So, over Christmas, I decided to test this out on the geekiest computer game known to man, Hearts of Iron III, in which you can play any nation (including if you so desire Panama) right the way through from 1936 to the outbreak of the Cold War, modelling not just fighting, not just production and research, but also diplomacy, intelligence and internal politics. There is a theory among some historians of the Second World War that, if only the Allies had declared war on Germany to defend Czechoslovakia in 1938, Nazism could have been defeated in a short European war.Īfter all, the Czech army was fully mobilised in 1938 three out of the nine panzer divisions that invaded the low countries in 1940 were to be equipped at the Skoda works in Pilsen and revisionist historians now explain Germany's successful blitzkrieg operation before Dunkirk as the result of French blunders and defiant anarchistic gestures by German tank commanders, not genius.