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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 3, 2025

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I'm not claiming the current situation is a 1:1 copy of the interwar period, just that the Czechoslovakian potential helped in later Hitler's military conquest (including several Slovakian divisions being used in 1939 invasion of Poland). I'm not going to defend the Poland's dick (and short-sighted) move of grabbing Trans-Olza from Czechoslovakia, either. It is worth pointing out, though, that Poland's help to Czechoslovakia was a complete fiction back then because Poland and Czechoslovakia were not too friendly, mainly due to a similarly dick Czechoslovakian move of invading Trans-Olza in 1919 while Poland was preoccupied in defending their eastern borders.

A couple of things.

  1. Don't you think that it's rather far-fetched to claim that Poland was "defending" her "eastern borders" in January 1919? From whom? The newly formed Ukrainian state that was claiming her independence at roughly the same time as Poland? Also, what "eastern borders" did Poland have? East ot Poland a civil war was raging, and the bolshevik regime was fighting for survival, not attacking Poland.

  2. Slovakia's actions after 1939 don't fit into your parallel at all. Nothing of this sort did happen or is ever going to happen in Ukraine. (You're not going to claim that Slovakian independence was illegitimate, are you?.) Regarding military potential, it's true that the Germans captured enough equipment to equip roughly 45 divisions, plus large armaments industry facilities intact. Again, this is something that's never going to happen in Ukraine at all. To spell it out: the area that remains under the control of the Ukrainian government never had and does not have an armaments industry comparable in scale at all (to spell ot out further, look at size of the Czechoslovak armaments sector as compared to the German in 1938, and that of the Ukrainian as compared to the Russian today), and even if it did, there's no chance of the Russians ever capturing it intact ever.

  3. No matter what went down in 1919, in 1938 Poland should have assisted Czechoslovakia against Germany even out of nothing else but self-interest. It was well known by that time that Hitler wanted to undo the Versailles Treaty, consequently to regain lands that were surrendered to a newly formed Poland, especially Danzig. It logically followed that if the Sudeten crisis ends with concessions made to the Germans, they'll be emboldended and make similar demands to Poland. It was evident. France and Britain were not in a geographical position to assist Czechoslovakia in a defensive war, but Poland was.