On 29 September 1938 a conference was held in Munich of the four European powers: Britain, France, Italy and Germany. They were represented round the table by Chamberlain, Daladier, Mussolini and Hitler. Though the fate of Czechoslovakia was being decided, no representative of that country had been invited. The decision reached by the conference — the cession of Czechoslovakia's border territories, mainly inhabited by Sudeten Germans — did not require approval by the Czechoslovak government. It amounted to an ultimatum whose rejection would mean war. Amongst the signatories of the ultimatum were Czechoslovakia's allies France and Britain, who had helped to bring into existence the joint state of the Western Slavs, Czechs and Slovaks, in 1918. Munich became a symbol for the cynical misuse of the right of nations to self-determination, a symbol in international affairs for the cowardly abandonment of an ally and of surrender in face of imperialist despotism.