What if, after signing the Munich Agreement, Hitler did not invade Poland until 1944

Britain and Germany were almost allies. The British intended to send troops to support Finland in the Winter War against the Reds.

So who knows.

The West had no issues supporting Stalin and Franco and lots of other dictators when it suits.

The Basket said:

Britain and Germany were almost allies. The British intended to send troops to support Finland in the Winter War against the Reds.

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That might have put India and Britain's Middle East territories at risk.

Shortround6 said:

There is a school of thought that has Neville Chamberlain as a much more ruthless and calculating politician that most histories give him credit for. This school thinks he knowingly sold out Czechoslovakia in order to buy time for Britain and France to rearm.

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I find it hard to buy into this. I really can't imagine Chamberlain getting off the airplane waiving a piece of paper declaring "peace in our time" if he thought it was only a delaying action. That would have been political suicide. I think he thought, wanted to believe, Hitler would slow down after he had obtained all the land Germany and Austria lost with the Treaty of Versailles. All that was left was a small portion of Poland and he was betting Hitler would not go to war over that little bit of land.

GB was not quite cautiously rearming in 1938-39.

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I do think he was rearming reasonably aggressively but still cautious, at least compared to what Churchill was hammering him on. There is no indication that he stepped up defense status after Germany invaded Czechoslovakia in March of 1939, violating the Munich Agreement. That would have been a good time to step up war preparations giving them a few months head start.

But it was under Chamberlain that the defences that would be used in the BoB were planned, built and put into place. Along with the much increased military production.

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In the last half of the 30s Chamberlain and Great Britain was faced with almost insurmountable problems on every front. Financially, they were struggling to recover from the depression, Security wise, Germany was rebuilding its military, some estimated it was 2 years ahead of Britain, and could threaten Britain's Atlantic lifeline and its control of the airspace. The Italians out gunned the RN in the Med threatening Suez and Malta. In the Far East and South Pacific, the powerful and underestimated Japanese threatened Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, and possibly India. The US had a powerful fleet in Hawaii but were basically sitting on their hands and were possibly unreliable. Probably unfairly, Chamberlain will always be associated with the picture of him getting off the airplane waiving that document.

Any way you shake it an arms race had developed between Germany and GB/France by 1938. The Germans had gotten the jump on it without doubt but orders placed alone clearly shows both French and British seriousness. TBH I'm of the opinion that the Germans struck at the absolute hot minute in 1940. By 1944 the western allies would have been bristling with arms and logistics. The notion of a daydreaming and peaceful Britain ignores the orders placed, the factories being laid down, the radar antennas. You don't build that revolutionary of a system without a very real doubt to drive it.

Fundamentally the voter base in France and GB didn't want war with the Germans again. But they also were not going to dismiss the German threat easily with so many of their brothers and fathers in the ground from the Great War. Politics would spur the arms race on through 1944 handily. Chamberlain was a politician, not an idealist, if the base wanted arms and peace, arms they would have and peace they would be promised.
All the while I believe the Americans would happily play the grocer to the French and Commonwealth arms build up. Either with arms directly or raw materials on credit.

The trenches of ww1 were deeply ingrained in the collective British psyche and so when that Hitler fella wanted round 2, there was no desire to oblige him.

Chamberlain wasn't some Dr Evil long play type wanting to buy time. He genuinely wanted to avoid war at all costs.

The Germans were not 2 years ahead in anything I can think of and the Regia Marina never outgunned the Royal Navy.

The only advantage the Germans had was their desire to go to war and the advantage of the aggressor.

The Basket said:

The trenches of ww1 were deeply ingrained in the collective British psyche and so when that Hitler fella wanted round 2, there was no desire to oblige him.

Chamberlain wasn't some Dr Evil long play type wanting to buy time. He genuinely wanted to avoid war at all costs.

The Germans were not 2 years ahead in anything I can think of and the Regia Marina never outgunned the Royal Navy.

The only advantage the Germans had was their desire to go to war and the advantage of the aggressor.

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You forgot the Chrystal Meth.