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Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czech
Country
Continent: Europe
Capital: Prague
National Language: Czech, Slovak, German, Hungarian, Yiddish and Rusyn
Government: Various
Status in OTL: Defunct
CzechoslovakiaMap

Czechoslovakia between the World Wars (the infobox map has post-1990 borders)

Czechoslovakia (Czech and Slovak: Československo; in 1938/9 and from 1990 also Česko-Slovensko) was a state in Central Europe from October 1918 (upon declaring its independence from Austria-Hungary in World War I) until 1992 (with a government-in-exile during the World War II period). On 1 January 1993, Czechoslovakia peacefully split into the Czech Republic (called Czechia, or Bohemia in antiquity) and Slovakia.

At the Munich Conference of September 1938, Britain and France (with Italy attending) forced Czechoslovakia to cede the border regions, called Sudetenland, to Nazi Germany, in what is commonly known as part of the Western Betrayal. The increasingly authoritarian rump state briefly existed at the mercy of its fascist neighbors, losing a contested bit to Poland immediately in October and much of southern Slovakia to Hungary in November. In March 1939 Germany instigated declaration of independence of the puppet Slovak State, then occupying the Czech lands as the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. The whole Subcarpathian Ruthenia and a little more Slovakia was annexed by Hungary after the "Small War".

In February 1948 the Communist Party, already included in a "National Front" coalition government, staged a successful coup d'etat, which made Czechoslovakia a satellite of the Soviet Union; in August 1968 Prague Spring's attempts at a reform "communism with a human face" were quashed by a Soviet invasion (with more or less token participation from most of the "fraternal" Warsaw Pact countries); finally, the decaying "normalization" regime collapsed in the Velvet Revolution of November 1989.

Literary comment[]

In several Harry Turtledove works, the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia is controlled by Germany, and Slovakia is a separate state (as in OTL from early 1939 until the defeat of Nazism). In others, the whole region remains part of Austria-Hungary (due to some POD affecting WWI).

Czechoslovakia in The Hot War[]

After World War II, Czechoslovakia[1] was the most recent Eastern European satellite to fall into orbit around the U.S.S.R. Its Communist leader Klement Gottwald was beholden to Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.[2]

As tensions between the USSR and the United States escalated in January-February 1951, until the outbreak of World War III, the Czechoslovakian military was mobilized and moved to the border between West and East Germany.[3] The United States used an atomic bomb on the southwestern city of České Budějovice on 15 February.[4] Two days later, the Soviet Union and its allies, including Czechoslovakia, invaded West Germany.[5] On 24 February, U.S. bombers hit Prague and Bratislava with conventional explosives.[6]

In late 1951, Slovakian nationalists staged an uprising and succeeded in taking Bratislava with goal of detaching Slovakia from the Czechoslovakia. Soviet bombers stationed in Prague launched a late night raid, leveling Bratislava with conventional explosives (the Soviets could not spare an atom bomb). The rebels were able to implement air defenses, including flak, which did succeed in downing several Soviet bombers.[7]

In short order, other Soviet satellites were in rebellion. The rebellion continued throughout 1952, even after the U.S. succeeded in killing Stalin in June 1952 when it deployed the new hydrogen bomb against Omsk.[8] Stalin's eventual successor, Vyacheslav Molotov, brokered a peace with the West in July 1952. As part of this Treaty of Versailles, Molotov confirmed that so long as the U.S. stayed out of Soviet affairs, the Soviets would no longer fight the U.S. President Harry Truman in turn demanded that the Soviets not deploy atomic weapons against these satellites. Grudgingly, Molotov agreed.[9]

Czechoslovakia continued uprising throughout the remainder of 1952. Its most substantial victory, arguably, was the assassination of Soviet ambassador Yuri Andropov in August 1952.[10] However, by December, it was clear that the relentless Soviet repression had broken the uprising.[11]

Czechoslovakia in In the Presence of Mine Enemies[]

Czechoslovakia was occupied by Germany during the Second World War, and was partitioned into several territories of Greater German Reich.

In June 2011, Bohemians, protesting against the SS Putsch, waved Czechoslovakian flags in their demonstrations.

Czechoslovakia in Joe Steele[]

After the Anschluss added Austria to Germany, the combined nation surrounded western Czechoslovakia. Adolf Hitler began demanding the annexation of the Germans in the Sudetenland.[12] In the end Britain and France gave way (despite pledges of support from Joe Steele of the U.S. and Leon Trotsky of the Soviet Union) and let Hitler annex the Sudetenland.[13] Within six months Germany also annexed Bohemia and Moravia, the Czech part of the country, and set up an "independent" Slovakia under a puppet ruler.[14]

Czechoslovakia in The Man With the Iron Heart[]

Reinhard Heydrich was the Reichsprotektor of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, which Germany had carved out of Czechoslovakia. On 29 May 1942, Heydrich narrowly avoided assassination at the hands of British-backed Czech commandos in the streets of Prague.

After World War II Czechoslovakia, like Poland, began expelling all ethnic Germans from its borders. Heydrich's German Freedom Front was active in Czechoslovakia as a result.

Czechoslovakia in Or Even Eagle Flew[]

After Germany subdued and dismembered Czechoslovakia, Czechoslovakian pilots were able to escape and make their way to the United Kingdom to join the RAF. Some of these apprentice pilots were at the Croydon OTU with American pilots Amelia Earhart, Red Tobin, Andrew Mamedoff, and Shorty Keough.[15]

Czechoslovakia in The War That Came Early[]

Czechoslovakia was the epicenter of the European war that broke out in September 1938. Throughout 1938, German Führer Adolf Hitler demanded the concession of the Sudetenland, with the dual purpose of uniting the Sudeten Germans with Germany proper, as well as provoking a continental war.

However, the governments and militaries of Britain and France were unprepared for conflict. Although France had a military alliance with Czechoslovakia, in September 1938, a conference in Munich was held. On September 30, 1938, without the participation of Czechoslovakian officials, Britain, France, and Germany were preparing to enter into a treaty which would have granted Hitler's demands. (Another ally of Czechoslovakia's, the Soviet Union, was left out of the negotiations.)

Shortly before the signing, news came that Konrad Henlein, the leader of the Sudeten Germans, had been assassinated in Berlin by a Czech nationalist named Jaroslav Stribny. Hitler was delighted, and used the assassination as an excuse to declare war on Czechoslovakia. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and French Premier Edouard Daladier were suspicious of the timing of the assassination, believing it benefited Hitler too neatly. France and Britain then declared war on Germany, as did USSR.

However Czechoslovakia was left mostly to fend for itself. The Soviet Union, its staunchest ally, could not field many ground troops, as the two countries did not share a land border. French troops did invade Germany, but the attack was timid at best. Germany, pinched for resources, did not engage the French, instead concentrating its troops on Czechoslovakia.

Czechoslovakia was soon attacked by Poland and Hungary. While not official allies of Germany, both opportunistically carved out territory each had claimed prior. Speeding up its defeat, Slovakia, who had long been agitating for independence, effectively allied itself with Germany, so that it would back the creation of a Slovak state.

Czechoslovakia held out throughout October, before it sued for peace. With Slovakia created, Germany annexed the remainder. The Czechoslovakian government fled to Paris and continued to operate in exile. Czech troops who escaped capture fled into neighboring Poland, where they were in turn transferred indirectly to Paris. Many were put in the lines against the German invasion of France.

Czechoslovakia in Worldwar[]

The Race recognized Germany's claim to Czechoslovakia as part of the Greater German Reich following the Peace of Cairo in 1944.

This region was heavily industrialized and supported the German war effort in both World War II and the war against the Race's Conquest Fleet. It was also heavily damaged by explosive-metal bomb attacks during the Race-German War of 1965, due to its proximity to Race-held Poland and its use as a staging area for the German invasion of that colony.

References[]

  1. Anachronistically referenced as "Czechoslovak Socialist Republic".
  2. Fallout, chapter 8, paragraph 5, Loc. 1968, ebook.
  3. Bombs Away, pgs. 55-103, generally, ebook.
  4. Ibid., pg. 104.
  5. Ibid., pgs. 110-118.
  6. Ibid., pg. 121.
  7. Ibid., loc., 3646-3718.
  8. Armistice, pgs. 77-80.
  9. Ibid., pgs. 155-157.
  10. Ibid., pg. 233, loc. 3988, ebook.
  11. Ibid., pgs. 414.
  12. Joe Steele, pgs. 195-196, HC.
  13. Ibid, pgs. 202-203.
  14. Ibid, pg. 205.
  15. Or Even Eagle Flew, pg. 35, loc. 428, ebook.
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