The Austrian invasion was delayed for three weeks because of the difficulty in getting Eden out. When the news flashed to a startled world that Nazi troops were thundering into a country whose independence Hitler had promised to respect, M. Corbin, the still unsuspecting French Ambassador, rushed to the Foreign Office to arrange for swift joint action. This was at four o'clock in the afternoon of March 11, 1938. Instead of receiving him immediately, Lord Halifax kept him waiting until nine o'clock in the evening. By that time Austria was Nazi territory. There was nothing to do but protest; so Lord Halifax, with a straight face, joined France in a "strong protest." It was not until a week after Austria had been absorbed that the French Intelligence Service learned the details of the Halifax deal and finally understood why England had side-stepped the pleas for joint action and why the French Ambassador had been kept cooling his heels until the occupation of Austria was completed. From Austria Hitler got more men for his army, large deposits of magnesite, timber forests and enormous water-power resources for electricity. From Czechoslovakia, if he could get it, Hitler would have the Skoda armament works, one of the biggest in the world, factories in the Sudeten area, be next door to Hungarian wheat and Rumanian oil, dominate the Balkans, destroy potential Russian air and troop bases in Central Europe, and place Nazi troops within a few miles of the Soviet border and the Ukrainian wheat fields he has eyed so long. Five days after Austria was invaded, on March 16, at 3:30 in the afternoon, Lord Halifax personally summoned the Czechoslovakian Minister. At four o'clock the Minister came out of the conference with a dazed and bewildered air. Lord Halifax had made some "suggestions." Revealing complete ignorance of what had happened and was happening in Czechoslovakian politics, Halifax was nevertheless laying down the law. It was obvious that the British Foreign Secretary was getting orders from someone else, for Halifax suggested that the Central European Republic try to conciliate Germany (which it had been doing for months) and that a German be taken into the cabinet (there were already three in it). On March 22 there was another meeting at which the Minister learned that Halifax wanted the Czech Government to take a Nazi into the cabinet--as Austria took Dr. Seyss-Inquart at Hitler's orders. This pressure from England for Czechoslovakian Nazis to be given more power in the government was virtually telling the beleaguered little democracy to fashion a strong rope and hang itself. Subsequent events showed that Chamberlain personally supplied the rope. Then came the historic week-end of March 26-27, 1938.