Czechoslovakia 1938

[sid guttridge]

Hi Enrico,

Fascinating information on Italian plans against Suez.

I got the counter-insurgency information about 10 years ago while looking into the campaigns against the Senussi in the 1920s and early 1930s. If I remember correctly, should the Senussis give more trouble from the mid 1930s the plan was to seize any waterholes they were using from the air using the paratroops. My understanding was that Libyans rather than Italians were raised as paratroops because their initial purpose was purely for counter-insurgency within Libya. However, you are closer to good sources, so I will happily accept your version.

I will try to find my source, but at this stage it is unlikely I will be easily able to because all my papers on the subject have been stored for years.

By the way, am I correct that the Italians trained some Peruvian paratroops and that these were air-landed from Italian-supplied seaplanes behind Ecuadoran lines during their frontier clash in 1941?

Cheers,

Sid.

[Enrico Cernuschi]

Hello Sid,

I can confim you not only the Suez Big plan datas but the Peruvian too. As a matter of fact Peruvian were more clever than Italians to put in act, in July 1941, Gen. Alberto Pariani's doctrine.

The Senussi fight was finishd at the beginning of 1932; your news may be about a project (I honestly didnt' know) to face a possible new Senussi insurgence during the Ethipoina crisis with Britain. As the Italians employed largely, during the war with Ethiopia, air landings with ordinary infantry to occupy as soon as possible some key strengpoints it's possible that something like it was conceived too by the Aviazione Sahariana (the only and last air toy that Marshall Balbo could use and organize at will after his 1933 exile in Libya).

Bye EC

[Pirx]

You both forgot about Czechoslovakia.
I'm sure that Prag to the end believes in France and UK. But after Munich they were dissapointed, or even angry. But i don't believe that they diplomats turns heads too Stalin for help.

[Enrico Cernuschi]

Well, according Andrew Mollo (The Armed Forces of WWII) the CZ government in exile in London established links with Moscow sending there a mission in May 1941 (so much for the pre-emptive nature of Barbarossa). Comrade Stalin was for them, I think, first a Slav fellow and only after a Red dictator.

Bye EC

PS Masaryk jump from the window in 1948 - quite a praguese habit, Jerome K. Jerome wrote that the local cabinet made his sessions in a cellar as a window was too much a temptation for any praguese since the XVII Century - is only the proof that the sincere democratics of the CZ government in exile were, at best, "useful idiots" (a Lenin 1917 sentence). EC

[sid guttridge]

Hi Enrico,

I don't think Masaryk "jumped".

Jerome K. Jerome was renowned for his comedy, not his history.

Mollo may be right in this case, but he is not very reliable or responsive to correction. Twenty years ago I sent him a list of over 20 errors in his very few pages on the Romanian Army. He replied to the effect that it was all a matter of opinion. "The Armed Forces of WWII" has been reissued several times, but he has made absolutely no corrections to his text. Looking at recent Romanian literature, he was even more wrong than I reckoned in 1982/3. Admire the art work, but distrust his text.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Pirx]

Winston Churchill said that he can made pact even with devil, if it help destroy Hitler. No doubt that UK tried to made Stalin ally long before June 1941. Why British PM warn Stalin about German plan of attack USSR?
So it's not surprise that Czechoslovakian goverment in London do the same thing, as well as Polish, Norvegian, Dutch etc.
But situation in march 1939 and in march 1941 was completly different.

[Enrico Cernuschi]

I think that the CZ mission in Moscow, May 1941, was not an agreement with the British cabinet. Do not forget that Eden recognized that the Munich pact was no more a bound for the government of his majesty only in 1942.
Bye EC

[Domen123]

The Chechs had build their own version of the Maginot line in the mountains.

Czech fortifcations were judged as made of low-quality concrete and as not very resistant against heavy artillery and AT weapons by both German and Polish military researchers (Poland also captured some Czech conrete fortifcations in the region of Teschen / Zaolzie). Polish testings of Czechoslovakian forticiations were carried out in the Summer of 1939:

"Został stwierdzony dość ciekawy i znamienny fakt, który nie powinien ujść uwagi historyków. Po zajęciu Zaolzia w czasie inspekcji kancelarii jednej z baterii pokazano mi kartę pocztową adresowaną do gospodarza lokalu. Była to fotografia dużego dzieła fortyfikacyjnego postrzelanego dosłownie na rzeszoto, jak wynikało z treści, była to kartka z obszarów niedawno zajętych przez Niemców. Już nie pamiętam w jakiej miejscowości fort ten się znajdował. Skonfiskowaną z miejsca kartkę przesłałem natychmiast w drodze służbowej do Oddziału II Sztabu Głównego. Latem 39 r. została powołana komisja do zbadania wytrzymałości na ogień artylerii bunkrów zbudowanych ( przez Czechosłowaków) na poprzedniej granicy polskiej. W skład komisji wchodził m.in. płk Luśniak- dowodca 5 pac w Krakowie i ja. Przeprowadziliśmy szereg strzelań na różnych dystansach do wybranych przez losowanie bunkrów. Wyniki były następujące: Ciężka artyleria- armata 105 mm z zakrytego stanowiska, na dystansie 3,5 km- 2 trafne pociski przebiły ślepą ściankę czołową bunkra i wybuchły wewnątrz. Artyleria lekka: 75 mm- działo francuskie- strzał na wprost z odległości 1-1,5 km: ścianka czołowa przy każdym strzale zostawała przebita na wylot, a granat pocisku wybuchał wewnątrz bunkra. W końcu przeprowadzony został ogień z armatki 37 mm na odległość 400-450 metrów: po oddaniu 15 -18 strzałów została wybita dziura w żelazobetonie 40- 50 cm średnicy i ostatnie 2-3 pociski wybuchały już wewnątrz bunkra. Wniosek komisji, do której wchodził również oficer saperów (mjr Orłowski): nieodpowiednio przygotowany beton.''

Short summary of the above text in English:

Here are the results of Polish artillery tests (fire towards the frontal walls of different, randomly chosen, concrete bunkers):

1. 105mm gun - 2 accurate hits from the distance of 3,5 km pierced the frontal wall of the bunker and exploded inside
2. 75mm gun - several direct hits from 1 - 1,5 km = each hit pierced the frontal wall of the bunker and exploded inside
3. 37mm AT gun - 18 hits from 400 - 450 m = 16 hits were necessary to pierce the wall made of reinforced concrete (as the result one 50 cm diameter hole was created) and the last 2 hits exploded inside

Conclusion of the Polish research committee (including major Orłowski, officer of sappers, expert on fortifications):

- Czechoslovakian fortifcations were made of incorrectly prepared concrete.

From the book titled (in translation) "21st Podhalanska Infantry Division in the Polish-German campaign of 1939".