by Pat Buchanan

On Sept. 1, 1939, Hitler's Panzers smashed into Poland. Two days later, an anguished Neville Chamberlain declared war, the most awful war in all of history.

Was the war inevitable? No. No war is inevitable until it has begun. Was it a necessary war? Hearken to Churchill:

"One day, President Roosevelt told me that he was asking publicly for suggestions about what the war should be called. I said at once, 'The Unnecessary War.' There never was a war more easy to stop than that which has just wrecked what was left of the world ... ."

But if the war need not have happened, what caused it?

Let us go back to Munich.

On Sept. 30, 1938, at Munich, Chamberlain signed away the Sudetenland rather than fight to keep 3.5 million Germans under a Czech rule imposed upon them at the Paris peace conference in violation of Wilson's principle of self-determination.

Why did Britain not fight?

Because Britain had no alliance with Prague and Chamberlain did not "give two hoots" who ruled the Sudetenland. Also, Britain had no draft, no divisions to send to France, no Spitfires, no support from America or her dominions, no ally save France, who had been told that, if war came, the United States would not deliver the planes France had purchased.

U.S. neutrality laws forbade it.

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