Hacha now asked to meet with Hitler to get the same guarantee of independence Slovakia had gotten. But Hitler bullied Hacha into making the Czech remnant a protectorate of Germany.

Thus, six months after Munich, the Germans of Czechoslovakia were where they wished to be, under German rule. The Poles were under Polish rule. The Hungarians were under Hungarian rule. And the Slovaks were under Slovak rule in their new nation.

But 500,000 Ruthenians were back under Budapest, and 7 million Czechs were back under German rule -- this time Berlin, not Vienna.

Ethnonationalism had torn Czechoslovakia apart as it had the parent Hapsburg Empire. Yet, no vital British interest was imperiled.

And though Hitler had used brutal Bismarckian diplomacy, not force, Chamberlain was humiliated. The altarpiece of his career, the Munich accord, was now an object of mockery.

Made a fool of by Hitler, baited by his backbenchers, goaded by Lord Halifax, facing a vote of no confidence, on March 31, 1939, Chamberlain made the greatest blunder in British diplomatic history. He handed an unsolicited war guarantee to the Polish colonels who had just bitten off a chunk of Czechoslovakia.

Lunacy, raged Lloyd George, who was echoed by British leaders and almost every historian since.

With the British Empire behind it, Warsaw now refused even to discuss a return of Danzig, the Baltic town, 95 percent German, which even Chamberlain thought should be returned.

Hitler did not want a war with Poland. Had he wanted war, he would have demanded the return of the entire Polish Corridor taken from Germany in 1919. He wanted Danzig back and Poland as an ally in his anti-Comintern Pact. Nor did he want war with a Britain he admired and always saw as a natural ally.

Nor did he want war with France, or he would have demanded the return of Alsace.

But Hitler was out on a limb with Danzig and could not crawl back.

Repeatedly, Hitler tried to negotiate Danzig. Repeatedly, the Poles rebuffed him. Seeing the Allies courting Josef Stalin, Hitler decided to cut his own deal with the detested Bolsheviks and settle the Polish issue by force.

Though Britain had no plans to aid Poland, no intention of aiding Poland and would do nothing to aid Poland -- Churchill would cede half that nation to Stalin and the other half to Stalin's stooges -- Britain declared war for Poland.

The most awful war in all of history followed, which would bankrupt Britain, bring down her empire and bring Stalin's Red Army into Prague, Berlin and Vienna. But Hitler was dead and Germany in ashes.

Cost: 50 million lives. "But 'twas a famous victory."