AHC/WI: Czechoslovakia has its southern border on the Danube

fluttersky

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Location
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Like in this map. Dotted line = OTL southern border of Czechoslovakia; red line/ Danube = proposed southern border of Czechoslovakia in this scenario.

Darker yellow = OTL Czechoslovakia; lighter yellow = would also be part of Czechoslovakia in TTL. The lighter yellow area is primarily inhabited by Germans/ Austrians, with a fairly small Czech / Slovak minority.



I'm thinking there are two possible points of divergence that could lead to this scenario occurring:

1) after World War 1, in the run-up to the various peace conferences, Czechoslovakia requests a southern border on the Danube for security/defense reasons, and this is accepted by the great powers.

2) after World War 2, the newly-reformed Czechoslovakia is granted that region, for similar reasons.

I'm not sure why this was never suggested in OTL. What are the likely consequences of scenario 1 or scenario 2 happening? For example, in scenario 1, that region would probably become part of the Sudetenland and annexed into Nazi Germany (assuming no major butterflies) - unless having a border on the Danube makes it more difficult for Nazi Germany to successfully invade Czechoslovakia.
 
Wouldn't that further increase the German minority inside Czechoslovakia? With the resulting discontent and resentment? Also while the Danube is a useful border it also means the border is no longer along the Mts skirting Bohemia, which may have been presumed to be an even better one.

Or it could be simply historical in that the core of the Czech republic was the historical kingdom of Bohemia which is probably also what local government structure was based on. Adding in a chunk of territory that was not only alien in population but historically part of a different state entirely would seem a bit odd to the politicians without either a request from the Czechs and/or a good reason.
 
Hmmm tell Hitler that if he dares you will drop all your chemical weapons in Vienna? It is within artillery range in this scenario.
Supposing the Czechs are crazy/desperate enough and willing to take such a gamble.

Other than somesuch outlandish scenario I fail to see any difference. It was way too exposed and surrounded by German and Axis territory after the anschluss to hope for any sort of effective military resistance even with the Danube.

No I do not support such an action I simply speculate a what if where they took the NK option.
 
I guess "self-determination of the German people" is why that border was never considered after WW1.
 
There are a lot of reasons. A great deal of the reason why various borders were accepted and others were not was on the ground distortion or falsification of census data that was presented to the powers at the Versailles Conference. The Balkans were particularly rife with competing ethnic maps, and you had census takers rushing through parts of Slovenia to see how much they could reasonably justify before the Entente.

However. I'm not sure that this particular scenario would have been particularly plausible. Not only would it have imposed a significant security risk to Vienna, but it looks to me like it would also cut off a small slice of Germany as well. The Czechslovaks would need to be better negotiators (and they were already pretty damned good) to make such a thing happen.
 
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