With the establishment of the Protectorate, there was no official place for the Czech diplomatic service. As a last ruling, under German pressure, the Foreign Ministry ordered all Czechoslovak ambassadors to close their embassies and to transfer them to the Germans. Patriotic clerks hoped that the ambassadors, free from direct Nazi pressure, would disobey the order and keep the embassies for the future benefit of the government-in-exile. As a last resort, if the host government were hostile to them, they should transfer their embassy to the host government, rather than Germany.