Today is the largely forgotten 90th anniversary of one of 20th century's history's most significant events – a tragic military and political development that, in some senses, represents the real beginning of the Second World War.
For on this day exactly nine decades ago (ie., two years before the Nazi takeover of Czechoslovakia and three years before Hitler's invasion of Poland), a war in south-west Europe started in which the Germans perfected their weaponry and tactics ahead of the wider conflict which they were actively planning and preparing for.
