It was composed of Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia and the autonomous regions of Slovakia and Subcarpathian Rus', the latter being renamed Carpathian Ukraine on 30 December 1938.

[1] The Second Republic was the result of the events following the Munich Agreement, where Czechoslovakia was forced to cede the German-populated Sudetenland region to Germany on 1 October 1938.

The Munich Agreement had resulted in Bohemia and Moravia losing about 38 percent of their combined area to Germany, with some 3.2 million German and 750,000 Czech inhabitants.

The Czechoslovak government had problems in taking care of the 115,000 Czech and 30,000 German refugees, who had fled to the remaining rump of Czechoslovakia.

Following the resignation of Edvard Beneš on 5 October, Prime Minister Jan Syrový took over most presidential duties—as per the Constitution—until Emil Hácha was chosen as President on 30 November 1938.

Following the Munich Agreement, the Czechoslovak army transferred parts of its units, originally in the Czech lands, to Slovakia, meant to counter the obvious Hungarian attempts to revise the Slovak borders.

Similarly, the two major factions in Subcarpathian Ruthenia, the Russophiles and Ukrainophiles, agreed on the establishment of an autonomous government, which was constituted on 8 October 1938.

Reflecting the spread of modern Ukrainian national consciousness, the pro-Ukrainian faction, led by Avhustyn Voloshyn, gained control of the local government and Subcarpathian Ruthenia was renamed Carpatho-Ukraine.

Disputes continued and, on 1 March 1939, the Ministerial Committee of the Czecho-Slovak government met, where the question of Slovak departure from the state was in focus.

After their return two days later, the Hlinka Guard was mobilised, which in turn forced the Czecho-Slovak President, Emil Hácha, to react strongly and declared martial law in Slovakia.

In the interim, he negotiated with the Slovak People's Party and with the Kingdom of Hungary and its representatives for the Hungarian minority in Slovakia to prepare the dismemberment of the Second Czechoslovak Republic before the invasion.

Some of the deputies were skeptical of making such a move, but the debate was quickly quashed when Karmasin announced that any delay in declaring independence would result in Slovakia being divided between Hungary and Germany.

Here, Hácha was threatened with aerial bombardment of Prague[4] unless he signed a document accepting the capitulation of the Czechoslovak Army and the foundation of a Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia under the protection and supremacy of the German Reich.

It has also been condemned by its detractors as an artificial, Czech-dominated and unworkable creation of intellectuals supported by the great victorious powers of the First World War, notably the French Third Republic and the British Empire.