[GeorgefromGeorgia]

“Aside from a few minor allies, such as Belgium, France was completely alone on the continent. Hitler accomplished this with an astounding economy of force, the Condor Legion suffered only about 300 casualties in Spain and about 30 Free Corps members lost their lives in Czechoslovakia.”

Did you forget the Brits? They sent six divisions to France and nearly lost them (lost most of their equipment at Dunkirk).

[attiladhun2]

Not on the continent. After Italy signed the Anti-Comintern Pact with Germany, Spain's fall to the pro-Axis Nationalists, the German occupation of Czechoslovakia (a staunch French ally), and Germany's nonaggression pact with the USSR, France's sense of isolation and impending doom was complete. The French were well aware that Britain would have to abandon them to their fate if their combined forces could not hold back the Axis tide. (Remember too, the French government and military was shot through with pro-Nazis). To get a good inside handle on what was going on during the period leading up to the actual breakout of hostilities, a must read is Winterbotham's The Nazi Connection.

Just an aside, Chamberlain was not the naive and cowardly appeaser history has labled him. He was well aware that France was probably a lost cause anyway, and that in 1938 Britain had neither enough trained pilots or Spitfires to take on the Luftwaffe. The mostly Hurricanes and Bison fighters they had at the time would have been blasted out the air by Germay's ME109s. As insidious as the Munich Agreement was, it probably saved Britain from almost certain defeat had they gone to war in 1938.