As we celebrate the vicarious death and victorious resurrection of Jesus Christ, let us remember the importance of preserving liberty within these United States of America. And this commitment involves much more than attending church once a week or repeating an occasional catechism. It means we must seek to incorporate the principles of liberty and independence into the very fabric of our lives and work. It means we will offer eternal vigilance to the fundamental principles upon which America was built. Liberty has no guarantees or assurances. Each generation must work to preserve, protect, and defend the principles of constitutional government, or else liberty will be lost.
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.”