On September 3, 1939, Neville Chamberlain concluded his announcement that his country was then at war with Nazi Germany over the invasion of Poland with these remarks:

"This is a sad day for all of us, and to none is it sadder than to me. Everything that I have worked for, everything that I have hoped for, everything that I believed in during my public life, has crashed into ruins." (emphasis added)

You know what caused Neville Chamberlain to change from appeaser-in-chief to clear-eyed realist? It wasn’t an epiphany that the country was in mortal danger from Adolph Hitler, it was his political life.

Chamberlain had been hailed a hero by the British public back from his Munich capitulation (“It is peace in our time.”). They had serenaded him with song, “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.” The British public and his Conservative Party were steadfast in peace at any cost.

Then, “Greatly to his surprise,” two days after Slovakia’s “secession” (German-engineered) completed the total destruction of the Chechoslvak state on March 15, 1939, “most of the British press (even the Times...) and the House of Commons...reacted violently to Hitler’s latest aggression. More seriously, many of his own backers in Parliament and half of the cabinet...revolted…Lord Halifax, especially,...insisted that the Prime Minister recognize what had happened and abruptly change his course. It dawned on Chamberlain that his own position as head of government…was in jeopardy.” (Shirer, The Rise and Fall, 453)

Thus, only to save his own political skin did Neville Chamberlain, on the train to Birmingham on March 17, 1939, where he was expected to address domestic matters, craft a new speech on Germany to suit the new tastes of his “base”. 

Yet, for eight additional months Chamberlain still did little to nothing to wage war. The period is called the "Phoney War." Fourteen months later, on May 8, 1940 during the Norway Debate, Chamberlain again personalized the danger to country as he had done five times on September 3, 1939:

"...I say this to my friends in the House — and I have friends in the House. No Government can prosecute a war efficiently unless it has public and Parliamentary support. I accept the challenge. I welcome it indeed. At least we shall see who is with us and who is against us, and I call on my friends to support us in the Lobby tonight."

Neville Chamberlain was not just an appeaser, nor even "just" a principal in Adolph Hitler's murder of thousands and thousands and thousands of people, and in the destruction of three states, Neville Chamberlain was a traitor to his own country. For his efforts (and lack of effort) Chamberlain deserves a place in the 20th century's unique Monster's Ball, not quite on the A-list on with Stalin and Hitler and Mussolini and Mao, but on a rung close below with Pol Pot, Idi Amin, and Fidel Castro.