 As Chamberlain 's aide Dunglass witnessed at first @-@ hand the Prime Minister 's attempts to prevent a second world war through appeasement of Adolf Hitler 's Germany . When Chamberlain had his final meeting with Hitler at Munich in September 1938 , Dunglass accompanied him . Having gained a short @-@ lived extension of peace by acceding to Hitler 's territorial demands at the expense of Czechoslovakia , Chamberlain was welcomed back to London by cheering crowds . Ignoring Dunglass 's urging he made an uncharacteristically grandiloquent speech , claiming to have brought back " Peace with Honour " and promising " peace for our time . " These words were to haunt him when Hitler 's continued aggression made war unavoidable less than a year later . Chamberlain remained Prime Minister from the outbreak of war in September 1939 until May 1940 , when , in Dunglass 's words , " he could no longer command support of a majority in the Conservative party . " After a vote in the Commons , in which the government 's majority fell from more than two hundred to eighty @-@ one , Chamberlain made way for Winston Churchill . He accepted the non @-@ departmental post of Lord President of the Council in the new coalition government ; Dunglass remained as his PPS , having earlier declined the offer of a ministerial post as Under @-@ secretary at the Scottish Office . Although Chamberlain 's reputation never recovered from Munich , and his supporters such as R A Butler suffered throughout their later careers from the " appeasement " tag , Dunglass largely escaped blame . Nevertheless , Dunglass firmly maintained all his life that the Munich agreement had been vital to the survival of Britain and the defeat of Nazi Germany by giving the UK an extra year to prepare for a war that it could not have contested in 1938 . 
