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 hour 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 exclusively Slovaks or Rusyns. Unlike the earlier Vienna Award, the annexed territories were not justified on ethnic grounds. (The Hungarians justified this under the grounds that the Vienna Award had been an arbitration between Hungary and Czechoslovakia, the latter of which having ceased to exist a few days earlier.)