František Chvalkovský

Its previous pro-democratic and anti-totalitarian policies gave way to calls for authoritarian government and closer cooperation with Nazi Germany (more information:Second Czechoslovak Republic).

He tried to maintain the independence of the rump state by making concessions to neighbours in the hope of gaining time for a more favorable outcome in the future.

He grossly underestimated Hitler's desire to occupy Central Europe and the hunger for revenge from Poland and Hungary, who had been forced to make painful territorial concessions to Czechoslovakia after World War I.

Patriotic clerks hoped that the ambassadors, free from direct Nazi pressure, would disobey the order and keep the embassies for the future benefit of the government-in-exile.

Given the sequence of events shaped by Chvalkovský, many countries, such as France, a signatory of the Munich Agreement, initially considered the fall of Czechoslovakia to be a result of internal forces, rather than German aggression.