ABSTRACT
In mid-March 1939, Hitler's patronage of independence movements in Slovakia and Ruthenia provoked a new crisis. On Hitler's orders, Slovakia then proclaimed its independence under German protection, and Ruthenia also proclaimed its independence, with the immediate result of a Hungarian ultimatum to Prague and the absorption of Ruthenia into Hungary. British Government's apparent quibble over the difference between sending a Polish plenipotentiary at once, and negotiating, without a time limit, through the Polish ambassador, that led to the outbreak of war. Hitler's time limit having expired on 31 August without the arrival of a Polish plenipotentiary, the invasion of Poland began in the early hours of 1 September. Hitler thought letting Poland have Ruthenia as a quid pro quo for a German seizure of Danzig and a strip of territory to link East Prussia with the rest of Germany, after which there might then be a joint German-Polish onslaught on the Russian Ukraine.
