France alone, and most certainly if allied with Czechoslovakia, WAS militarily capable of defeating Germany in 1938. In 1936, when the Nazis reoccupied the Rhineland in violation of the Treaty of Versailles, it would have been a cakewalk for France. That’s the irony. Fearful of another world war, the allies backed down and got one anyway on terms more miserable than the one they avoided.
Ah, Treaty of Versailles. The roadmap to WWII.
I read somewhere that Adolf was surprised how easily the ‘allies’ gave it up in the early days. He’d expected counter strokes and was prepared to retreat. Turned out he didn’t have to and, as a result, he got a dose of ‘victory fever.’