“You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour, and you will have war.”

This was the verdict the backbench Conservative MP for Epping, Winston Churchill, delivered to his own prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, after Chamberlain’s return from meetings with German Chancellor Adolf Hitler in Munich, in September 1938.

The Munich Agreement allowed Nazi Germany to annex Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland in return for Hitler’s promise that he would go no further. Six months later, the Nazis took all of Czechoslovakia. Then, with the connivance of Joseph Stalin’s Russia, Germany invaded Poland on Sept. 1, 1939. Two days later, Britain was at war.