text:
Talk:Sten

Untitled
I've removed: although earlier versions of the STEN could be modified so as to hang the magazine vertically - ??! Only MP-3008 had vertical magazine Pibwl 12:29, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * The Sten mark I and IIs had a sprung-loaded catch in front of the magazine housing that allowed the magazine assembly to be rotated down 90 degrees so as to close the ejection port and prevent the ingress of dirt. Ian Dunster 16:51, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

Sten or STEN?
I realize that the name is an abbrevation, but I usually see it written in lowercase. Is the all uppercase the 'proper' name? Oberiko 13:00, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

 * Unless anyone objects, I'm going to change the name back from STEN to Sten. Oberiko 12:54, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I think there's a need to exclude Sten-type firearms from the Sten entry, but include WWII-era partisan/resistance built/assemebled Stens. I also think there's a need to recognise that Stens were also known as "Tommy-guns" (referring to British personnel being known as "Tommies") despite the .45 Thompson M1928A1 being given the same name. GeoffAyres77 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 08:36, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

STEN MK 3
I am seeking a source for blueprints of the STEN mk 3. Anyone that can point me in the right direction wqould be appricated. I have prints for all of the other STEN variants in my collection but am missing the MK 3. Thanks fred

See also section
Normally I would just correct the anaemic See also section, but my change (addition of Submachine gun) has been reverted. I said correct not expand, because even though See also sections don't seem to have concrete rules or guidelines it is described in the manual of style (Guide_to_layout) as follows:
 * Mostly, topics related to an article should be included within the text of the article as free links. The "See also" section provides an additional list of internal links as a navigational aid.

This See also section clearly does not fulfil the only two basic purposes, because the two items listed aren't mentioned in the rest of the article (or explained with a description) and it's clearly not a ...list of internal links... (and therefore everything in a See also section is in a sense superfluous which was the reason given for removing my initial addition).

I think the following improvements would be prudent and more importantly useful:
 * Existing two entries could be explained (why are they related), e.g.
 * Austen MK I, Australian weapon derived from Sten.
 * De Lisle carbine, similar weapon of same era.
 * Adding additional related topics
 * Submachine gun
 * Submachine gun appears within the intro. In a general article on submachine guns, a see also to (for instance) semi-automatic pistols wold be appropiate. In a specific item article I would think it should be to related items. For sten this might be the Sterling SMG, or the BSA submachine gun that was another contender to replace it.GraemeLeggett 08:47, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I know submachine gun appears in the article itself, but it you read the italicised quote from the wiki manual of style, they describe a see also as a summary of all the important related topics (already in the main article). On a football players page you might list their club even though it's probably listed in the introductory paragraph. Once you've read a long article you come to the end and you can see all the related topics you might want to explore further, instead of going back and hunting for them. I would say for a firearm including articles like successors, predecessors and derivates would be important related topics (a short explanation helps a lot), but possibly also the company that manufactured it and the class it belongs to so that if one quickly glances at the see also section only, you can quickly establish what this thing is and where it fits into the world... come on, throw me a bone man :-) Deon Steyn 10:46, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Carbine Calibres
The introduction describes how a Sten should not properly be described as a carbine. I agree with this but it goes on to characterise a carbine as having "full calibre". This is not the right phrase as the Sten's 9mm rounds are of larger calibre than the rifle rounds which would normally be found in a carbine. The rifle round is, of course, longer and higher velocity than the 9mm. Unfortunately I'm not sure what words to use. "Full power"? "Higher velocity"? Any suggestions? Epeeist smudge 10:53, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

 * The 9mm round is a pistol round. Nicht Nein! 13:51, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
 * A quick edit to simplify the sentence and "full calibre" question is not an issue. GraemeLeggett 15:00, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
 * This is a British Commonwealth designation. These weapons were carbines under that system. Veritas Panther 06:34, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
 * The Sten fires the normal 9mm Parabellum cartridge (produced in the UK as '9mm, SAA, Ball', however it has a longer barrel than most pistols, so the muzzle velocity is higher. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.40.253.120 (talk) 15:08, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
 * At the time (1930-50) the British used the term 'carbine' for any gun larger (i.e., weapon size) than a pistol, but shorter than a full rifle, such as the Lee-Enfield. The term 'Machine Carbine' therefore referred to a gun intermediate in physical size between the two, but firing fully-automatic, like a machine gun, and designed, like a rifle, to be fired from the shoulder, as opposed to hand-held like a pistol. That's why the term 'machine pistol' was not used in British terminology, as to them, a 'machine pistol' would correctly be something like a Mauser Broomhandle fired using one hand. Several gun companies manufactured fully-automatic versions of their automatic pistols, e.g., some versions of the Mauser referred-to, and some of the Browning Hi-Power, but the British Army regarded these as of little use, as after the first one or two rounds, the gun climbs and for an average soldier is uncontrollable, and so, unless the target is on a trampoline, wastes ammunition. These 'proper' machine pistols were very popular amongst the various warring factions in China in the 1920s and 1930s however.
 * That's also why the Patchett/Sterling SMG was also initially termed a 'Machine Carbine' by the British Army - the De Lisle carbine was termed a 'Carbine', as although shorter than a rifle, it was also intended to be fired from the shoulder. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.112.60.149 (talk) 21:27, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Video overload?
I'm wondering if we REALLY need 10 youtube videos depicting the STEN? Can't somebody just do their own search if they're interested? The newest one is going to be reverted because it's 2 minutes of other guns.--Asams10 15:35, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Youtube videos are often ephimeral sources, disappearing like mayflies, leaving broken links. Hardly encyclopedic sources, however entertaining they may be. Naaman Brown (talk) 20:16, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Sten Change?
Hello, I too am a student of firearms and would like to start a dialog on this subject. This is why I instituted the change in the article.

The change as made to the Sten reference because of a transcript by the co-inventor Colonel Shepherd discussing how it was named when he received an Award from the Board of the Royal Commission Awards to inventors. Lord Cohen: " Why was it called the Sten?" Colonel Shepard" it was called the Sten by the then Director General of Artillery. The "S' was from my name, the "T" from Mr. Turpin who was my draughtsman and who did a very large amount of the design and the "EN" was for England. That is the origin of the name, for which I accept no responsibility."

I believe since he was the co-inventor that you would have to admit that his testimony carries considerable weight in this matter.In reference to the many other sources (including our own Ian Hogg)inthis country(as well as many others I'm sure)there is a saying that just because many people believe in something doesn't make it true. Father Christmas springs to mind. Any way I hope I've explained my change to your satisfaction. If you have any suggestions on how i might better cite this quote let me know I was considering attaching the actual quotions of the transcript to the reference ( Iwill have to muse over how to do that.
 * Actually, dozens of other references could be wrong, but you'll need to outweigh it with more than a snippet from a book. He could have been mixquoted, could have misspoke, or could have been misleading. The official word still stands.  You don't challenge dozens of sources with one that claims to have transcribed an original speech by the co-inventor.  If you plan on doing that, take it to discussion first.  I'm reverting your dubious claim until you can support it here with a concensus.--Asams10 06:17, 25 July 2007 (UTC

First all from your strong defence I assume that you are the writer of the article and i mean no disrespect you seem quite emotional on the subject, may I say that the article is very well written and obviously a labor of love so please do not assume I am attacking you personally. I am not. I consider myself well read on the Sten and I have never run across anything that has mentioned a source this close to the project. What sources are you refering to. I have read Ian Hogg and Skennerton and Frank Iannamco. I would like to here of others not just because of this debate but because off my love for historical firearms. I think there is slight fault with your logic when you say that dozens of soures say this. You would neeed to look to see that not all the sources stem from a common root. For example Ian Hogg, which as you said does not always have the best track record. Since I have presented my source I would ask two things you and I will stop changing your article a sten gun truce if you will and please give me a list if some of the dozens of other sources to which you refer. I understand this may take time. Also if you take time to read this book and give it your opinion. In other words I'm trading my sources for yours. Maybe you will convince me. Also I'm perplexed by what you mean by the " official word" What officials are speaking of writers such as yourself or some British armory. I think rarely in this world is there an official source for much. I'm assuming that you are not saying that you are an official source since I'm assuming that you were not here at the creation of the firearm. I'm enjoying our discusion and again I apologize if I have in any way provoked you by the changin of your article. I do like having a good intellectual banter such as this. I do realize that probably 90% of the population of the planet does not give a wit about this discussion and this definition. Probably about 50% of the people don't even know what a Sten gun is and I think that is being generous. By the way I belive I am communicating with you in disscussion if I'm not please let me know and I will post this in the proper place. In a minute way I feel like Galilio trying to fight the church. So in closing I will say "It still moves" Also keep an open mind about the book, at PlEASE READ IT you may be pleasantly suprised, I will consider your sources as well. Peter Laidler The Sten Machine Carbine ISBN 0-88935-259-3
 * I've partially rewritten the article, however the sources I've read are generally in agreement that while people differ, it's accepted that the EN stands for Enfield. I've not personally interviewed but a handful of gun folks, but it's generally agreed that designers are at least as forgetful, boastful, and revisionist as their biographers often are.  I believe that it makes sense to use EN to denote Enfield, and not England, as do the vast majority of other sources.  --Asams10 09:59, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
 * If Laidler's Sten book is of the same quality as his Lanchester/Patchett/Sterling title, I would consider it authoritative. Collector Grade Publications' books are uniformly high quality. D.E. Watters 22:35, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

I consider your revision an elegant compromise. Thank you.I still encourage you to read the book as it is very extensive book, 350 pages, many, many primary documents and every bit authoritative as his Lanchester/Patchett/Sterling title as D.E. Watters suggests. Also its just a good read and covers almost every bit of Sten information you would want. If you read it you may decide to change the article as having both the Enfield and England definitions. Also if there are people out there that have read the book please chime in to this discussion and say what your opinion is on the quality of his book and the likelyhood that his transcript is correct. You have restored my faith in the Wikipedia concept. Polisheagle1939 7:06, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

 * The 'en' in all British arms designations was derived from the Royal Small Arms Factory, Enfield, which is where the technical, design and initial production work on British Army guns was carried out. That's also where 'Enfield' rifling - as opposed to Metford rifling - was devised. This 'en' derivation also applied to the ADEN and the RARDEN - all 'Enfield' - and to the Sten.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.7.147.13 (talk) 16:20, 4 June 2013 (UTC)

Accidental discharges
The comment about accidental discharges possibly understates the fact. My father was aware of several of these during/just after WW2 (national service 1943-47). One he witnessed was in a German cinema, where the gun was simply placed on the floor and self-discharged. The gun was grabbed by a USA soldier and the magazine somehow removed/blocked, but not before several people were killed. Another was where one self-discharged in the cab of an army lorry, killing or wounding all the occupants.81.86.230.16 (talk) 23:35, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

 * Yeah, I'm going to have to raise the BS flag on this one. An accidental discharge with the Sten involves a single shot at which time the bolt locks back.  The stories your father heard were likely in the same category as other wartime lore that tends to get soldiers attention but is, in fact, false by design or for whatever reason. This type of information was often spread to scare soldiers into taking proper precautions.  I can assure you unequivically that a Sten placed on a hard surface will not 'go wild' and kill multiple people unless they are lined up or some such freak situation.  The same cannot be said of the Stoner 63, however.  THAT gun will, indeed, go full-auto on its own but the Sten will not. --Asams10 (talk) 00:40, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

You just keep the BS flag flying and don some wading boots with that last sentence. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.46.22.212 (talk) 15:39, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

FWIW Stens are/were more dangerous than 'quality' firearms with a safety-catch one could trust; once one starts firing solo, it will continue to do so, so long as it has ammunition. Better weapons experts than me have had to hold onto a Sten when firing a burst has turned into emptying the magazine. Stens seem to have a well-earned reputation for being "all or nothing" weapons; either they jam, and won't fire at all, or they spray 30 9mm rounds while you try to hold them and point them at someone you'd prefer was dead.

 * You can get any simple blowback (or blowback with API like the Sten) submachine gun to do that. Place a loaded magazine in the gun and then bang its' butt on the floor (i.e., with the gun barrel upwards) HARD. The bolt will fly backwards due to inertia and then, if it hasn't moved back far enough to engage the sear, reverse direction, pushed forwards by the mainspring, chamber a round and fire it. It then, in effect, re-cocks itself, the recoil from the fired round pushing the bolt back far enough to engage the sear. It will only ever fire ONE shot though, for the reason I just mentioned.
 * This isn't a problem confined to the Sten, they will all do it, it just depends on how hard you bang it. This is the reason why the Sten has an aperture in the cocking handle slot for pulling the cocking handle up to lock it. This is safer than carrying the gun around uncocked and with a loaded magazine fitted.
 * The cocking handle safety slot is also one of the reasons for the 'unreliability' reputation of the Sten. Users might carry the gun around for several days in forward areas, a loaded magazine in the gun and the cocking handle in the slot. Then when they raised the gun to their shoulder and tried to fire the gun in the heat of action, found that it wouldn't, because the cocking handle was still in the safety slot. It's easier to blame the gun than to say that you forgot to move the handle out of the slot. The only part of the gun that could really be said to have an effect on reliability (apart from the ammunition used) was the magazine feed lips, which needed looking after as they could be become bent, disrupting the feed. It's possible that some magazines were made of the wrong grade steel, as many parts of the gun were manufactured in non gun-making workshops. The magazine was based on the MP38/MP40 one, and interchangeable with them IIRC. It's also as well to bear in mind that many Stens were used by people with little or no training in handling firearms, so the possibility of 'operator error' should be born in mind when criticising the gun —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.40.253.120 (talk) 15:27, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Shooters of submachineguns are warned to be aware of "runaway" situations. The first example given above appears to be a failure of the sear, which would cause a runaway situation. Also, the Beretta MP38 designed for use with heavily loaded 9mm M38 ammo would runaway if fired with the light 9mm Glisenti ammo: the gun would fire, recoil enough to eject the empty but not be caught by the sear and then return to feed and fire beyond trigger-sear control until the ammunition was exhausted. This sould happen with any open bolt SMG with weak ammo or a very dirty bolt/receiver. The Sten and Thompson were also criticised for firing if dropped on the buttstock with the bolt closed and a loaded magazine in place: the bolt could go back far enough to pick up a round from the magazine and fire it when the bolt slammed shut. These are not faults unique to the Sten, but are common to most submachineguns that fire from the open bolt position. Naaman Brown (talk) 18:09, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

My father was in the British army in WWII and described the Sten as a piece of (garbage). He told me that he had hung one on a tree, by its carrying strap, and walked away. The gun started firing by itself, narrowly missing one of his colleagues.67.170.238.175 (talk) 06:37, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

 * That doesn't sound very likely - for one thing his sergeant would have put him on a charge for being so idiotic as to hang a loaded gun on a tree. He sounds like he and his colleagues would have been better off with him being trusted with nothing more dangerous than a balloon-on-a-stick.
 * And if the Sten was so bad then why did they make over 4 million of them and why was it so widely copied. And the Germans copied it twice. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.149.173.74 (talk) 10:02, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

Still in service
I have seen the Stens to be in service with different Indian Police Forces as recently as 2007, i.e. last year. Can anybody throw some light on that?Shovon 18:31, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

 * Yes, they are still in service in more places than India. --Asams10 (talk) 21:46, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
 * There have been ads in Shotgun News selling Indian Police Sten magazines. They are unique in that they have wires welded to the inside such that cartridges feed more evenly and bits of dirt are less likely to cause a jam.  If I remember correctly, they only hold 20 rounds however, and are made from old WWII type magazines. 69.239.23.60 (talk) 04:34, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Users
http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sten_(konepistooli)

Its not listed in the english article but finnish defence forces (PUOLUSTUSVOIMAT) swapped patch of "old and 'captured' ie soviet ww2" weapons with "interarms" which is / was some kind of CIA front for arms trafficing for 3rd world conflicts in "late 1950's" and got it return 75 000 Sten SMG's mostly of MK.3 type but also others each with 5 magazines, and the weapons in turn were completely overhauled in FDF arms depots and somewhat also modified to better suit local 9mm ammo. Most of them were stored for use in time of crisis, but some were used as service weapons, as the finnish language article tells, as practice weapons by combat divers, a special forces unit similar to USN SEALS. And that the weapons were issued with official army designations ie "9.00 kp Sten III" -> _9.00 (mm) "SMG" Sten III_.

Maybe somebody wants to check into it and integrate it into the article?

Cheers —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.231.217.247 (talk) 06:17, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * True, I added such info before checking on this talk page. I possess several shots that my father took during his national service in the early 1960s as a combat swimmer, in these his squad is armed with Stens (he's unwilling to publish them as such, a black-rectangle-over-the-eyes-censoring or an OTRS-like arrangement might be possible. Other sources are this page: gibberish google translation and a price list for former FDF materiél that includes deactivated Stens. 88.148.217.107 (talk) 17:58, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Cheap, but far from the best
My last friend that was orld War II veteran, died last week.I went to his seventh day catholic mass.While in World War II(he became general decades later), he was trained in using this weapon.He told me, that this weapon even being easily used, didn't had good quality.Well, he used the M-1 Garand in war, an amazing weapon.Agre22 (talk) 00:28, 21 August 2008 (UTC)agre22

There are exposed welds still a bit rough, the fit is not precise, and some were spray painted black rather than parkerized olive green. The horizontal magazine was used because the springs of the day were not very good or were at least rare, not mentioned in the article. By the way, the magazine is not a true multi-column as mentioned in the article as it is barely wider than a single round. In the US, you can still buy cut-up parts for examination purposes. WonderWheeler (talk) 06:16, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

First parts are undisputable: rough construction and finish. However, horizontal magazine position was copied from the Lanchester submachine gun which was copied from the MP18/MP28 presumably because the horizontal position facilitates firing in the prone position. The Sten magazines I have handled had very stiff springs requiring assistance of a loading tool past five or six rounds and these were WWII surplus, so I doubt the "not very good" springs explanation. The body of the magazine is double-column narrowing to single colume feed at the top. Naaman Brown (talk) 18:23, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

 * IIRC, prior to the Sten in 1940 the British were buying Thompsons from the US at around £90 per-gun. The Sten OTOH was eventually brought down in price to around £2.7/6d. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.7.147.13 (talk) 13:06, 16 February 2014 (UTC)
 * In addition, the Thompsons had to be brought over from the US by ship and at the time this was risky due to shipping losses and sometimes sailings had to be postponed or cancelled, leading to non-arrival of the guns. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.149.173.74 (talk) 09:40, 18 May 2016 (UTC)

Are there any objections to a section on homemade sten guns?
Specifically P A Luty seems to have built simple working models.Geo8rge (talk) 16:13, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

I think folks around here look down on illegal activities, we try to keep things legal. WonderWheeler (talk) 06:07, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Semi auto builds are legal in the US as well as full auto versions built after May 1986 by those with a Class 7 FFL SOT. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.239.38.30 (talk) 00:01, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

The Sten was the British-designed insurgent 9mm machine-pistol, everything but its rifled-barrel and spring could be made in bicycle repair shops, under the noses of the Nazis, and was. It was used by the Polish Home Army in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, and by resistance/partisan fighters across Europe. GeoffAyres77 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 07:29, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

side issue: why Mark II outlasted Mark III
The Sten Mark II had seperate and distinct receiver, magazine housing and barrel shroud assemblies. The Sten Mark III had a unitized receiver-magazine housing-barrel shroud in one piece and was a lot cheaper to make. However, the Sten Mark II stayed in production after the Mark III was introduced and the Sten Mark V was based on the Mark II and not on the Mark III.

The few discussions I know about claim that it was more economical to maintain the Mark II than to maintain the Mark III. If you had a pile of damaged Stens recovered after-action, an armourer could mate good receivers, magazine housings and barrel assemblies from Mark IIs to assemble useful weapons. If a Mark III unitized construction was damaged, there was not much that could be done to salvage it. Naaman Brown (talk) 01:57, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

 * Aside from the points mentioned above, the Mark II also had the advantage of being easily knock-downable, i.e., it could be dismantled without tools so that it would fit into a bag or holdall. The butt stock can be removed by pressing the button in the top of the main tube against the pressure of the mainspring, and sliding the stock downwards, and the barrel assembly can be unscrewed and removed using just the hand. This makes the Sten Mk II easily carried and concealed, a distinct advantage for many of its users. There were several Marks of Sten developed after the Mk II, but none bettered it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.40.254.32 (talk) 18:06, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

===I would also add (as a general advantage, not necessarily why it outlasted) that the MKII could be fitted with an integral suppressor while the MKIII could not. The MKII(s) suppressed version was used by US SOG forces in Vietnam, a testament to the effectiveness of this configuration.MFM 2000 (talk) 14:12, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

 * A Sten Mk II being fired and stripped on YouTube here:  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.7.147.13 (talk) 19:58, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

The Correct name of the sten gun.
Dear Sirs.

I have a correction on the name of the Sten gun name.

The name Sheperd Turpin ENfield.. Is not correct.

The correct name is (according to Mr. Sheperd)

Sheperd Turpin ENgland.

Major Reginald Shepherd and Harold Turpin is the names of the designers. The general presumption that EN as in Royal Small Arms Factory In Enfield Were the producers is incorrect. There was 8 different factories producing the sten gun and app. 250 sub contractors.

There is No reason that the Enfield factory should have anything to do with the name As stated by Colonel R. V. Shephard on the 17. June 1949.

Sincerely

Lars Buch

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Lars-Buch (talk • contribs) 11:23, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

 * The Sten used Enfield pattern rifling, which is also why the Lee-Enfield was so-called. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.7.147.13 (talk) 20:11, 18 November 2013 (UTC)
 * The standard British designation system at the time consisted of action-rifling denoting the design of each - e.g., Shepherd-Turpin, and Enfield in the Sten's case, the gun's action being designed by Shepherd and Turpin, the rifling type being Enfield. The same goes for the Bren gun, the action being from Brno, the rifling type being Enfield. The latter replaced the earlier Metford type of rifling.
 * That BTW, is why the Lee-Metford became the Lee-Enfield upon a change in rifling. Otherwise they started out as the same gun. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.150.18.209 (talk) 08:34, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Place of origin
It says place of origin as Britain? Did Scotland or Wales have any input in the design and development or was it just in England? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.138.8.42 (talk) 23:44, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

General corrections
1. Magazine - It's an exact copy of the MP28 magazine, not a copy of the MP40. The MP28 is a few mm thicker, but with a polishing wheel one can get one to fit in a Sten magwell. This is not true of the MP40 mag. (I can supply a photo of the two mags side by side for comparison)

2. The primary photo should be corrected to include a whole gun, not one missing the lower cover and trigger spring so that the trigger is falling forward. MFM 2000 (talk) 14:12, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

 * "The Sten has been described by Max Hastings as: "highly unreliable, prone to jamming, and inaccurate beyond 30 metres. It was unsuitable for guerrilla operations in open country because it encouraged waste of ammunition" - the Sten did not 'jam' but it was prone to stoppages caused by the magazine not feeding properly. This can be cleared easily and quickly by tipping the gun so that the ejection port points downwards and allowing the mis-fed round to drop out, while simultaneously re-cocking the gun. Done properly this take less time than it takes to change an empty magazine. The magazines were satisfactory providing they were not thrown around or handled carelessly so that the feed lips became bent.

 * It was standard British practice in the field to only load the magazines with 30 or 28 rounds. This greatly reduced the number of stoppages due to feed problems. Once you know this the problem goes away.

 * A properly 'jammed' gun usually requires a gun to be stripped and in worst cases may require the services of an armourer. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.144.50.176 (talk) 09:58, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

 * It is amusing seeing all the accounts of Stens 'jamming', most coming from people who have never used one, never mind used one in action, when the mechanism is so simple and uncomplicated that there literally isn't anything to jam. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.8.126.91 (talk) 19:46, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

Massive flag on article
Can someone sort out the massive flag that's near the foot of the article please? Jon
 * Removed, no need for it. Ta for pointing it out.  Geoff B (talk) 23:38, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Deleted the broken redirect template thing too. :)  [ stwalkerster | talk ]  23:48, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
 * It used to be in there w/ no flag; someone apparently tried to add one here but did it wrong. I've reinstated the 'no flag' version. The broken thing was Template:Country_data_Commonwealth_of_Nations by the way (thanks for deleting, Stwalkerster).  Chzz  ► 23:55, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
 * P.S. Geoff B / whoever, if it really doesn't belong in the list at all, feel free to remove it again, of course; I was just going back to the 'working' version, as it were.  Chzz  ► 23:56, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Stens were not used by Philippine resistance in WW II
The Sten was a British weapon that was also produced in Canada.

Neither Britain nor Canada supplied weapons to the Philippine resistance. Nor did the US acquire Stens for any such purpose.

No reputable sources are presented for the claim that the Filipinos used Stens. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.152.99.241 (talk) 05:54, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

 * A ship carrying a cargo of among other things, Stens, and Universal Carriers, was trapped in Hong Kong by the Japanese invasion of 1941-2 and so some guns may have made their way by a roundabout route to the Philippines. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.8.126.91 (talk) 19:03, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

England or Enfield
Some guys I know have found a primary source (someone who knew Turpin personally writing in 1943) that says the EN stands for 'England' not 'Enfield'. Stub Mandrel (talk) 17:52, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Usually British weapons incude the name of the factory or place they were manufactured on,not england A bored editor (talk) 11:54, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

 * The first part of the name (Shepherd, Turpin) is the designer of the action, the second name (ENfield - as opposed to the obsolete Metford rifling) is the type of rifling employed.

 * Similarly Bren, action designed at BRno, rifling used is ENfield.

 * See also Lee-Enfield, Lee-Metford, Martini-Henry, etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.8.126.91 (talk) 18:27, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

Particular Cartridge
My understanding is that the Sten was designed around a 9mm cartridge that was slightly longer than 9mm Parabellum but was designed so that it could also use 9mm Parabellum cartridges. That way British troops could use captured German ammunition but the Germans could not use captured British ammo.--RichardRegal (talk) 21:28, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

 * And I have read that the British spread that disinformation to discourage German soldiers from using captured British ammunition. -- Naaman Brown (talk) 01:51, 24 January 2019 (UTC)
 * As a machine carbine the Sten was designed to use the same 9mm SAA Ball ammunition ("9mm Parabellum" as it was commercially called) pistol cartridge as the Lanchester and the German MP 28 (from which the Lanchester was derived) and MP 38 and MP 40 German guns.
 * The 9mm Parabellum had by the period immediately prior to WW II almost become the de facto standard automatic pistol cartridge for European automatic pistols, such as the Luger P08 (for which the cartridge was designed), Walther P38, and Browning GP35. The exceptions were countries such as France and Spain, who used other calibres. At around this time the British Army decided on the GP35 as its automatic pistol - issue pistols were normally revolvers chambered to .38 S&W - and so it would have been necessary to set up ammunition manufacturing for this new 9mm weapon. Hence when the Sten was designed in around 1940 a suitable automatic pistol cartridge and manufacturing facilities for it already existed.
 * To have introduced a modified longer cartridge as suggested would have been a logistical nightmare, and so it is very unlikely to have been the case. AFAIK all 9mm Parabellum cartridges, British and German, were interchangeable, and usable by either side. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.29.18.153 (talk) 19:53, 16 July 2015 (UTC)
 * The British Army did not adopt the GP35 until after the war so there would have been no need to set up separate supply chains (post war Stens being converted to 9mm Parabellum. Not that separate supply chains would have been a huge problem given that tanks used the BESA machine gun that used the 7.9s Mauser round rather than the .303 British.RichardRegal (talk) 18:12, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
 * The Parachute Regiment adopted the GP35 during the war. That's why production was set up by John Inglis and Company in Canada. IIRC, the decision for the Army as a whole to go over to the GP35 had been taken pre-war but war intervened. IIARC SOE operatives also received some. The GP35 was preferred for parachute forces/users as it was handier and less likely to get snagged on clothing when withdrawn from a pocket, etc., than a revolver. That is almost certainly the reason why the hammer on British military GP35s is a knurled circular knob with a hole for a lanyard rather than the spur on civilian ones.

 * The standard British service 9mm cartridge was dimensionally identical to the German 9mm Parabellum service cartridge ('9mm Luger') the only difference being the British cartridge was loaded to slightly higher breech pressure. This was due to the different propellent used and to the more widely varying climatic conditions in which the round was required to be used.

 * A Sten would fire any standardly available 9mm Parabellum cartridge the only difference being the slight variation in the violence with which the bolt was thrown back, something not normally noticeable by the firer. No British Sten was ever 'converted to 9mm Parabellum' as they were all already chambered to it. The UK and German rounds are identical.

 * Oh and BTW, the Sten also fired Italian 9mm Glisenti ammunition just fine too. Large quantities of which were captured in North Africa. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.8.126.91 (talk) 18:41, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

Main picture
The lead picture is IMHO perhaps not the most awesome, showing an example with a fairly obvious missing part and an apparently broken trigger mechanism. Shouldn't we use one of the other photos? Personally I'd go for the one of the factory worker, partly because it gives a good view of an actually intact gun, and subjectively just because I like it!

Though some may argue that the current possibly broken example with bits missing is in the spirit of the Sten! --Vometia (talk) 11:57, 8 September 2018 (UTC)

Sten with magazine rotated down or mp3008?
there is a pictuere on this article wich consists of a sten like gun with the magazine rotated down,like the mp 3008.So,wich one is it? A bored editor (talk) 11:53, 20 October 2021 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 08:22, 31 July 2022 (UTC)
 * MP 3008 Sub Machine Gun.jpg

British gun, costs given in dollars
Britain, along with the rest of the world, is considered an off-shore foreign something by US-centric Ikipedia.

Dollars? Isn't that what everyone used? 109.144.28.119 (talk) 14:02, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

 * The context is a comparison with the Thompson submachine gun, which were purchased by the UK in the US. Presumably, US dollars are what are used in the cited sources, which are American. If you want to do something productive instead of adding snarky comments on the talk page, you can look up sources that use British currency, and add them to the article. BilCat (talk) 19:30, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Sten


text:
Konstantin Jireček

Konstantin Josef Jireček (24 July 1854 – 10 January 1918) was an Austro-Hungarian Czech historian, politician, diplomat, and Slavist. He was the founder of Bohemian Balkanology (or Balkan Studies) and Byzantine studies, and wrote extensively on Bulgarian and Serbian history. Jireček was also a minister in the government of the Principality of Bulgaria for a couple of years.

Life
Jireček was the son of Czech historian Josef Jireček (1825–1888) and Božena, a daughter of Slovak philologist Pavel Jozef Šafárik (1795–1861). His family was deeply involved in Slavistics.

Jireček was raised in Vienna and enrolled in the 1864–1872 period at Theresianum, a prestigious preparatory school in Vienna. During his education, he became very interested in and studied several foreign languages (French, Serbo-Croatian, Bulgarian, Italian, Russian, English, Hungarian, Turkish and Greek). In 1872 he became a student at the Philological Faculty at the University of Prague, where he studied history and modern philology. At this time, his nearest friends included French historian Ernest Denis (1849–1921) and the sons of Bulgarian theatre director and actor Krastyo Pishurka. In 1874 he took a study trip to Croatia-Slavonia and Serbia, after which he published several essays on the history and traditions of the South Slavic countries.

In 1876 he had his first book published, the History of the Bulgarians, a historiographical work spanning the medieval Bulgarian state foundation to the Ottoman conquest, which attracted great attention to the 22-year-old historian. This was due to the European public's interest in the April Uprising of the Bulgarian people, a people little known in Europe at the time. For his dissertation on the history of the Bulgarians, Jireček was awarded the title of doctor in philosophy in 1876. In 1877, his habilitation work was divided between Constantinople and Belgrade (Serbia).

After the end of the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), which saw the re-establishment of the Bulgarian state, he helped construct the administration, school system and economy in the newly founded Principality of Bulgaria. In 1879 he was employed by the Bulgarian government, and from May to July 1881 he served as Minister of Foreign Affairs, then until 1882 as Minister of Science. In 1884, he was appointed director of the National Library in Sofia. During his stay, he devoted himself to research in Balkanology and Byzantine Studies. He published his results in numerous studies and monographs. Overall Konstantin Jireček made significant contributions to the establishment of a modern educational system and overall social change in Bulgaria in the first years after the creation of the modern state in 1878.

From 1884 to 1893 he taught universal history as a full professor at the Charles University in Prague. After that, he was a professor of Slavic philology at the University of Vienna until his death in 1918. Carl Patsch succeeded the office at Vienna.

Work
The bulk of Jireček's writings deal with the history of the South Slavs and their literature. They notably include a History of the Bulgarians (Czech and German, 1876), History of Serbs, The Principality of Bulgaria (1891), Travels in Bulgaria (Czech, 1888), etc. He mostly wrote in German.

 * History of the Bulgarians (Geschichte der Bulgaren, published in Prague in 1876
 * Die altböhmischen Gedichte der Grünberger und Königinhofer. Handschrift im Urtexte und in deutscher Uebersetzung. Prag: Rivnac, 1879.
 * Die Handelsstrassen und Bergwerke von Serbien und Bosnien während des Mittelalters: historisch-geographische Studien. Prag: Verlag der Königlich Böhmischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, 1879
 * Einige Bemerkungen über die Überreste der Petschenegen und Kumanen sowie über die Völkerschaften der sogenannten Gagauzi und Surguči im heutigen Bulgarien. Prag: Verlag der Königlich Böhmischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, 1889.
 * Die Heerstrasse von Belgrad nach Constantinopel und die Balkanpässe. Prag: Tempsky, 1877.
 * Poselství republiky Dubrovnické k císařovně Kateřině v roce 1771. Prag, 1893.
 * Das christliche Element in der topographischen Nomenclatur der Balkanländer. Wien: Gerold, 1897
 * Staat und Gesellschaft im mittelalterlichen Serbien. Studien zur Kulturgeschichte des 13.-15. Jahrhunderts. Wien 1912 (Fotomechanischer Nachdruck Leipzig: Zentralantiquariat der DDR, 1974)
 * (Nachdruck Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1967)
 * (Nachdruck Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1967)
 * (Nachdruck Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1967)

Honours
Jireček Point on Smith Island in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica is named after Jireček. In Bulgaria, Mount Jireček, the third highest peak of the Rila mountain range, as well as two villages, also bear his name.

A journal of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts bears his name (Зборник Константина Јиречека). Also, streets in Novi Sad and Belgrade are named Jirečekova after him.

In fiction
Jireček appears as a minor character in one of Aleko Konstantinov's satirical feuilletons centred on the fictional character of Bay Ganyo where the protagonist visits him in Prague, looking for shelter and discussing politics.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Konstantin Jireček


text:
First Vienna Award

The First Vienna Award was a treaty signed on 2 November 1938 pursuant to the Vienna Arbitration, which took place at Vienna's Belvedere Palace. The arbitration and award were direct consequences of the previous month's Munich Agreement, which resulted in the partitioning of Czechoslovakia.

Though some from the government called for military action, Hungarian revisionism primarily aimed to restore the historical boundaries peacefully. In the interwar period, Hungary was weaker economically and militarily than the neighbours against which it had territorial claims. Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy had supported the territorial claims of the Kingdom of Hungary, and revision of the 1920 Treaty of Trianon. Nazi Germany had already violated the Versailles Treaty by the remilitarization of the Rhineland (7 March 1936) and the Anschluss of Austria (12 March 1938).

The First Vienna Award separated, from Czechoslovakia, territories in southern Slovakia and southern Carpathian Rus' which were mostly Hungarian-populated and returned them to Hungary. Hungary thus regained some of the territories (now parts of Slovakia and Ukraine) which Hungary had lost after World War I under the Treaty of Trianon. Czechoslovakia also ceded to Poland small patches of land in Spiš and Orava regions.

In mid-March 1939 Adolf Hitler gave Hungary permission to occupy the remainder of Carpathian Rus' (officially known as Carpatho-Ukraine since December 1938). This advanced Hungary's territory northward, up to the Polish border, thereby restoring a common Hungarian–Polish border, which had existed before the 1772 First Partition of Poland-Lithuania. Before the end of World War I and the Treaties of Trianon and Saint Germain, the Carpathian region of the former Kingdom of Hungary (Transleithania) in Austria-Hungary had, to the north, bordered the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, a constituent part of Austria's Cisleithania.

Six months after Hungary occupied the remainder of Carpathian Rus', in September 1939, after the German invasion of Poland, the Polish government and tens of thousands of Polish soldiers and airmen evacuated into Hungary and Romania and from there went on to France and to French-mandated Syria to carry on their war against Germany.

After World War II, the 1947 Treaty of Paris declared the Vienna Award null and void.

International situation
From 1933 Hungary closely coordinated its foreign policies with those of Nazi Germany, in the hope of revising Hungary's borders as established in the 1920 Treaty of Trianon. In March 1933 Hungary's prime minister declared that Hungary "wanted justice on the historical principle" and desired the restoration to Hungary of Hungarian-inhabited territories that Hungary had lost after World War I. In June 1933 Hungarian Prime Minister Gyula Gömbös visited Germany, meeting with Adolf Hitler, and they concluded that Czechoslovakia was a principal obstacle to a "rearrangement" of Central Europe and therefore should be subverted internally, isolated internationally, and finally eliminated by military force. During a meeting with Hitler in August 1936, Miklós Horthy advocated a common attack against Czechoslovakia to excise a "cancerous tumor from the heart of Europe".

In late 1937 Hitler decided to open a campaign against Czechoslovakia. In 1938 Germany and Hungary focused on creating a common platform to that end, and in November 1938 Hitler negotiated with the Hungarian government concerning the fate of Czechoslovakia.

Hungarian representatives considered an overt attack on Czechoslovakia too dangerous and wanted to preserve that country's relations with France and Britain, whose support in the question of Hungarian minorities was conditional on Hungary's not joining with Germany in military actions. This outraged Hitler and led to a change in Germany's view of Hungarian territorial demands in eastern Czechoslovakia.

Before the Munich Agreement, a Hungarian government emissary had officially asked the German and Italian delegations to resolve Hungarian demands together with the questions of Sudeten Germans. However, Hitler did not agree because he was not satisfied with the previous passivity of Hungary and because he had his own plans for Central Europe. The French and British delegates, Prime Minister Édouard Daladier and Neville Chamberlain, saw potential danger in such a complex solution, but the Italian delegate, Prime Minister Benito Mussolini, allowed Hungarian demands to be reflected in an appendix to the agreement. It requested Czechoslovakia to resolve the minority question with Hungary and Poland within three months by bilateral negotiations, or matters would be resolved by the four signatories of the agreement.

After the annexation of Trans-Olza and smaller border areas by Poland, the Hungarian question had remained open. Poland later annexed further territories in northern Slovakia (on 1 December 1938, villages in Kysuce, Orava and Spiš) comprising 226 km2, with 4,280 inhabitants (see separate article, Polish–Czechoslovak border conflicts). The Hungarian government understood the appendix of the Munich Agreement as an agreement of the Great Powers for the revision of peace treaties and emphasised that it did not mean only the revision of borders based on ethnicity but also the eventual restoration of Hungarian territory before 1918 and the creation of a common border with Poland. Official Hungarian circles were aware that Hungary alone was too weak to enforce its territorial demands towards Czechoslovakia because they knew that any attack would encounter the resistance of the more modern Czechoslovak Army.

Therefore, Hungary decided to fight Czechoslovakia in the diplomatic field instead and to push for territorial revision in the spirit of Munich Agreement.

Border conflicts and sabotage
The Munich Agreement had defined a three-month period to resolve Hungarian demands, but the Hungarian government pushed to start negotiations immediately. The pressure was increased by the Hungarians with border conflicts and diversion actions in Czechoslovakia. The first conflict occurred in the early morning of October 5, 1938, when troops of the Royal Hungarian Army crossed the border and attacked Czechoslovak positions near Jesenské with the goal of capturing Rimavská Sobota. Hungarian troops withdrew after the arrival of Czechoslovak reinforcements, which killed nine Hungarians and captured prisoners. Two days later, Hungarian troops again attempted to cross the Danube near Parkan (Párkány). The Czechoslovak situation was worse in Carpathian Ruthenia, with its lower density of fortifications; there paramilitary units of the Rongyos Gárda infiltrated Czechoslovakia. The first two units of the Rongyos Gárda crossed the border on October 6, 1938, and two days later, they blew up the bridge over the Borozhava River.

Such actions continued during the negotiations and after the First Vienna Award. During the second day of bilateral negotiations (October 10, 1938), Hungarian troops murdered a railway officer in Borozhava and damaged railway facilities.

Internal situation in Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia had an interest in stabilising the situation because its foreign ministry had to resolve problems with Poland and Germany and did not want to start negotiations before October 15. The Czechoslovak minister of foreign affairs was focused on building new relationships with Germany and Italy to negotiate guarantees for new borders. After the Munich Agreement, all political subjects in Slovakia concluded that it is necessary to change the Slovak position and declared its autonomy on October 6, 1938. The new autonomous government understood the definition of borders as a priority, and the Slovak People's Party requested to participate in the negotiations. The central government in Prague was aware that the delegation should be led by a Slovak and considered Milan Hodža or Imrich Karvaš. However, after the creation of an autonomous government, Foreign Minister František Chvalkovský proposed its representatives: Jozef Tiso or Ferdinand Ďurčanský. Both politicians at first refused on the justification that the role was in competition with the central government. After it had been emphasised that it is mainly the interest of Slovakia, they decided to accept. Moreover, Tiso hoped that his Hungarian partners would more likely accept concessions if they did not negotiate with representatives of the central government.

Under the pressure of the threat of internal destabilisation of Czechoslovakia because of diverting actions and the further radicalisation of the situation in Hungary, Czechoslovakia agreed to begin negotiations on October 9.

In Komárno
Negotiations were held between October 9 and October 13, 1938, in Komárno, on the Slovak northern bank of the Danube River, just on the border with Hungary. The Czechoslovak delegation was led by Jozef Tiso, the prime minister of the autonomous government, without any experience with similar negotiations, and it included Ferdinand Ďurčanský, Minister of Justice in the Slovak cabinet, and General Rudolf Viest. The central government of Czechoslovakia was represented by Ivan Krno, Political Director of the Czechoslovak Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who held rank of Ambassador Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary. Autonomous Carpathian Ruthenia was represented by Ivan Párkányi, who was a minister without portfolio. The Czechoslovak (Slovak and Ruthenian) delegation was not completely prepared for lack of time. By contrast, the Hungarian delegation comprised experienced individuals and was led by Foreign Minister Kálmán Kánya and Education Minister Pál Teleki. The Hungarian government welcomed the composition of Czechoslovak delegation and believed that it would be easier to influence the inexperienced Slovak politicians by promises. That expectation was not fulfilled since other Slovak delegates rejected any possibility of returning to Hungary.

The Hungarian government's strategy for the negotiations was to demand areas in which at least 50% of Hungarians lived according to the 1910 census. That formulation was chosen with respect to the signers of the Munich Agreement, but Hungary also requested areas that did not match those criteria. On the first day, Hungary supplied memorandum with the requested territorial changes. The Hungarians further demanded a plebiscite in the remaining territory in which Slovaks and Ruthenians would declare whether they wanted to be incorporated into Hungary.

Hungary demanded territories up to and including a line defined by Devín (Hungarian: Dévény), Bratislava (Pozsony), Nitra (Nyitra), Tlmače (Garamtolmács), Levice (Léva), Lučenec (Losonc), Rimavská Sobota (Rimaszombat), Jelšava (Jolsva), Rožňava (Rozsnyó), Košice (Kassa), Trebišov (Tőketerebes), Pavlovce nad Uhom (Pálóc), Uzhhorod (Užhorod, Hungarian: Ungvár), Mukacheve (Mukačevo, Munkács), and Vinogradiv (Nagyszőlős). The territory was 14,106 km2 (with 12,124 km2 in Slovakia and 1,982 km2 in Carpathian Ruthenia). It included 1,346,000 citizens (1,136,000 in Slovakia, 210,000 in Carpathian Ruthenia). According to the last census, 678,000 of them had declared a non-Hungarian nationality (553,000 in Slovakia, 125,000 in Carpathian Ruthenia) in 1930.

Hungary also requested the immediate takeover of two border towns from Czechoslovakia as a "goodwill gesture". The Czechoslovak delegation agreed on the railway town of Slovenské Nové Mesto (until 1918, it had been a suburb of the Hungarian town of Sátoraljaújhely) and the town of Šahy (Ipolyság). Both were occupied by Hungary on October 12.

The main difference between both parties' arguments was that the Hungarians presented the 1910 census figures, as had Germany during the Munich Conference, but Czechoslovakia presented the latest 1930 figures and contested the validity of the 1910 census. Later, Czechoslovakia also presented figures from Hungarian censuses before 1900. It considered the 1910 census as unacceptable because it represented the peak of Magyarization and differed from previous Hungarian and later Czechoslovak censuses as well as postwar censuses from other countries in which the Hungarian minority lived (Austria, Romania and Yugoslavia). Tiso noted that he, for example, had been counted as a Hungarian during that census.

Meanwhile, the Hungarian delegation did not accept the results of the Czechoslovak census and proposed to use the 1880 Hungarian census, before the peak of Magyarization, as a compromise. The Hungarians also did not agree on the definition of purely-Hungarian towns like Košice.

The request for a plebiscite on Slovaks and Ruthenians for rejoining Hungary was rejected by Czechoslovakia as irrelevant because the Munich Agreement did not address question of either nation, the idea violated the sovereignty of Czechoslovakia and the Ruthenian delegate declared that the Ruthenian nation (except communists) had already expressed its will to live in Czechoslovakia.

The Hungarian delegation rejected several Czechoslovak proposals, such as an offer to create an autonomous Hungarian territory within Slovakia. Kánya characterised the proposal as a "bad joke" and declared that it was "absolutely impossible to discuss this question". Czechoslovakia then offered to cede Great Rye Island (Slovak: Žitný ostrov, Hungarian: Csallóköz, 1838 km2, with 105,418 inhabitants, almost all of whom were Hungarians), the creation of a free port in the town of Komárno and a population exchange in the remaining frontier regions.

Hungary turned down that offer as well, and on October 13, the Czechoslovak delegation proposed another solution. The goal of the Czechoslovak proposal was to the create borders with balanced minorities in both states (including Slovaks in Békés County). As well as the principle of balanced minorities, the proposal included the Czechoslovak strategic interest of preserving the railway to Carpathian Ruthenia. Pál Teleki rejected the proposal without a deeper study as a "humorous border", and the Hungarian delegation "analysed the map only to be polite".

Although the Czechoslovak delegation declared that it was open for further discussion about its proposal and offered consultation with its experts, the Hungarian delegation rejected further discussion. On the evening of October 13, after consultations in Budapest, Kánya declared that the negotiations had failed and asked the four signatories of the Munich Agreement to be the adjudicators. As the United Kingdom and France had decided not to make any decision, the adjudicators became German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and Italian Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano.

German mediation
On October 13, the day that the negotiations deadlocked, Hungary conducted a partial mobilisation. Czechoslovakia performed actions to strengthen its security and declared martial law in the frontier region. After the failure of bilateral negotiations, the border dispute escalated to a wider international level. The Axis powers took the initiative in favour of Hungary to realise their own plans for the region.

Hungary sent delegations to both Italy and Germany. Count Csáky went to Rome. Kálmán Darányi went to Germany and told Hitler that Hungary was ready to fight and "[would] not accept the behavior of the Slovaks". However, the situation in Central Europe changed after the Munich Agreement, and the German-Hungarian-Polish bloc was over. Germany refused to take steps to strengthen Hungary. Hitler declared that if Hungary started a conflict, nobody would help it. He rejected the idea of a common conference of the four signers of the Munich Agreement, the demands for plebiscites in Slovakia and Carpathian Ruthenia and the Hungarian claims for Bratislava. Instead, he advised Hungary to continue the negotiations and to preserve the ethnic principle. He proposed for Germany to act as a mediator. Ribbentrop and Darányi agreed on a map which would be offered to Czechoslovakia ("Ribbentrop line"). The line later became source of misunderstanding between Hungary and Germany. According to Darányi, Ribbentrop did not accept his requests because several important towns remained on the Czechoslovak side (Bratislava, Nitra, Uzhorod and Mukachevo; the question of Košice was open). Germany rejected the accusations and declared that Ribbentrop line was created 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 willing to face such a frontier only if Poland compensated by giving the Danzig Corridor to Germany. Poland refused the German proposal.

On October 20, the Rusyns produced a resolution more or less in favour of a plebiscite on all of Subcarpathian Rus' becoming part of Hungary. Five days later, Subcarpathian Prime Minister Andriy Borody was arrested in Prague, and Subcarpathian Foreign Minister Avhustyn Voloshyn was appointed prime minister. He was willing to consider the cession of only ethnically-Hungarian territories to Hungary and rejected the idea of a plebiscite.

Final failure of bilateral negotiations
Negotiations between Czechoslovakia and Hungary resumed by diplomatic channels. Czechoslovakia adopted the "Ribbentrop line" in the hope that it would receive a guarantee of new borders from the side of Axis powers and proposed it officially on October 22. Czechoslovakia offered to cede Hungary territory that had 494,646 Hungarians and 168,632 Slovaks and to retain Bratislava, Nitra and Košice. Hungary turned down the proposal, which caused Germany to withdraw its position as mediator. Hungary demanded for the territories offered by Czechoslovakia to be immediately occupied by Hungary, for there be a plebiscite in the disputed territory and for Subcarpathia to "decide its own future". Czechoslovakia found it unacceptable to cede territories immediately that had not been the subject of discussion and to resolve the question of the remaining parts later. By accepting the proposal, Czechoslovak border fortifications would become Hungarian, and the Hungarian Army could invade more Czechoslovak territory.

Hungary also warned that if Czechoslovakia refused that proposal, Hungary would demand arbitration (Italo-German in Western Slovakia, Italo-German-Polish in Eastern Slovakia and Subcarpathian Rus'). Then, Czechoslovakia would have no choice but to accept Hungarian demands or to agree with arbitration. That decision was forced also by fact that both France and Britain had lost interest on Czechoslovakia and considered the region to be in the German sphere of influence.

Both parties hoped that Germany would support their demands. The Slovak autonomous government also accepted the idea of arbitration with unrealistic expectations, based on Ribbentrop's assurances.

Although the Hungarian government demanded arbitration, it had not had have the prior approval of Germany, which insisted on its negative opinion, Hitler's disagreement, Ribbentrop's disappointment with previous negotiations with Darányi and the danger of military conflict if one country did not accept the results.

Hungary managed to persuade Italy that the powerful German influence that was exercised through Czechoslovakia could be eliminated by a strong Hungary. Ciano accepted the proposal and promised to advocate Hungarian interests. During Ribbentrop's visit to Rome (October 27–30, 1938), Ciano persuaded Ribbentrop on the importance of arbitration for the Axis powers's future position in the region, and Ribbentrop promised to persuade Hitler.

Italy took the initiative and proposed to achieve common agreement in Rome as a basis for arbitration. Ciano, who had been briefed by Hungarian experts, was in a better position than the less-informed Ribbentrop and so achieved several important concessions. On October 31, the Hungarian envoy in Rome confidentially informed Hungarian government, "Ribbentrop definitely agreed with the return of Košice, Uzhorod and Mukachevo".

On October 29, 1938, Czechoslovakia and Hungary officially asked Germany and Italy to arbitrate and declared in advance that they would abide by the results.

Arbitration
The award was made in Vienna by the foreign ministers of Germany, Joachim von Ribbentrop, and of Italy, Galeazzo Ciano. The Hungarian delegation was led by Foreign Minister Kálmán Kánya, accompanied by Education Minister Pál Teleki. The Czechoslovak delegation was led by Foreign Minister František Chvalkovský, accompanied by Ivan Krno. Important members of the Czechoslovak delegation included representatives of Subcarpathian Rus' (Prime Minister Avgustyn Voloshyn) and of Slovakia (Prime Minister Jozef Tiso and Justice Minister Ferdinand Ďurčanský). Also present was Hermann Göring. A few days before the arbitration, Budapest had received messages from some borderline villages that rejected becoming part of Hungary ("Stay there, do not liberate us. We are having a good time, better than you, liberate yourself").

The arbitration began in the Belvedere Palace, in Vienna, at noon on November 2, 1938. The Czechoslovak and the Hungarian delegations were allowed to present their arguments. Chvalkovský was brief and left the task of presenting the Czechoslovak case to Krno. Despite explicit demands by the Czechoslovak representatives, both arbiters refused to let Tiso and Voloshyn participate. Ribbentrop and Ciano reasoned that only the representatives of central governments could participate (Czechoslovakia, rather than the partially-autonomous Slovakia or Carpatho-Ruthenia). They assumed that Chvalkovský would be more submissive and that Tiso would complicate the negotiations. The negotiations were a formality, and a new border was drawn after half a day. When the award was announced by Ribbentrop around 7 p.m., the Czechoslovak delegation was so shocked that Tiso actually had to be talked by Ribbentrop and Chvalkovský into signing the document.

Results
Czechoslovakia had to surrender the territories in southern Slovakia and southern Carpathian Ruthenia south of the line to the border with Romania. That included the towns of Senec (Szenc), Galanta (Galánta), Vráble (Verebély), Levice (Léva), Lučenec (Losonc), Rimavská Sobota (Rimaszombat), Jelšava (Jolsva), Rožnava (Rozsnyó), Košice (Kassa), Michaľany (Szentmihályfalva), Veľké Kapušany (Nagykapos), Uzhhorod (Ungvár), and Mukachevo (Munkács). Slovakia lost 10,390 km2 with 854,277 inhabitants – 503,980 Hungarians (58,99%), 272,145 Slovaks or Czechs (32,43%), 26,151 Jews (3,06%), 8,947 Germans (1,05%), 1,825 Ruthenians, 14,617 other and 26,005 foreign citizens according to the Czechoslovak census of 1930. By considering the average population growth since the last census, it is possible to estimate the total size of population at the time of the arbitration at 935,000 people, 300,000 of whom were Slovaks or Czechs. Czechoslovakia lost also additional territory in Carpathian Ruthenia. Czechoslovakia lost the direct railway connection to Carpathian Ruthenia and to its ally Romania.

Between October 28 and 29, 1938, Béla Imrédy and the leader of the United Hungarian Party Andor Jaross made an agreement that representatives of the party who stayed in the redeemed territories would be part of a civic group of general staff, which would hold supreme authority. One of its parts (the Upper Country Unification Group) later became the basis for the Ministry for Upper Country, led by Jaross. All other political parties were banned, and obstacles were made for the introduction of other parties from Hungary. The United Hungarian Party then used its power for the persecution of Slovaks and of Hungarians who had disagreed with the activities against Czechoslovakia before the award.

After the Vienna Award, the Hungarian government and United Hungarian Party organised celebrations and a triumphant entry of the Hungarian Army into the redeemed territories. Organizers consciously imitated the entry of Hitler's army into the Sudetenland. The result of arbitration was met by the most of the Hungarian population by local statements of disagreement. Hungarian Honvéds were not welcomed also in some "pure Hungarian" villages, and in one village, their accommodation had to be arranged by force. The ceded territories were occupied by the Royal Hungarian Army (Magyar Királyi Honvédség) between November 5 and 10, 1938. Hungary imposed a military administration on the redeemed territories. On November 11, Horthy solemnly entered the main town, Košice (Kassa). The military administration was changed to a civilian administration on December 21, 1938. The recovered Upper Hungary territories were incorporated into Hungary on November 12, 1938, by an act of the Hungarian Parliament. By following the former counties of the Kingdom of Hungary, the occupied territory was divided into two new counties with seats in Nové Zámky and Levice, and some lands became part of other Hungarian counties.

On 30 November 1938 Czechoslovakia ceded to Poland small patches of land in Spiš and Orava regions.

Slovak–Hungarian relations
Tiso took the result personally, especially because he had failed to arrange the evacuation of Košice. He announced the results of the award on the radio late in the evening and blamed the central government for its long-term policy but accepted the result.

The First Vienna Award finally refuted interwar Hungarian propaganda that "Slovak brothers" dreamed about returning to the 1000-year Hungarian Empire and could not openly declare their opinion under Czech domination. It also led to worsening anti-Hungarian sentiment in Slovakia. Shortly after the award had been announced, János Esterházy, a leader of the Hungarian minority in Slovakia, proposed for Hungary to return to Slovakia 1000 km2 of the territory that Hungary had received, predominantly Slovak lands between Šurany (Nagysurány) and Palárikovo (Tótmegyer), to ensure the long-term peaceful co-existence between both nations. His proposal was not accepted by the Hungarian government. The obvious violation of the ethnic balance between the two countries' minorities, which had repeatedly been endorsed years earlier by Hungary, and the short period between the award and a Hungarian attack against Slovakia in March 1939, caused anti-Hungarian sentiment and social movements to become a significant unifying element for Slovaks during the Second World War. Anti-Hungarian demonstrations were held on each anniversary of the award in which anti-Hungarian slogans were shouted and Hungarian houses or cultural institutions were damaged. On the third anniversary, a mob furious at the shooting of Slovaks by Hungarian police in Komjatice destroyed the Hungarian Cultural House.

Radicalisation of Central Europe
Hungary annulled Point 4 of Article 27 of the Treaty of Trianon, which committed it to respect the new borders that were defined by the treaty. According to Deák, Hungary also violated Articles 48 and 49 of the treaty, which guaranteed independence and rights of new Czechoslovak state. In addition to territorial gains based on the First Vienna Award, Hungary ignored the results of the arbitration and tried to annex Carpathian Ruthenia few weeks later.

From the Middle Ages to well into the 18th century, Hungary and Poland had shared a historic common border and had always enjoyed good relations. After the Munich Agreement on September 30, 1938, both countries had worked together to restore their historic common border. A step toward their goal was realised with the First Vienna Award (November 2, 1938).

Under pressure from Hitler, Slovakia declared total independence on March 14, 1939, and Czechoslovakia ceased to exist. Two days earlier, Hitler had given Hungary permission to occupy the rest of Carpatho-Ruthenia within 24 hours but to abstain from attempting to annex the remainder of Slovakia, which Hitler wanted to turn into a strategically located German ally, especially for his planned invasion of Poland. On March 14–15, what remained of Carpatho-Ruthenia declared its independence as Carpatho-Ukraine, and shortly afterward, between March 15 and 18, it was occupied by Hungary. After occupying Carpatho-Ukraine, Hungary occupied a small amount of Slovakia on March 15. Seeing no substantial reaction, Hungary on March 23 launched a larger attack on eastern Slovakia. The plan was to "advance as far west as possible". After a short Slovak-Hungarian War, with several Hungarian air raids, such as March 24 on Spišská Nová Ves, Hungary was forced by Germany to stop and negotiate. The negotiations (March 27 -April 4) gave Hungary further territories in Eastern Slovakia (1,897 km2) with 69,630 inhabitants, almost all of whom were Slovaks or Rusyns. Unlike the earlier Vienna Award, the annexed territories were not justified on ethnic grounds. (The Hungarians justified it under the grounds that the Vienna Award had been an arbitration between Hungary and Czechoslovakia and that the latter had ceased to exist a few days earlier.)

Until mid-March 1939, Germany had considered that "for military reasons a common Hungarian-Polish frontier was undesirable". Indeed, Hitler had warned Hungary not to touch the remainder of Slovakia when he authorized Hungary to occupy the rest of Carpathian Ruthenia in March 1939. He meant to use Slovakia as a staging ground for his planned invasion of Poland. In March 1939, Hitler changed his mind on the common Hungarian-Polish frontier and decided to betray Germany's ally, the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, which had already in 1938 begun organising Ukrainian military units in a sich outside Uzhhorod under German tutelage. Polish political and military authorities saw the sich as a danger to the neighbouring southeastern Poland, with its largely Ukrainian population. Hitler, however, was concerned that if a Ukrainian army that was organised in Carpathian Rus' accompanied German forces invading the Soviet Union, Ukrainian nationalists would insist on the establishment of an independent Ukraine. Hitler, who had his own plans for the natural and farming resources of Ukraine, did not want to have to deal with an independent Ukrainian government.

Hitler soon had cause to regret his decision regarding the fate of Carpatho-Ukraine. In six months, during his 1939 invasion of Poland, the common Hungarian-Polish border would become of major importance when Horthy's government, because of the long friendship between Poles and Hungarians and as a matter of Hungarian honour, declined Hitler's request to transit German forces across Carpathian Rus' into southeastern Poland to speed Poland's conquest. That, in turn, allowed the Polish government and tens of thousands of Polish military personnel to escape into neighbouring Hungary and Romania and then to France and French-mandated Syria to carry on operations as the third-strongest Allied belligerent, after Britain and France. Also, for a time, Polish and British intelligence agents and couriers, including the notable Krystyna Skarbek, used Hungary's Carpathian Rus' as a route across the Carpathian Mountains to and from Poland.

Demographics
Slovaks in the redeemed territory joined the existing Slovak minority in Hungary, but only about 60,000 Hungarians remained in the Slovakia. The new border did not respect the principle of ethnic borders requested by Hungary as a "correction of injustices of Treaty of Trianon" or the Hungarian census of 1910. The most obvious violations of the ethnic principle occurred in areas around Nové Zámky–Vráble–Hurbanovo, the area around Jelšava and the area around Košice. Only 8 of 79 villages around Košice had a Hungarian-majority population, besides the 42,245 Slovaks in Košice.

Hungary performed a new census in the redeemed territory in December 1938. The census took place in an atmosphere of expulsions, persecutions, restrictions of civil rights and psychological coercion by the Hungarian authorities. In addition, it was performed under direct control of military bodies and violated several principles for taking a census of nationalities. According to the official results, the population consisted of 86.5% Hungarians and 9.8% Slovaks. The total size of Slovak population was reduced to 121,603, with 67 villages losing their Slovak majority, the Slovak population decreasing by 74,100 and the Hungarian population increased by 77,715. Contrary to the Czechoslovak census of 1930, the Hungarian census again counted not the nationality declared by citizens but the "mother tongue" registered by census commissars, as had the Hungarian census from 1910. The two censuses significantly differed in the view on Jewish population. In Czechoslovakia, Jews were allowed to declare separate Jewish nationality, but in the Hungarian census, they could not put their own mother tongue, and their real numbers can be estimated only by their declared religion.

For a full comparison of the censuses, it is necessary to take into account the population transfer after the border change (voluntary or forced), the demographic changes during the previous 20 years of Czechoslovakia (such as the arrival of Czechoslovak state employees and colonists and natural domestic migration) and the bilingualism of the population and the reliability of previous statistics, particularly of the 1910 census from the peak of Magyarization.

First deportations of Jews
The Vienna Award escalated in Slovakia into the first deportations of Jews. Tiso and his collaborators looked for a scapegoat, which was found in Jews because of their demonstration in favour of Bratislava to be part of Hungary on the evening before the arbitration. Between November 4 and 5, 1938, Slovakia's autonomous government deported 7,500 Jews into the new Hungarian-Slovak border. Tiso justified the step as "letting them go where they wanted". Hungary refused to accept them, who included some who were elderly or children, and the deported Jews found themselves imprisoned in no man's land during the cold autumn weather. Hundreds of Jews stayed in a camp in Veľký Kýr and Miloslavov, where they were unable to move to residences in either Slovakia or Hungary.

Persecutions against other non-Hungarians
The non-Hungarians in the territory ceded by the First Vienna Award can be divided into three groups: those who left already before the Award came into force, those who remained in their place during the war until it was reintegrated to Czechoslovakia and those who were expelled from the region. The Czechoslovak press reported after the Munich Agreement that border adjustments with Hungary were imminent and so the Czechoslovaks had five weeks to decide whether they stayed or left. According to Janics, the officials and farmers who opted to move out (81,000 people) were given administrative, military and public safety support and were provided road vehicles and railway wagons to transport their property. Deák estimates the number of state employees and Czech colonists who left the territory before the arrival of the Hungarian Army as half, and the total number of Slovaks who left the territory before December 1938 (voluntarily or forcibly) is unknown and can be estimated only by comparison of the censuses of 1930 and 1938 and the assumed population growth. His estimate has about 50,000 Slovaks.

From the start, Hungary breached several points of the agreement on the evacuation and the transfer of territory, particularly its commitment to preventing violence on territory under its administration. Hungarian nationalism considered the Czech and Slovak colonists, who had obtained their lands in the ethnic Hungarian territories by the nationalist Czechoslovak land reform, as aliens. Some of the colonists left before the award, and others stayed where they were, but a number of them were expelled by force and intimidation. Tilkovszky puts the number of expelled families at 647.

Deák documents that the expulsion of "colonists" was not realised as an arbitrary act of nationalists but that the Hungarian General Staff gave an order to expel all Slovak and Czech colonists on November 5, 1938, which also included their family members and descendants. On November 11, 1938, the Hungarian General Staff issued a new edict, which imposed measures against colonists, ordered their immediate expulsion and defined them as enemies of the state. The organised persecution of non-Hungarian population was based on those orders. Soldiers and police could freely perform home inspections without needing official authorisation and could confiscate stocks of food, livestock and grain. The term "colonists" covered agricultural colonists but was interpreted by the Hungarian government as any non-Hungarians that had settled in the concerning territories since 1918 for any reason, even for those who declared to have Hungarian nationality. Beside Slovaks, Moravians and Czechs, the forced expulsions affected Germans. Forced expulsions were frequently preceded by arrest and imprisonment related to physical torture. In others, it involved transportation to border with Czechoslovakia with military assistance.

The colonists were followed by state employees, Slovak farmers (including those who inherited land or bought it in a standard legal way with their own money) and then anybody denoted as an unreliable. Lists of unreliable persons had been prepared by members of the Hungarian United Party before the First Vienna Award. The measures took place violently, with shooting, casualties and the looting of Slovak and Czech stores and property. Military bodies usually did not react to complaints, or they openly declared that they would not do anything against offenders and violence.

Under such conditions, many Slovaks and Czechs decided to leave the territory. In addition, they signed official statement that they had moved voluntarily and all of their property, even for items that were allowed to be exported, was passed into the ownership of Hungary. In Gbelce (Köbölkút), three Czech colonists were shot dead and one hanged. Civil servants had to leave the territory within 48 hours and were replaced by those from Hungary.

As a reaction to the expulsion of colonists, Czechoslovakia started to take countermeasures and declared that further expelled civilians would be settled on land belonging to members of the Hungarian minority and Hungarian citizens (the Hungarian aristocracy owned 50,000 ha of agricultural land and 14,000 ha of woods in Slovakia). Hungary promised that it would stop mass expulsions and that it was open to negotiations on property issues.

Changes in the Hungarian policy were driven by several factors. The new Hungarian foreign minister, István Csáky, stated that the Hungarian steps had not had the expected effects but had increased anti-Hungarian sentiment, caused disillusionment of the last supporters of Hungary and pushed the Slovak government into co-operation with the central Czechoslovak government. The Hungarian government continued the expulsions but claimed that they were not mass expulsions, that Slovaks and Czechs had left the territory voluntarily and that Hungary had not forced them to do so.

Although Miklós Horthy had promised to guarantee the freedom of the Slovak language and culture in the redeemed territories, Hungary failed to protect its new minorities. The promise of the Slovak government of "adequate help and protection" of its non-Hungarian citizens and its recommendation to stay in the territory the live were also naive and counterproductive and led to unnecessary losses of lives and property.

All non-Hungarian organizations were dissolved, and their property was confiscated or given to Hungarian organisations. In Nové Zámky (Érsekújvár), Jewish citizens were interned in a colony abandoned by Slovaks and Czechs shortly after the event, Jewish lease agreements were cancelled and office spaces were given to Christians.

About 150 schools had been built by the Slovak League, and they were declared to be the property of the Hungarian state. According to Jablonický, Deák and other authors, 862 of 1,119 teachers lost their jobs by the end of 1938, and others followed in the next years. Janics put the total number of teachers at 1,088 and added that most of them had left voluntarily when the award came into effect. In early 1939, the Slovak government protested the expulsion of Slovak teachers and the liquidation of Slovak schools and threatened reciprocal measures against Hungarian-minority schools if Hungary's policy continued.

The expulsion of teachers was often related to violence and public degradation. In Lučenec (Losonc), Hungary deported 54 Slovak teachers on the demarcation line (Deák documents further examples of steps that eliminated Slovak schools). Slovaks lost 386 primary schools, attended by 45,709 Slovak children, and 29 council schools ("burgher schools"), attended by 10,750 children. Four grammar school were closed in Košice (Kassa) and six in other towns. The remaining Slovak government employees, such as railway workers, were forced to enroll their children into Hungarian schools. In several Slovak villages, police dispersed parents' associations, and parents who demanded Slovak schools were beaten. Parents from Ruskov (Regeteruszka) and Blažice (Balogd) who demanded Slovak schools were imprisoned for two weeks. In several places, Hungarian police burned Slovak school supplies, requested for them to be burned by the school director or simply confiscated them.

However, that pressure was generally not sufficient. For instance, in Šurany (Nagysurány), Slovaks excluded from their community anybody who had enrolled children to Hungarian schools. The overcrowding of Hungarian classes with Slovaks had a negative impact on the quality of education of local Hungarian population.

The slow adoption of Hungarian confirmed that the idea of the Hungarian state had remained fictitious for Slovaks. In the fall of 1943, the Hungarian government came to the conclusion that direct Magyarization trends would be replaced by educational activities in the mother tongue of minorities. The plan did not take place because of Hungary was later occupied by Germany.

Social rights and economy
The Hungarian government ordered the revision of trade licences for Jews in the redeemed territory but not for the rest of Hungary. That made 80% of Jews lose their license with significant impact on economic life. In towns like Košice (Kassa), Nové Zámky (Érsekújvár) and Lučenec (Losonc), every second shop was closed.

Slovakia lost 41% of its agricultural soil, which produced approximately 80% of products required for food supply. That was a notable loss for Slovakia but was not a clear benefit for Hungary. The existing problems with overproduction caused problems for local farmers and for Hungary's economic policy. Only half of Southern Slovakia's 400,000 tons of wheat production was used locally, and the other half had no consumers. The border between the redeemed territories and Hungary proper was closed during the military administration and so distribution in that direction was impossible. The situation improved only partially during the civilian administration, when grain and livestock prices remained low. The Hungarian government tried to improve the situation by state intervention purchases, but that failed to resolve the long-term implications of the overproduction. The prices of agricultural goods decreased by 20–30%. Existing cartels in Hungary had limited possibilities to grow the most profitable crops. That resulted in The Economic Association of Nitra County demanding the right "to grow sugar beet under the same conditions as during Czech rule". That request was refused. On February 24, 1939, the government cabinet restricted growing of red pepper only to limited areas around Nové Zámky (Érsekújvár).

Czechoslovakia had provided more job opportunities by constructing roads, regulating rivers and building projects. Those were stopped after the arbitration. Unemployment rates increased, and unlike Czechoslovakia, Hungary did not provide any unemployment benefits or state health insurance for workers in agriculture. Retirement and disability pensions were also lower. Unemployed workers who had received support under Czechoslovak rule requested the same from Hungary. Salaries and working conditions had worsened, but taxes had increased. The exchange rate was disadvantageous for local citizens (7-1) and automatically decreased salaries by 20%. Hungarian soldiers profited from the exchange rate and bought up the remaining cheap Czechoslovak goods at the expense of their sellers. New goods from Hungary had become 20–30% more expensive. Electricity, the radio and railway tickets had also become also more expensive.

Local Hungarians had difficulties understanding the problems because interwar propaganda had portrayed the reunification of the ethnic Hungarian territories as beneficial for both parties. However, in many aspects, Czechoslovakia had given Hungarians more civic and social rights than Hungary would just a year later. The Hungarian government answered by appealing to Hungarian patriotism. In April 1939, Hungarian professors wrote demands to the Hungarian government and protested price increases and their bad social situation.

Social problems on the concerning territories were discussed in the cabinet meeting on December 22, 1939. Interior Minister Ferenc Keresztes-Fischer who was responsible for issues of common goods, the health service and social policy, proposed a solution based on unification. Upper Country Minister Andor Jaross disagreed with that solution and proposed providing the Czechoslovak welfare system for those in the redeemed areas for a transitional period but had no objections to decreasing it to the Hungarian level.

The cabinet finally agreed on a compromise. The elimination of Czechoslovak laws from the acquired territories was understood as a duty but had to be done gradually. The first step was to decrease the value of a retirement pension from its Czechoslovak value (150 pengő) to its Hungarian value (60 pengő) through a transition value of 120 pengő. Health insurance for workers in agriculture was preserved in the form of Czechoslovak regulation for the moment, but it was changed from compulsory to voluntary. In Slovakia, the Czechoslovak system of welfare was preserved after the breakup of Czechoslovakia.

Nullification
In terms of international law, the Vienna Award was later ruled to be null and void. Although it was presented as a voluntary act of two sovereign states in arbitration, the Czechoslovak government had accepted arbitration under a presumed threat from both arbiters (Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy) and under heavy influence of the Hungarian demands. According to Deák, under international law, the act is considered to have been illegal, and its result could not be accepted as valid. Just as for the Munich Agreement, which was later nullified, Czechoslovakia's interests were largely ignored, and the arbiters had used their military prowess to pressure those in the agreement. The Vienna Award was also found to be illegal at the end of World War II. From that legal standpoint, the Vienna Award never existed as a valid legal act.

On December 11, 1940, the British Foreign Office confirmed to the Czechoslovak government that Britain was not bound to Munich Agreement regarding Czechoslovak borders. It interpreted the Munich Agreement to have been signed properly but to have become invalid on March 15, 1939. Negotiations on the British standpoint continued until halfway into 1942. On June 9, 1942, Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov confirmed the restoration of Czechoslovakia to its borders before the Munich Agreement. On September 26, 1944, Italian Foreign Minister Carlo Sforza informed a Czechoslovak representative that Italy had considered the Munich Agreement and the First Vienna Award to have been invalid from the start. That was confirmed in the peace treaty with Hungary (Treaty of Paris), which was signed February 10, 1947. Article 1 (4a) stated, "The decisions of the Vienna Award of November 2, 1938, are declared null and void". The treaty went on to declare that the border between Hungary and Czechoslovakia was to be fixed along the former frontier between Hungary and Czechoslovakia as it existed on January 1, 1938, except for three villages south of Bratislava, which were given as a bridgehead to Czechoslovakia.

Postwar persecutions
The Munich Agreement, the First Vienna Award and the participation of minority parties in the breakup of Czechoslovakia resulted in the redefinition of postwar Czechoslovak minority policy. Prewar Czechoslovakia had guaranteed a relatively large number of minority rights, with Hungarians having more civic and social rights of Hungarians than in Hungary, but Hungarians became the target of serious discrimination after the war. The Hungarian question had to be resolved by population exchange between Czechoslovakia and Hungary, Slovakization and deportations of Hungarians in Czechoslovakia (particularly to the Sudetenland).

The Government Program of Košice (April 5, 1945) accepted the principle of collective guilt for the German and Hungarian minorities. Articles X and XI ordered the seizure of their property, and Article XV the closure of minority schools. Measures against the minorities were reasoned by the "terrible experience of Czechs and Slovaks with German and Hungarian minorities, which largely become a willing tool in the services of aggressive policy from outside; and especially Czechoslovak Germans cooperated directly in the extermination campaign against the Czech and Slovak nation". The government program was followed by series of regulations in the same spirit. Except for antifascist fighters, the Hungarians lost their Czechoslovak citizenship by a presidential decree on August 2, 1945. "About amnesty for acts performed during anti-fascistic fight" prevented punishment of the cruelest crimes against the Hungarian minority. Both countries had a population exchange (68,407 Hungarians and 59,774 Slovaks). A further 31,780 Hungarians were expelled because they had settled in the territories only after the Vienna Award.

The communist coup in Czechoslovakia in February 1948 did not immediately improve the status of Hungarians, but relationships began to normalise in the second half of 1948. During his visit in Budapest on March 15, 1948, the chairman of the Czechoslovak Constitutional National Assembly declared that the Hungarian people were not responsible for the past oppression of Slovaks, the crimes of Hungarian noblemen or the regime of Miklós Horthy. In October 1948, the Czechoslovak parliament restored Czechoslovak citizenship to Hungarians who were residents in Slovakia on November 1, 1938, and had not been convicted of crimes. The issue of the return of property disappeared in the context of communist collectivisation and so became irrelevant.

On April 16, 1949, both countries signed an agreement on friendship and co-operation. On July 25, 1949, the Hungarian government committed to return artistic and historical relics that had been seized after the First Vienna Award. The final agreement was signed on November 11, 1951, with a validity of ten years but was not fully respected.

title: First Vienna Award