Did they ever stood any chance?

>trusting Hitler after what happened to Czechoslovakia

If Poles weren't really retarded isn't there a chance they could've been unironically a huge superpower today? They had the 2 biggest piece of shit countries who destroyed Europe (Russia and Prussia) under control at one point. If they didn't let them rise to power what would the world be like today?

>no Prussia
>Austria unites German people

With USSR it should be quite easy.
With Germans, they would need to know in advance, that allies won't help them.

This nigga knows his shit. They could have survived if they had a real statesman.

Probably. Keep in mind that "Russia" was still a concept when Poles had victories over them. Simple folk didn't know that they're Russians and gladly ran away to Poland for better life.
The problem with Poles is that they're not as savage as Germans and Russians.

The Pole will try to reason things with morality, honour, feelings etc etc which will lead to downfall. Because there are no feelings, morality or honour in politics. Just cold and harsh calculation.

I suspect that if Poles were more brutal like Germans, there wouldn't be any jokes about plumbers and dumb polacks now.

Yes.

If the Poles had raised hell during the Sudeten crises and allied with Czechoslovakia against Germany the two would have absolutely raped the Wehrmacht.

Instead they looked the other way in exgange for a strategically worthless parcel of Czech land and destroyed the only potental worthwhile alliance in Poland's immediate vicinity.

If the polish government had its eye on the long game it could have won. However it was constantly playing strategic catch up with its neighbors.

Didn't Poland get most of its air Force wiped out on the first day of fighting?

>>The fact that they both attacked at the same time is the only reason they fell.
Lie. USSR waited as much as it could. Protracted war between Germany and Poland with Western allies while USSR stay neutral would be the best result for Stalin. But Poland fell too quickly and real help from the West didn't came. The choice was to take territories or let Germans to take them. There was not resistance to the Red Army.

The army was regrouping in Eastern territories, waiting for offensive.
>There was not resistance to the Red Army.
bullshit

probably, if the French actually honored their treaty than the Germans would have to rethink a full on Blitz and they're gonna get in a position that they wouldn't like to be in,which is fighting on two fronts

Yeah, Poland and Czechoslovakia had some autistic beef over a handful of tiny border villages, thus decided they couldn't be friends. Poland and Czechoslovakia in 1938 could have defeated Germany.

Even if they had been able to fight off the Germans for a little longer, once Paris fell it wouldn't be much longer until Warsaw did.

sums up our entire politics after XVII century

warisboring.com/its-a-myth-that-germany-wiped-out-the-polish-air-force-in-three-days-in-1939/
>On the first day alone, the Polish air force claimed 25 aircraft shot down for the loss of 10 of its own.
>In the first six days of battle, the Polish air force shot down 105 aircraft for the loss of 79
Also
>The Polish reputation for chivalry was on display as Warsaw’s pilots refrained from shooting the parachutes of downed Germans. A Polish lieutenant named Skalski, after forcing down a German Hs.123 bomber, even landed nearby to make sure his wounded opponent got medical treatment.
>The Germans did not reciprocate, however, machine-gunning several parachuting Poles.
Do it again, Bomber Harris!

>Be Poland
>Keep getting partitioned
>Everytime you come back you are bigger than before
A few more times getting annexed and Poland might become relevant.

Bumog

are you retarded
modern poland is smaller than interwar poland
interwar poland was smaller than poland-lithuania

...

After 2WW Pope also denounced Poland for unfair treatment of resettled Germans.

Hell, they could've even gone with something in lines of "gib Zaolzie and we'll help you against the Germans." Not only wouldn't Polish international reputation be harmed, but the not-so-great and not-tried-in-combat-yet Wehrmacht wouldn't be that much of an obstacle.

I'm sure that at least the Czechoslovak government wouldn't be stubborn enough to refuse this deal. I mean, nationalism was very strong in every post-imperial country in Europe but Zaolzie was barely populated by Czechs anyway and it's better to lose a useless chunk of land than an entire industry, if not the entire country.

>Abolishing rule of Bolesław the Bold, setting his incompetent brother on the throne, after the former was on his way on establishing Polish dominance in the region
>Incompetent brother (Władysław Herman) stayed as a Duke and basically became a vassal of HREmperor, even letting him crown his father-in-law (ruler of Bohemia) as King of Poland, despite the fact that his brother made sure that HRE had no suzerainty over Poland and allied with Pope against the Emperor
>His son split the kingdom between his sons, with the oldest living member of the dynasty being the king, decentralising country to no end, which could be considered the root of what lead to invitation of Teutonic Knights
Really, that one thing was beginning of the end for Piast dynasty and of Poland as regional power.

>Get Lithuania and large part of old Rus Principalities
>came with idea of letting Rus keep orthodox rite but with papal supremacy
>didn't made this as state religion for everyone, which would prevent tensions between Catholics and Orthodox later

in his defence after WW2 they came out with better clay

yes the russians took the eastern half but it was mostly undeveloped wasteland, they got given east prussia and a shitload if railways/industrial base that the germans had built up. it just needed to be repaired

vilnius region > those shitholes that became piles of bricks after red army marched through them and gommies were too retarded to utilize silesian industry anyway
not ot mention, prussia was pretty much poorest ex-german region

Unfortunately untrue. Eastern lands weren't that much destroyed by war, but Western ones were terribly looted by Soviets. That Eastern Prussia is currently poorest region in Poland.
In East there were also nice natural resources, like oil.
That "exchange" was heavily propagandized as good trade, but just because those lands were prosperous before War, it doesn't magically change value of big pile of a rocks, which those lands were after war.

That actually makes a lot of sense. And with the Czechs allied with the Soviets, it would be very hard for them to justify an attack on Poland.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-Soviet_Treaty_of_Mutual_Assistance

>1939: Turning down Hitler's alliance
wehraboo pls go

no, the Poles flew combat sorties up until Warsaw fell

>East Prussia a.k.a. Pomerelia
Was already part of Poland before war. The only addition would be Danzig/Gdańsk but one could argue that it already was very autonomous territory of Poland before the war
>Warmia and Mazuria
Nothing but lakes there
>Pomerania
Not much except for extended seashore, and maybe Stettin/Szczecin, which isn't much taking the Polish approach to navy and trade.
>Neumark/Lubusz Land (without Lebus, ironically)
Not muc hexcept for possible defensive purposes of Oder
>Silesia
Yeah, this one is probably the best part of the deal, with its rich resources. Still, not enough to compensate Eastern Galicia, Grodno and Vilnius.

This map would probably be more fair - Poland wouldn't have Sorau and Hirschberg, with all the gold in the area but would keep the grasp on most of the important eastern cities, without much squabble with Belarussians and Ukrainians. Additionally, the seashore would be even longer and we wouldn't have that ugly exclave.

>but the border doesn't allign with the rivers!
It does, it's just Bóbr instead of Neisse.

>and we wouldn't have that ugly exclave.
I meant "We wouldn't have that ugly RUSSIAN exclave," meaning Kaliningrad Oblast.

>Stanislaw Skalski
based

>On 1 September 1939 he attacked a German Henschel Hs 126 reconnaissance aircraft, which was eventually shot down by Marian Pisarek. Skalski then landed next to it, helped to bandage wounded crew members and arranged for them to be taken to a military hospital. By 16 September Skalski reached "ace" status, claiming a total of six German aircraft and making him the first Allied air ace of World War II.

Bumpg

This

Attacking Germany in '38 would have solved everything

Wrong.
Poland was completely defeated militarily by Germany, Russia only conducted a landgrab. After 14 days the Germans had virtually the entire polish army either surrounded, captured or on the run, the soviets only invaded on the 17th and only faced retreating polish units and reserves.

There was no chance of the poles regrouping and repelling the german forces at that point.

>Poland was completely defeated militarily by Germany, Russia only conducted a landgrab. After 14 days the Germans had virtually the entire polish army either surrounded, captured or on the run, the soviets only invaded on the 17th and only faced retreating polish units and reserves.
>There was no chance of the poles regrouping and repelling the german forces at that point.
That's German propaganda.
Poles had reserves in the Eastern territories, they also had equipment stored there.
They were waiting for the Allies offensive, to conduct their own. Germans were runing ou ot ammo and oil, they were exhausted and lost a lot of soldiers.

Stalin was waiting for confirmation that the Allies won't launch an offensive, before he ordered his army to enter Poland.

Basically, your knowledge is that of a toaster.

>They were waiting for the Allies offensive, to conduct their own.
I'm sure they were gonna conduct a lot of offensives with 3/4ths of their armed forces either captured or sitting in cauldrons.
I'm sure the poles "planned" to push the germans back, but that was as far from reality on the 14th of September as a German Counter Offensive was in May 1945.

your knowledge is more of wishful thinking than situational awareness

lel, what makes you think two worthless countries such as Poland and Czechoslovakia could have beaten a superpower?

If there is even an argument whether or not USA/Britain/Soviets could have beaten Germany 1v1 then there is not even a possibility that Poland + Czechoslovakia would have stod a chance vs Germany.

- letting Teutonic knights settle on their lands
LETTING G*RMANICS SCUM GENOCIDE NATIVE BALTIC TRIBES, SUCH AS PRUSSIANS, WHICH WERE NEVER GERM FILTH

GERMS HAVE BEEN EXTERMINATING EUROPEANS SINCE THE FUCKING ROMAN EMPIRE

Germany wasnt ready for war in 1938, Hitler was very much hoping and expecting the whole Sudetenland thing was solved without any escalation.

Much like the Anschluss Hitler was very wary of any neighbors responding aggressively to the Sudeten crisis. German reserves weren't yet prepared for the start of WW2 and ammunition, fuel, food and general supplies would have quickly run out for the Wehrmacht.

>two worthless countries such as Poland and Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia was the industrial powerhouse of the Austria-Hungary.
Czech industry boosted Germany into major power rank. Before annexing Czech they weren't any superpower, you moron.
> ould have beaten a superpower
By the time of 38 Germany wasn't a superpower.

Life isn't paradox game, you fucking autists.

First off the obvious bit - the Germans had a better military with a superior doctrine and greater mobility.

Second, the Poles weren't fully mobilised. They started mobilising in late August but the French and British made them stop in order to not provoke Germany. In the end the mobilisation only re-started on August 31, hours before Germany attacked.

Finally, the Poles were "deliberately" following a really suboptimal defence plan. The full extent of the border was basically indefensible, so the sensible thing to do would be to have deeper lines of defence, perhaps even on the Vistula.

The problem was the Poles were afraid that if they just allowed Germany to waltz in freely through one third of the country, France and Britain would consider that a complete Polish collapse and not join the war. Even worse, Germany could just occupy some areas without engaging the Poles at all then just stay put and ask for international mediation in order to keep some or all of them without a war. By the events of the Anschluss and Munich this could well have worked - another 'peace for our time'.

So the Polish leaders decided to stage a full defence along the indefensible border to ensure France and Britain join the war, followed by an orderly retreat to more defensible positions, and then defending until the allies join in force.

The problem was the retreat was not very orderly since the Germans were far more mobile and this was the perfect scenario to exploit that advantage, achieving some very impressive encirclements against withdrawing Poles. Still the Poles could have probably defended on the Vistula for a decent while longer, but then the Soviets joined in rendering the whole thing impossible to conduct and the Poles immediately focused on nothing other than evacuating important assets.

Also it might be worth noting that in 1945 Germans lost essentially the same ground to the Soviets just as fast - in 20 days. Open flat land is hard to defend.

I still feel shame for that event.

Polish foreign policy towards Czechoslovakia and Lithuania was just retarded.

>Germany could just occupy some areas without engaging the Poles at all then just stay put and ask for international mediation

If wars could get un-declared so easily we wouldn't have had WW1.

germans built up a shit load of railways, poland took these over.

the east was less developed there is no argument here

>Hurr duh we were left with piles of rubble and nothing was repaired

1963 rail map for you

To be fair, fault was on both sides of either conflict.

Lithuanians didn't want to get into any relations with the Poles because of "muh sovereignty" and the sheer fear of Poles starting polonising them again which, quite frankly, was ridiculous idea in XX century. The Poles also had it easy with the "Żeligowki's revolt" because the proxy was handled pretty well and, well, no one really cared about Lithuania. Still, the hostile attitude between two countries with century long common history just because of a single city is extremely dumb and, unfortunately, an ongoing issue.

The situation with Czechoslovakia was even more convoluted. This time, the Poles were the stubborn ones - they accused the Czechs of lack of honour and collaboration with the Soviets because they took Těšín during the Polish-Soviet War. Poland commited an awful political faux-pas by taking Zaolzie - in turn for the situation from 1920, now the Poles were being accused of collab. with the Germans.

Germany attacked Poland without declaring war. France and the UK (note that Poland couldn't be sure what the would do) also didn't declare war immediately either, they gave Hitler a two-day ultimatum to cease military operations.

Imagine an alternative history where Poland decides on a much deeper defence instead of defending along their extremely long border with Germany. The Germans attack and take border areas including the Polish corridor and Silesia without much opposition. The British-French ultimatum comes telling Hitler to stop, and he complies.

Another Munich-style diplomatic controversy rages for several weeks, the Poles unable to do anything about or they risk alienating their allies by sabotaging the peace process. Appeasement triumphs once again and Germany 'bloodlessly' annexes the Polish corridor and most of Silesia. Poland, highly dependent as it was on trade through Baltic ports now controlled by Germany, and otherwise economically crippled from losing Silesia, becomes a rump state under German control.

Another piece for our time, what will this Mr. Hitler get next?

tl;dr: The above is the scenario the Poles were trying to avoid.

>Muh red army and ebil russians

daily reminders some 100,000 poles served with the red army in their assault on Berlin (and the following crimes/rapes against civilians). In comparison the max strength of the warsaw uprising that polish nationalists circle jerk over to this day was a poxy 30,000.

Your retarded population supported communism, you were not all 100% winger hussar nationalist freedom fighters.

In 1942 115 000 Polish soldiers and civilians escaped Soviet Union, given the opportunity.

At later stages of the war, Polish army in Soviet Union consisted mostly of drafted soldiers, with very few volunteers.

It's also worth noting that the line of bunkers around the Polish-German border would actually be a superb defence system, was it given the appropriate budget and care. Just look how long the lone fortification at Wizna stood against the superior numbers of Germans.

The true problem is how late the Poles started thinking about militarising their western border. As with most of things, the bunker system really took off only in late 1930s' with too little money tanked into the project. If the bunkers were finished by 1938, the Germans would probably be the ones overstretched with their offensive... or they'd just march through Lithuania or Slovakia, Belgium-style.

Half the tanks used in the invasion of France were Czech dumb dumb

>Slovakia, Belgium-style

Considering Slovakia was a German client state and took part in attacking Poland in 1939 anyway (aiding the 14th Army), that'd be pretty likely.

Still with the sheer length of Polish borders and the fact most of them were with Germany and the Soviet Union, they can perhaps be excused for not having fortificated all of it.

>Life isn't paradox game, you fucking autists.
Kinda funny, because in HoI games Poland in 1936-1938 has better army than Germany.

Honestly?

They were fucking stupid that they didn't comply with Hitlers demand.

If I were the Polish leader I would have done everything Hitler asked of me.

That way he would have no reason to genocide the population.

Partially correct.

Poles weren't even mentioned in Mein Kampf as subhumans. Germany and Poland had good relations after Hitler came to power.
Poles got fooled by UK and France.

i bet you would say the same thing about czechs in some alternate timeline when they actually told hitler to fuck off

It's all about being realistic.

Russia had a reason to tell Hitler to fuck off, because they have the resources and power to defeat him.

Poland and the czechs didn't have that power. Nothing wrong if you admit that you are too weak and save blood from being spilled.

Except France. Fuck those pussies.

No. Not even in the face of Armageddon. Never compromise.

Thank god the UK and France declared war on the Soviet Union for invading them. No one invades Poland on OUR watch.