In August 1939, Britain was teetering on the verge of war. Neville Chamberlain had adopted a policy of appeasement with Adolf Hitler, leader of the Nazi Party and Chancellor of Germany, in the preceding years to try to avoid another world war. Chamberlain signed the Munich Agreement in 1938, which ceded the Czech border region, known as the Sudetenland, to Germany. This agreement specified that Hitler was bound to resolve all future conflicts peacefully and not expand further in Europe. When Hitler contravened the terms of this agreement by expanding into Czechoslovakia in March 1939, Chamberlain, as well as the French prime minister, Édouard Daladier (who had co-signed the Munich Agreement with Chamberlain), publicly specified that Hitler was not to invade Poland.

On September 1, 1939, Hitler ignored Allied orders to halt Germany’s militaristic expansion across Europe and invaded Poland, creating an agreement with the Soviet Union to partition the country between them. This act of aggression forced Chamberlain’s hand and prompted Britain to declare war on Germany. France also declared war on Germany on this same day (“Invasion of Poland, Fall 1939.” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2021).