after it had consulted Darányi and that he had agreed to it. When the Hungarian government insisted, Ribbentrop announced that German mediation had ended. At the same time as Darányi, Czechoslovak Foreign Minister František Chvalkovský also visited Germany to negotiate with its representatives. Hitler blamed Czechoslovakia for the failure of negotiations with Hungary and requested their renewal. He gave Chvalkovský a map with the Ribbentrop line and promised to guarantee new borders, which were based on that proposal. Back in Prague, Chvalkovský recommended to accept the Ribbentrop line. However, the Slovak autonomous government was against such a solution and hoped to achieve further corrections. On October 19, Tiso and Ďurčanský met with Ribbentrop in Munich and managed to persuade him to assign Košice to Czechoslovakia and to accept the prior proposal of keeping balanced minorities both in Czechoslovakia and Hungary. Czechoslovak experts prepared material that argued that the Hungarian statistics were unreliable and that the Hungarian demands did not comply with the ethnic principle but were driven by foreign policy and strategic factors. They argued that Hungarian claims for Košice were not motivated by ethnic or historical reasons but focused on the elimination of the largest communication, economic and cultural centre it the east and on the interruption of the railway to Carpathian Ruthenia and allied Romania. That would totally isolate the eastern part of the republic, which could be later annexed by Hungary. Both Tiso and Ďurčanský believed that they had persuaded Hitler. Tiso sent a letter to Prague to notify on the positive results. A few days later, Ribbentrop revealed himself to be quite hostile to the Hungarians. As Ciano saw it, "The truth is that he intends to protect Czechoslovakia as far as he can and sacrifice the ambitions, even the legitimate ambitions, of Hungary". After October 17, activities around Subcarpathian Rus' intensified. Poland proposed a partition of Subcarpathian Rus' among Hungary, Poland and Romania. Romania, a staunch ally of Czechoslovakia against Hungary, rejected the proposal and even offered military support for Czechoslovakia in Subcarpathia. Hungary, in turn, attempted to persuade the Subcarpathian Rus' representatives to become part of Hungary. A common Polish-Hungarian border, which would arise by a Hungarian annexation of Subcarpathian Rus', had been a longtime dream of both Poland and Hungary, Poland was moving troops toward that border for support. However, since a common Polish-Hungarian frontier would mean a flanking of Germany, Germany was