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Editor says, what if Winston Churchill had sent the fateful telegram in 1938? Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s).
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In 1938, facing down Nazi pressure to secede the Sudetenland to the Third Reich, the President of Czechoslovakia Edvard Benes declared war on Germany.
Fire your cannon & all will be wellThe catalist was a a fateful telegram from anti-appeasement politican Winston Spencer Churchill advising "Fire your cannon, and all will be well".
Neither Churchill nor Benes were aware that the British and French Governments had been in secret negotiations with Herr Hitler to find a peaceful settlement to the crisis.
In a press release that same evening, Churchill explained that "the mere neutralisation of Czechoslovakia means the liberation of twenty-five German Divisions, which will threaten the Western front; in addition to which it will open up for the triumphant Nazis the road to the Black sea. It is not Czechoslovakia alone which is menaced, but also the freedom and the democracy of all nations, The belief that security could be obtained by throwing a small nation to the wolves is a fatal delusion. The war potential of Germany will increase in a short time more rapidly that it will be possible for France and Great Britain to complete the measure necessary for their defence".
Entry posted by Todayinah Editor
© Churchill A Life by Martin Glbert (1991)Story Tags
Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Alternate Nations Source: Wikipedia Labels: India, Czechoslovakia, Sudetenland, Forties, Winston Churchill. Editor says, Churchill decided not to send the fateful telegram claiming "I should be grasping responsibilities which I have no right to seek, and no power to bear".
~ Turtledove did a very similar scenario in "The War that Came Early."
~ And so what happened to Czechoslovakia?
~ The Czechs would suffer very heavy casualties, but it might be enough to call in international support to take out Hitler before the war machine really got going.
~ It's "catalyst".
One consequence of an earlier World War II might have been that when, in December 1938, uranium fission was discovered at Berlin's Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, the Nazis would move immediately to keep the finding secret, so that researchers in England, France, America and the Soviet Union would not have learned of it when they did.
Whether or not this allowed the Third Reich to develop the A-bomb first, it would at the least have delayed the start of the Manhattan Project.
~ Fight! Fight!
~ Before we jump ahead to such things as how the bomb technology would have been affected, consider this -- the Oster Conspiracy. This planned putsch was probably the plan with the BEST pre-Valkyrie chance to bring down Hitler (and the Nazis in general), but it depended on RESISTANCE to Hitler's invasion of Czechoslovakia. Not only was Germany not anything like as prepared for war as it would be a year later, not to mention the fact that Hitler would not be secure on the East and so not able to move West... the German PEOPLE were at this time as fearful of war as Britain & France. In light of this many army leaders not even directly involved in the conspiracy, but certainly not pro-Hitler (indeed willing to cover plots vs. Hitler even when they weren't willing to risk joining them), would have gone along. In short, very early on in the war Hitler and the Nazis are taken out (all the more likely to succeed if Britain & France are cajoled into supporting the Czechs - which, for all their fear, seems very possible)... war ENDS!
~ Hitler Out, a Junta in Berlin willing to use carrots on pulling the Slavs of Central Europe into thie orbit, no Shoah... this seems nice already compared to OTL.
© Today in Alternate History, 2013-. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
