A sense of dread overtook Winston Churchill in the mid-'30s. With the ebb and flow of the civilized world packed into his bones, Churchill’s instinct was telling him that a mortal danger was growing inside a vanquished Germany. In violation of the peace treaty, Germany had been secretly rebuilding its military at a pace that put them months away from achieving air parity with Britain. Churchill poured his energy and rhetorical genius into getting Parliament to take action before it was too late. “Germany is arming fast, and no one is going to stop her,” he told the House of Commons in 1934. “I dread the day when the means to threatening the heart of the British Empire should pass into the hands of the present rulers of Germany. ... It has not come yet … but it is not far distant. There is time for us to take the necessary measures …”