ABSTRACT
Munich meant the end of the Versailles settlement in central and eastern Europe. The little entente had been virtually destroyed and its main prop, France, shown to be enfeebled and ineffective. The road lay open for revisionism and the Poles were the first to tread it. With as little compunction as the Czechs had shown in 1920 they seized Teschen, parrying western criticism with the question as to who Britain and France would prefer to see in control of the area: Poland or Germany? In November 1938 southern Slovakia and southern Ruthenia were handed to Hungary in what became known as the first Vienna award; Czechoslovakia had lost 29 per cent of its territory, 34 per cent of its population, 40 per cent of its national income, and a major proportion of its industrial capacity.
