of pique over Hitler pissing over Munich, riding popular outrage, while rationalizing that it frees Britain's hands to commence blockade and all-out economic warfare, including freezing of Czech funds in British banks.

Like in OTL, the ground war in Europe is 'phony' with no plan for an attack into Germany. It is even worse because the French are not ready for the limited Saar move of OTL.

With war declared and being fought at sea, London and Paris are not trying to calm matters and thus do not discourage any eastern neighbors of Germany, like Poland, from mobilizing.

Some questions follow:

Does Italy DoW the west in solidarity with Germany?

Does Italy still occupy/annex Albania on schedule in April 1939, or put that off in light of the new aggressive Anglo-French stance?

I assume Hitler starts making overtures to the USSR earlier for a nonaggression and especially a trade deal (or does he not?).
Is Stalin any less receptive to it than OTL?

Stalin is dealing with some broadly similar opportunities- to expand in Eastern Europe, and stand aside from a west vs Germany conflict. But he is dealing with a somewhat different set of evidence and historical record of western behavior compared to OTL, and earlier. Instead of seeing the westerners break a guarantee and promise a new one to Poland he's seen them sacrifice Czechoslovakia but declare war over it and blockade Germany, showing more seriousness. On the other hand, lack of a ground offensive still shows some unseriousness.

Will Germany attack west into France and the Low Countries in 1939? Or wait until 1939 for some reason?

If not attacking west ASAP, would Germany do any preliminary campaigns first against Poland or Denmark Norway to secure flanks, resources or borders?

How would any German 1939 campaigning do?

Additional questions would be if a spring 1939 DoW on Germany could hurt Britain or especially France by activating US Neutrality laws if the time and thereby preventing exports of any important munitions, aircraft or other materiel to the Allies in the spring and summer months of 1939?

Additionally is Britain and France being in a declared state of war with Germany before May 1939 forces Britain to make further appeasing concessions to Japan to prevent a diplomatic break and war on that front- perhaps having to hand over the silver in the vaults of Tianjin? Or could hotheads in North China and Japan see British encumbrance by war with Germany as an opportunity to drive them out of China by force that cannot be passed up?
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One of the big consequences is that Poland was a proving ground for the German army and was essential in refining the tactics they deployed against France. If Hitler goes ahead with a western strike, it could easily fail because it missed some critical lessons.
 
Nyvis said:
One of the big consequences is that Poland was a proving ground for the German army and was essential in refining the tactics they deployed against France. If Hitler goes ahead with a western strike, it could easily fail because it missed some critical lessons.
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Do you think the Germans, without a 'practice campaign', against a weaker eastern opponent (like Poland, or, to throw it out there, Romania or Yugoslavia) happening first, would find it *impossible* to win campaign in the west against the Low Countries and France?

Assuming no preliminary ops before the western offensives, would its chances of success/failure be different depending if the Germans moved in the 1939 campaigning season or waited until 1940? If the Germans waited until 1940, could thorough and professional training exercises and wargaming give them an adequate enough substitute for campaign experience to put them in reach of victory in the west?

Also, presuming a German-western clash of arms in the summer/fall of 1939 instead of any waiting....you rightly point out a lack German combat experience and lessons learned from it. So that's a relative disadvantage for them. However, if you were to ask the British and French commands about their state of equipment, readiness, and order of battle in spring-summer 1940 versus 1939, they all would have told you they were better in 1940, I think. The French wouldn't have had as many forces, tanks or aircraft in 1939, if I remember correctly, and the British probably would have no notable Divisions to get onto the continent. Dunkirk maybe wouldn't have been possible in '39 because BEF units maybe couldn't have been assembled in France to experience it.

So I wonder who is more dragged down more by the skip Polish front scenario, particular with the western front starting a year earlier variant.

As an additional reference:

From OTL's timeline - (source Wikipedia page for 1939, lightly edited)

April[edit]​

Main article: April 1939

May[edit]​

Main article: May 1939
 
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Depends on how Poland reacts, but my gut reaction is a Summer 1939 campaign that sees the Wehrmacht overrun France over the course of several months vs the six weeks campaign of historical. The balance of power was firmly tilted in their favor at Munich, but by March I'm not sure how much the situation had changed given the Anglo-French had started on a war economy by that point.
 
raharris1973 said:
Do you think the Germans, without a 'practice campaign', against a weaker eastern opponent (like Poland, or, to throw it out there, Romania or Yugoslavia) happening first, would find it *impossible* to win campaign in the west against the Low Countries and France?
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I think impossible is a big word, but the western campaign was already a pretty narrow window that required a lot of things to fall into place just right. In particular I think I remember they had lessons to learn on how to coordinate breakthroughs with aviation (the Polish had basically no air control so it was a proving ground for air support, from what I remember).

I'm far from a rivet counter but I think I expect they'd do worse in enough key components of the strategy to have it falter and fail to be a knock out blow, at which point they probably get ground down by their own supply issues. Or at the very least pay a much higher price for knocking out France.
 
raharris1973 said:
  • April 14 – At a meeting in Paris, French Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet meets with Soviet Ambassador Jakob Suritz, and suggests that a "peace front" comprising France, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, Poland and Romania would deter Germany from war.
  • April 18
    • The Soviet Union proposes a "peace front" to resist aggression.
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This seems a key bit. Romania at the time is worried about German influence and wants help, or so I'm reading when I look up Bonnet; Bonnet IOTL wanted to shift a lot of the work to Poland & Britain as I understand it and wanted to delay any war, but ITTL he's part of a government we're assuming has agreed to war so he may have been replaced sharpish; if you want to blockade Germany, giving Romania lots of guarantees so it'll cut off Germany's oil supplies seems how you go about it. And then Hitler has a problem, he's got plans to invade Poland, now he'll likely have to invade Romania first to get the oil he needs.

So the big change from 'Phony War' is happening when Germany invades Romania, a country supported by Britain, France, and Poland (who did more damage IOTL to Germany than we popularly remember), after weeks of economic blockade and its enemies on a war footing, and then has to take out Poland but maybe without the USSR striking the east. That sounds a lot less fun for them. How much aid could a mobilised-for-weeks Britain and France get to Poland though?
 
Charles EP M. said:
This seems a key bit. Romania at the time is worried about German influence and wants help, or so I'm reading when I look up Bonnet; Bonnet IOTL wanted to shift a lot of the work to Poland & Britain as I understand it and wanted to delay any war, but ITTL he's part of a government we're assuming has agreed to war so he may have been replaced sharpish; if you want to blockade Germany, giving Romania lots of guarantees so it'll cut off Germany's oil supplies seems how you go about it. And then Hitler has a problem, he's got plans to invade Poland, now he'll likely have to invade Romania first to get the oil he needs.

So the big change from 'Phony War' is happening when Germany invades Romania, a country supported by Britain, France, and Poland (who did more damage IOTL to Germany than we popularly remember), after weeks of economic blockade and its enemies on a war footing, and then has to take out Poland but maybe without the USSR striking the east. That sounds a lot less fun for them. How much aid could a mobilised-for-weeks Britain and France get to Poland though?
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I mean,not really,Adolf could just pressure Carol to give him some oil like OTL since he didn’t want to get involved and a Soviet-French-Polish-British-Romanian alliance is unrealistic.

That or he backs Horthy and lets him crave up Transylvania if he helps Germany invade easier.
 
If the German March 15th occupation of Bohemia-Moravia precipitated Chamberlain into declaring war on Germany instead of the guarantee of Poland, Chamberlain could quite plausibly have gotten a declaration of war accomplished before March 20th.

Going by the speed with which he reacted to the OTL Sep 1 Polish invasion, he delivered the war warning message to Commons the same day and the whole declaration process was complete within 50 hours on 3 Sep.

A similar pace would have it all wrapped up by March 17th, if Bohemia precipitated him to the same anger.

In any case, if the war declaration process is complete, or even in progress, by the 17th, 18th, 19th – that is big news the world over by the time of Hitler’s OTL Match 20th ultimatum to Lithuania to hand over Memelland/Klapeida.

OTL, Lithuania quickly complied with the ultimatum, and the issue was barely noticed around the world, likely overshadowed by the Bohemia events and Slovak independents, probably because Lithuania was such a small country and no great power threatened to intervene.

In the ATL too, with an Anglo-French war declared on Germany, the ultimatum, by itself, might also be overlooked.

But, from the point of view of President Antanas Smetona in the Lithuania capital of Kaunas, would the fact that Britain and France have declared war on Germany, change his reaction to Germany’s ultimatum?

On receiving the ultimatum, would Smetona say: “Surrender schmurrender, why should we do that when you’re at war with France, and Britain, a country that never loses a war”

Or would he say:

“Fight, schmight, we are too tiny to do anything except comply with Germany’s demand”, surrendering, just like OTL

And actually, would Hitler and the Germans even take things to this point in the altered circumstances of the Anglo-French war declaration? Maybe instead when the East Prussian forces check for the go order, Hitler says: “Memelland schmemelland, don’t you know we’ve got a great power war going on in the west? Of course you’re not crossing any borders!”
 
raharris1973 said:
If the German March 15th occupation of Bohemia-Moravia precipitated Chamberlain into declaring war on Germany instead of the guarantee of Poland, Chamberlain could quite plausibly have gotten a declaration of war accomplished before March 20th.

Going by the speed with which he reacted to the OTL Sep 1 Polish invasion, he delivered the war warning message to Commons the same day and the whole declaration process was complete within 50 hours on 3 Sep.

A similar pace would have it all wrapped up by March 17th, if Bohemia precipitated him to the same anger.

In any case, if the war declaration process is complete, or even in progress, by the 17th, 18th, 19th – that is big news the world over by the time of Hitler’s OTL Match 20th ultimatum to Lithuania to hand over Memelland/Klapeida.

OTL, Lithuania quickly complied with the ultimatum, and the issue was barely noticed around the world, likely overshadowed by the Bohemia events and Slovak independents, probably because Lithuania was such a small country and no great power threatened to intervene.

In the ATL too, with an Anglo-French war declared on Germany, the ultimatum, by itself, might also be overlooked.

But, from the point of view of President Antanas Smetona in the Lithuania capital of Kaunas, would the fact that Britain and France have declared war on Germany, change his reaction to Germany’s ultimatum?

On receiving the ultimatum, would Smetona say: “Surrender schmurrender, why should we do that when you’re at war with France, and Britain, a country that never loses a war”

Or would he say:

“Fight, schmight, we are too tiny to do anything except comply with Germany’s demand”, surrendering, just like OTL

And actually, would Hitler and the Germans even take things to this point in the altered circumstances of the Anglo-French war declaration? Maybe instead when the East Prussian forces check for the go order, Hitler says: “Memelland schmemelland, don’t you know we’ve got a great power war going on in the west? Of course you’re not crossing any borders!”
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I think Hilter might still go for it once he realizes the wAllies aren't moving on him, just sitting there reinforcing their own side of the front.

He did declare war on the USSR despite Britain not having surrendered, after all, he was never really afraid of multiple fronts.
 
lordroel said:
Will the Soviet Union sit this out.
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Great question.

If they take no active pro-Allied, anti-German measures, but do not agree with the Germans on a territorial partition of Poland, that is already an improvement over OTL.

If they also avoid making a trade agreement with the Nazis for trade and barter that specifically makes up for many things Germany loses from blockade, that is another improvement from OTL.

If they go further and embargo Germany, that is more of an improvement.

As the Allies, you almost don't want them going any further than that and marching armies around. Happy to buy supplies from them

If they do the full M-R Pact and trade deal of OTL, then it is just as bad.

And since there may not be a military balance benefit to the Allies from starting war earlier, instead the reverse, then there may be no benefit at all.

One of the hoped for gains in declaring war on Hitler earlier is to show others that Britain is serious earlier and by doing so, discourage others, most importantly the USSR, but also smaller European countries like Romania, from making deals with Germany. That, and being able to blackade Germany earlier are the main hoped for benefits.
 
raharris1973 said:
Great question.

If they take no active pro-Allied, anti-German measures, but do not agree with the Germans on a territorial partition of Poland, that is already an improvement over OTL.

If they also avoid making a trade agreement with the Nazis for trade and barter that specifically makes up for many things Germany loses from blockade, that is another improvement from OTL.

If they go further and embargo Germany, that is more of an improvement.

As the Allies, you almost don't want them going any further than that and marching armies around. Happy to buy supplies from them

If they do the full M-R Pact and trade deal of OTL, then it is just as bad.

And since there may not be a military balance benefit to the Allies from starting war earlier, instead the reverse, then there may be no benefit at all.

One of the hoped for gains in declaring war on Hitler earlier is to show others that Britain is serious earlier and by doing so, discourage others, most importantly the USSR, but also smaller European countries like Romania, from making deals with Germany. That, and being able to blackade Germany earlier are the main hoped for benefits.
Click to expand...

raharris1973 said:
Great question.

If they take no active pro-Allied, anti-German measures, but do not agree with the Germans on a territorial partition of Poland, that is already an improvement over OTL.
Click to expand...

I always assume the Soviet Union only takes a Pro-Soviet stance, doing what is best for its own interest.
 
I wonder how the fact of a British DoW before the end of March would effect the unfolding of the Tientsin Incident, sparked by a Chinese Nationalist assassination of a collaborator in April, that led to a Japanese blockade of Britain's Tientsin Concession starting in June. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tientsin_incident



I would assume the fact of the DoW a couple weeks earlier does not butterfly away the ChiNat secret agents' assassination and their hiding out in the concession.

Possibly, Britain being at war though may discourage Halifax from making a stand on principle and refusing to hand over the suspects to the Japanese because of their confession under torture, thus potentially heading off the crisis. If Halifax does resist handing them over like OTL, and the Japanese react by blockading the concession, the Japanese may ultimately not agree to lift the blockade without more concessions than they received in OTL. And the whole blockade situation could be tenser with a risk of escalation out of control. OTL the British eventually turned over the suspects as part of getting the blockade lifted, with promises, that were broken, of judicial mercy. But the British were able to resist handing over Chinese government silver in vaults in the concession to the Japanese by sealing it in the vaults instead of handing it over and resisted accepting puppet government currency. Perhaps in the ATL, the British would have had to make those concessions to get the Japanese to lift the blockade, with the Japanese feeling able to take a harder line, knowing the British are troubled by war.



In the absolute worst case, in an unresolved, and also escalated, Japanese-British war of nerves over North China, militarist and navalist hotheads favoring alliance with Germany and war with Britain could carry the day, leading to the spread of war to the Asia-Pacific. And I forgot to mention this is about the same season as the Russo-Japanese Nomonhan clash.
 
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