Slovak order of battle in 1939 The following is the Slovak Order of Battle in 1939 during the Slovak – Hungarian War . Overview . The Slovak Army was newly born from the disorganized remnants of the former and well - equipped Czechoslovak Army and Air Force . Such was Slovakia ' s lack of preparedness , that the motorised Hungarian columns initially met almost no resistance , reportedly surprising two companies of Slovaks in their beds . The situation of the Slovak Army . Lieutenant - General Augustín Malár was responsible for the defence of the eastern border with Ruthenia . VI Corps , which he had inherited from the Czecho - Slovak Army , had already been seriously disrupted the previous autumn by the Vienna Award , which had obliged it to abandon its border fortifications and remove its headquarters from Košice to Prešov . The Hungarian occupation of Ruthenia ( Carpatho - Ukraine ) , where the garrison , the 12th Division , had come under VI Corps ' jurisdiction , had further undermined it . As VI Corps had largely been based among unlreliable Hungarians and Ruthenes , it had a very high proportion of Czechs in its ranks . The 12th Infantry Division was involved in a fighting retreat back into eastern Slovakia over the period of March 14 – 18 , but it then dissolved itself virtually completely as its Czech officers and men headed for home . Similarly , the regiments of the VI Corps ' Slovak - based 11th and 17th Divisions , which should have had 2000 - 3000 men each , were only left with between 70 and 400 Slovaks apiece once all their Czechs had gone home . This left the eastern border virtually undefended . Therefore , Malár began to fill out his skeleton units with the reservists called up on March 15 . At the same time , Generals Jurech and Imro , in the west of the country began to form units to support Malár as Slovak officers and conscripts began to return from Bohemia and Moravia , but their move to the east was delayed because roads and railways became crowded with Czech troops being repatriated in the opposite direction . The whole repatriation and reinforcement operation had to be organised by the various inexperienced and desperately overstretched Slovak staffs , especially that of Malár in Prešov . There was often bad feelings on both sides . One Slovak artillery officer detraining from Moravia was dismayed to be roundly abused at the station by a Slovak officer , who assumed from his rank that he must be a Czech . Some Czech troops sabotaged their equipment rather than let the Slovaks have it . Malár did manage to persuade a number of Czech officers to stay on temporarily to help Slovakia against the Hungarians , but the general confusion could not be adequately sorted out during the very brief period of hostilities with Hungary . These factors also prevented the remains of the Czechoslovak 3rd Rapid Division , which was based in the far west of the country from being deployed to good effect in the east . Its 3rd Tank Regiment was left with only 10 out of 60 officers and 222 out of 821 other ranks when all the Czech soldiers went home . This was a decisive disadvantage , because the regiment ' s 70 LT vz . 34 and LT vz . 35 light tanks , 30 ČKD / Praga Tančik vz . 33 tankettes , 3 OA vz . 27 and 10 OA vz . 30 armoured cars were more than a match for the five obsolete Fiat 3000B light tanks , 70 Ansaldo 35M tankettes and 3 Crossley 29M armoured cars of the Hungarian invasion force . The only armour Malár had available in Eastern Slovakia were the 8 OA vz . 30 armoured cars and nine LT vz . 35 light tanks which the Czechs had evacuated from Carpatho - Ukraine to Humene and Prešov . However , once in Slovakia their embittered Czech crews had sabotaged all of them . As a result , none of them were immediately available when the fighting started on March 23 . VI Corps . " Commander - in - Chief : Lieutenant - General Augustín Malár "