“Russia? What good is Russia?” Hitler said scornfully. “She doesn’t even border Czechoslovakia. Do you think the Poles or the Romanians will let her ship soldiers across their territory? If she tries, we’ll have two new allies like that.” He snapped his fingers.

“I suppose so…” Mussolini still didn’t sound convinced.

Hitler was ready to argue with him all day, but didn’t get the chance. Chamberlain and Daladier returned to the office. Both heads of government looked thoroughly grim, their aides even grimmer. Daladier spoke for them: “I regret to have to say that, if Germany attacks Czechoslovakia, the French Republic and the United Kingdom will honor their commitments to their ally. We cannot believe that the murder of Monsieur Henlein is anything but a trumped-up provocation. Peace and war, then, lie entirely in your hands.”

Hitler almost screamed wild laughter. He wanted war, yes. But to have the leaders of the democracies ready to fight him because they were sure he’d done something of which he was entirely innocent…If that wasn’t irony, what was?

“I must tell you, you are making a dreadful mistake,” he said. “That Czech, that Stribny, murdered Herr Henlein on his own. I had nothing to do with it. Germany had nothing to do with it. Henlein left Czechoslovakia and entered the Reich because he feared for his own safety. And now we see he had reason to fear. If anyone inspired Stribny, it was the wicked Slavs in Prague, just as the wicked Slavs in Belgrade inspired Gavrilo Princip a generation ago.”

Every single word of that was the gospel truth. But it fell on deaf ears. He could tell as much even while Dr. Schmidt was translating. Chamberlain and Daladier had made up their minds. If he told them the sun was shining outside, they would call him a liar.

Chamberlain murmured something in English. “What did he say?” Hitler asked sharply.