The final act of the appeasement drama was played out in the summer of 1939. In this cartoon, David Low shows the fate of appeasement in the face of Germany's insatiable demands. The umbrella was Chamberlain's political symbol, and it came to stand for his whole policy of appeasement. After absorbing the remains of Czechoslovakia in March 1939 into the "Greater German Reich," Hitler proceeded to demand extra territory from Poland. Poland refused, and the British gave the Poles a guarantee against German aggression:
if Germany attacked, the British would come to Poland's aid. The British bluff was called when the Germans invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. On that day Mackenzie King told the British high commissioner in Ottawa that Canada would support Britain in the approaching war.
