First, excellent post, well said.
Now, on your point above, I tried to suggest the same thing in a previous post, because I'm sure I've read it somewhere, some-when, can't find it now...
But I was disputed, and didn't have facts to support my suggestion. If you know where that claim comes from, I'd be interested.
The reason is, it suggests that Chamberlain's grovelling at Munich in 1938 may not have been strictly militarily necessary.
I’d have to do some research for a complete answer. My main sources are William Shirer, “Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” and “Collapse of the Third Republic” and Ernest May “Strange Victory.”
Just off the top of my head:
1. The Czechs had built their mini-Maginot line in the mountains around Bohemia (the same areas the Germans were trying to take from them). The fortifications were considered formidable. When toured by German generals after the occupation, the Generals all breathed a sigh of relief they didn’t have to try to take them.
2. The Czech army was numerically inferior at only 40 divisions. However, they were well equipped and the Czechs had maintained a stable 40 division force (when mobilized) for several years. It was a well-trained cohesive army.
3. As stated before, the Czechs possessed first-rate armored fighting vehicles, equal in number and superior in quality to what the Germans had at the time.
4. The German Army was not that far removed from the 100,000 man limit of the treaty of Versailles. Although the army had expanded to about 120 divisions by late 1938, only about 40 divisions (same as the Czechs) were considered to be completely manned, equipped, trained and combat-ready. Most of the rest of the divisions were just “shells,” still receiving men, officers, and equipment. They were not trained for combat.
5. No construction on the “West Wall” had yet taken place; the Rhineland had only been re-militarized two years earlier, and there was nothing there to keep the French from walking into the Ruhr, Germany’s industrial heart.
So that’s pretty much it. Czechoslovakia alone could not have endured a protracted war with Germany, but they were certainly capable of holding off the Germans for several months, particularly through October. Once winter weather set in in November, campaigning would cease. However, the Germans would have had to concentrate their entire combat-ready army to attack the Czechs. It would have left them defenseless against the French. That assumes, however, that the French would not just sit in their air-conditioned forts and do nothing, which is what happened exactly one year later when Poland fell.