Immediately after the collapse of the First Czechoslovak Republic, in March 1939, an armed conflict burst out between Hungary and the newly founded Slovak State. One of the pretexts for it was Hungary’s clearly proclaimed desire to ‘defend the Rusyns of East Slovakia and reunite them with the Rusyns of Subcarpathia which had by then been incorporated to the Kingdom of Hungary.’

To see the background of this conflict and to comprehend its essence, one should go a little bit back – to the autumn of 1938, when according to the Munich Agreement signed on 30 September, Czechoslovakia had to cede “the Sudeten German territory” to Germany. Then, in October 1938, Czechoslovakia was urged to cede seven Spiš villages to Poland (in September 1939, when Germany had occupied Poland, the by then independent Slovakia managed to regain control over this area); a small land parcel by Bratislava was ceded to Austria (which, in its turn had by then been annexed by the Third Reich). Then, on 2 November 1938, the First Vienna Award handed over Czechoslovakia’s largely Hungarian inhabited territories to Hungary – the second biggest Slovakian city of Košice, and Uzhhorod, Mukachevo and Berehovo in Subcarpathian Rus included. Lastly, on 14 March 1939, the German-ruled Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was created, and Czechoslovakia ceased existence. Slovakia and Carpatho-Ukraine proclaimed independence on the same day, but Hungary immediately took control over the latter and soon incorporated it into the Hungarian Crown. One of the reasons for the military entry was “the renewal of the millennial cohabitation of Magyars and Rusyns in a single state.”

Yet very soon, in the same March of 1939, one more conflict blew up – and Rusyns were once again referred to as the reason for it. What was at issue was the armed conflict between two German allies – Slovakia and Hungary, known as ‘the Little War.’

The background of this conflict had been the unresolved issue of Slovak-Rusyn relations. The administrative border between Slovakia and Subcarpathian Rus, when they both were parts of Czechoslovakia, had not been clearly defined (the temporary borderline was laid along the railroad Užhorod – Užok, so that the area west of it would belong to Slovakia, and the area east of it together with the city of Užhorod – to Subcarpathia). Besides, Hungary was known to have been supporting the movement of Slovjaks (East Slovaks) as a separate ethnic group, with their own literary language based on the Hungarian rather than Czechoslovak orthography (it is interesting that the short-lived Slovak Soviet Republic proclaimed in June 1919 in Prešov with support of the Red Guard of the Hungarian Soviet Republic had Slovjak and Hungarian as its official languages).

Nonetheless, on 15 March 1939, Hungary was the first country in the world to recognize the independence of the Slovak State. However, three days later, E. von Druffel, German Consul in Bratislava, advised the Slovak Foreign Ministry that the Slovak troops were forbidden to obstruct the advance of the Hungarian Army from the former Subcarpathian Rus westward in the area of Uh/Ung River.

Simultaneously, the Slovak authorities negotiated with Nazi Germany, asking it to guarantee the inviolability of its borders. On 18 March, Slovakia and Germany signed an agreement by which the Third Reich assumed an obligation to defend the Slovakian borders for 25 years and to help form the Slovak Army.

At the same time, the joint Slovak-Hungarian Commission on Border Delimitation was summoned. It had to clearly define the former administrative border between Slovakia and Subcarpathian Rus. Priashivshchyna/Prešov Region, with the predominantly Rusyn population (though its administrative and cultural centre, the city of Prešov lay in the ethnic Slovak area), was a disputed territory.

On 22 March, the Commission finished its work, but the following day at 5:30 am the Hungarian Army, without declaring war, crossed the Slovakian border. They were marching in three columns. The first, an infantry regiment, was moving towards Nagyberezna/Velyky Berezny – Ulič – Starina. The second one, an infantry regiment strengthened with armoured vehicles, was marching towards Kisberezna/Maly Berezny – Stakčin – Ubľa. The third column, consisting of two infantry regiments, a mountain rifle battalion, a tank and mounted groups, artillery and antitank batteries, and a cavalry unit, was moving from Ungvár/Užhorod via Tibava to Sobrance. Slovak sources claimed that the ultimate target of the Hungarian troops was the city of Poprad in the Tatras, but Hungarian historians denied this allegation.

From the beginning of the warfare, Slovak Minister of People’s Defence Colonel Lieutenant Ferdinand Čatloš ordered that the Slovak troops should reply to the onslaught with defensive activities and counterattacks. It was also ordered to arm the Hlinka Guard – the paramilitary units of the only legal political party in Slovakia which by the Constitution had not been entitled to carry arms. Over a half of the Slovakian Army consisted of young adults that had just been mobilized – on 1 March. There were extremely few officers in the Army: in the Czechoslovakian time, only 3.4% of the officers were ethnic Slovaks, while Czech officers were en masse returning back home.

On 23 and 24 March, the Slovak Army was pounding the enemy positions from the air – Slovak aircraft bombarded Ungvár/Užhorod, Sobrance and Nagyberezna/Velyky Berezny. At Sobrance, Slovak and Hungarian air units came to blows. It is noteworthy that Slovakia bombarded what officially was part of its own territory! Eventually, the Slovak Army lost 13 aircraft; 7 pilots perished and one was taken prisoner. The Hungarians announced that they had lost one aircraft – from the fire of their own antiair battery. After the air clashes, the Slovak Army attempted to launch a counteroffensive, but the attack had no success.

On 25 March, Hungary’s Prime Minister Pál Teleki visited the area taken over by the Hungarian Army. The visit provided the substantiation for its annexation: strategic importance to protect the railway in the Ung/Uh Valley, and the motor road Huszt/Khust – Eperjes/Prešov.

As far as Germany had signed an agreement with Slovakia, it urged the both sides of the conflict to come to the negotiating table. The negotiations about the new borderline began in Budapest on 27 March, 1939. Although the Slovak party wanted to retain the borders as they had been defined by the First Vienna Award, Germany backed Hungary’s demands for a part of Snina Okres (County; 74 villages) and the entire Sobrance Okres (41 villages). They were incorporated to the ‘Subcarpathian Military Administration.’ This area was part of Subcarpathia until 1944.

(In 1945, the border between the renewed Czechoslovakia and the USSR to which Subcarpathia was incorporated was moved a little bit westward, so that the both sides of the railroad Csap/Čop – Užhorod – Užok were included to the USSR; before then, Csap/Čop and a couple of villages westward of the railroad had belonged to Slovakia).

The armistice agreement was signed on 31 March, 1939, but minor fights intermittently went on until the official Protocol on the New Border between Slovakia and Hungary was signed on 4 April.

As a result of the Little War, Slovakia lost 1,056 km² of its territory – a stripe 60-km long from south to north and nearly 20 km wide from east to west, with the population of about 70,000, including 37,786 Rusyns and 26,981 Slovaks.

It is interesting that András Bródy, ex-Prime Minister of Subcarcarpathian Rus deprived of his post shortly before the collapse of Czechoslovakia for suspicion of covert intelligence work for Hungary, entreated to incorporate all Rusyn villages of East Slovakia together with ethnic Slovak enclaves to Hungary. Thereby he claimed that historically Rusyns had always wished to live together with Hungarians, rather than other Slav nations, however linguistically close they could have been.

In November 1940, when László Bárdossy and Vojtech Lázar Tuka, Hungarian and Slovak Foreign Ministers, were simultaneously signing the protocol on their countries joining the Triple Alliance between Germany, Italy and Japan, Tuka said: “I am signing the act on which there will be the signature of His Excellence Bárdossy, my Hungarian colleague. I want to assert that although we as allies are applying our signatures here on the same paper, it does not mean that everything is okay between ourselves. I consider the lands that were reaved and dishonestly taken away from us in Vienna on 2 November 1938 as Slovak lands… and we shall claim them back at the earliest possible opportunity.”

Thereby the Slovak-Hungarian ‘Little War’ was the first conflict between the countries that later became Nazi Germany’s allies during WWII, the conflict that militated against the normalization of relations between them. Slovakia, trying as it was to reconsider the verdict of the Vienna Award, was urged to cede another part of its territory instead. In the meantime, Hungary wanted to become the most important country of the Danuban basin. Germany’s position lay in provoking constant conflicts between Hungary and Slovakia in its own interests. It is interesting that Slovakia was the first German ally to declare war to the USSR – on 22 June 1941, the very first day of the German offensive. This act was in very clear terms, the Slovak authorities attempt to gain the support of the Third Reich in their quarrel with Hungary.