Tripartite Pact

The Tripartite Pact, also known as the Berlin Pact, was an agreement between Germany, Italy, and Japan signed in Berlin on 27 September 1940 by, respectively, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Galeazzo Ciano and Saburō Kurusu. It was a defensive military alliance that was eventually joined by Hungary (20 November 1940), Romania (23 November 1940), Bulgaria (1 March 1941) and Yugoslavia (25 March 1941) as well as by the German client state of Slovakia (24 November 1940). Yugoslavia's accession provoked a ''coup d'état'' in Belgrade two days later. Germany, Italy and Hungary responded by invading Yugoslavia. The resulting Italo-German client state, known as the Independent State of Croatia, joined the pact on 15 June 1941.

The Tripartite Pact was, together with the Anti-Comintern Pact and the Pact of Steel, one of a number of agreements between Germany, Japan, Italy, and other countries of the Axis Powers governing their relationship.

The Tripartite Pact was directed primarily at the United States. Its practical effects were limited since the Italo-German and Japanese operational theatres were on opposite sides of the world, and the high contracting powers had disparate strategic interests. As such the Axis was only ever a loose alliance. Its defensive clauses were never invoked, and signing the agreement did not oblige its signatories to fight a common war ''per se''.

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Background

Although Germany and Japan technically became allies with the signing of Anti-Comintern Pact of 1936, the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact between Germany and the Soviet Union came as a surprise to Japan. In November 1939, Germany and Japan signed the "Agreement for Cultural Cooperation between Japan and Germany", which restored the "reluctant alliance" between them.

Later signatories

In a ceremonial speech following the signing of the pact on 27 September, Ribbentrop may have suggested that the signatories were open to accepting new signatories in the future. The '' Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung'' (DAZ) reported his words as follows:

The purpose of the Pact is, above all things, to help restore peace to the world as quickly as possible. Therefore any other State which wishes to accede to this bloc (''der diesem Block beitreten will''), with the intention of contributing to the restoration of peaceful conditions, will be sincerely and gratefully made welcome and will participate in the economic and political reorganisation.

The official ' (DNB), however, as well as most of the press, reported a slightly different version in which the words "having good will towards the pact" (''der diesem Pakt wohlwollend gegenübertreten will'') instead of "accede to" were used. It is likely that other nations were not envisioned to join the treaty and that Ribbentrop misspoke. The official record in the DNB, therefore, corrected his words to remove any reference to "accession" by other states but produced an awkward wording in the process.

The Italian foreign minister, Ciano, was resolutely opposed to the idea of adding smaller states to the pact as late as 20 November 1940; he argued in his diary that they weakened the pact and were useless bits of diplomacy.

Hungary

The Kingdom of Hungary was the fourth state to sign the pact and the first to join it after 27 September 1940. The Hungarian ambassador in Berlin, Döme Sztójay, telegraphed his foreign minister, István Csáky, immediately after news of the signing and of Ribbentrop's speech had reached him. He urged Csáky to join the pact and even claimed that it was the expectation of Germany and Italy that he would do so. He considered it especially important for Hungary to sign the pact before Romania did. In response, Csáky asked Sztójay and the ambassador in Rome, Frigyes Villani, to make enquiries regarding Hungary's accession and its potential obligations under the pact. On 28 September, the German secretary of state for foreign affairs, Ernst von Weizsäcker, informed Hungary that Ribbentrop had meant not a "formal accession" but merely "an attitude in the spirit of the Pact". The Italian answer was similar. Nonetheless, within a week, the Hungarian government had sent out formal notice of its "spiritual adherence" to the pact.

In the week after Hungary's "spiritual adherence", the Balkan situation changed. Germany granted a Romanian request to send troops to guard the Ploiești oil fields, and Hungary granted a German request to allow its troops to transit Hungary to get to Romania. On 7 October 1940, the first German troops arrived in Ploiești. It is probable that Romania's accession to the pact had been delayed until the German troops were in place for fear of the Soviets taking pre-emptive action to secure the oil fields for themselves. In turn, Hungary's accession had been delayed until Romania's had been negotiated. On about 9 October, Weizsäcker delivered a message from Ribbentrop to Sztójay to inform him that Hitler now wanted "friendly states" to join the pact. In a telephone conversation with Ciano on 9 or 10 October, Ribbentrop claimed that Hungary had sent a second request to join the pact. Mussolini reluctantly consented. On 12 October, Ribbentrop informed Sztójay that both Italy and Japan had consented to Hungary's accession. Since the Hungarian regent, Miklós Horthy, had specifically instructed Sztójay to ask for Hungary to be the first new state to accede to the pact, Ribbentrop granted the request.

Romania

The Kingdom of Romania had joined the Allied Powers in World War I and had received Transylvania from Austria-Hungary. After Germany and Italy awarded parts of Transylvania back to Hungary and Southern Dobruja back to Bulgaria and after the Soviet Union had taken Bessarabia and northern Bukovina, the Fascist Iron Guard party came to power and Romania joined the Tripartite Pact on November 23, 1940 because of the Romanian desire for protection against the Soviet Union.

In Marshal Ion Antonescu's affidavit read out at the IG Farben Trial (1947–1948), he stated that the agreement on entering the pact had been concluded before his visit to Berlin on 22 November 1940.

Slovakia

On 14 March 1939, the Slovak Republic was declared in the midst of the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia. Hitler invited Monsignor Jozef Tiso to be the new nation's leader. Soon after it was formed, Slovakia was involved in a war with neighboring Hungary. Slovakia had signed a "Protection Treaty" with Germany, which, however, refused to intervene. The war resulted in territorial gains by Hungary at Slovakia's expense. Even so, Slovakia supported the German invasion of Poland in 1939.

Shortly after the signing of the Tripartite Pact, Slovakia, following the Hungarian lead, sent messages of "spiritual adherence" to Germany and Italy.

On 24 November 1940, the day after Romania signed the pact, the Slovak prime minister and foreign minister, Vojtech Tuka, went to Berlin to meet Ribbentrop and signed Slovakia's accession to the Tripartite Pact. His purpose was to increase Tuka's standing in Slovakia relative to that of his rival, Tiso, although the Germans had no intention of permitting Tiso to be removed.

Bulgaria

The Kingdom of Bulgaria had been an ally of Germany and on the losing side in World War I. From the beginning, the Germans pressured Bulgaria to join the Tripartite Pact. On 17 November 1940, Tsar Boris III and Foreign Minister met with Hitler in Germany. According to Hermann Neubacher, Germany's special envoy to the Balkans, Bulgaria's relation to the Axis powers was completely settled at that meeting. On 23 November, however, the Bulgarian ambassador in Berlin, Peter Draganov, informed the Germans that while Bulgaria had agreed in principle to join the pact, it wished to delay its signing for the time being.

The meeting with Hitler precipitated a visit to Bulgaria by the Soviet diplomat Arkady Sobolev on 25 November. He encouraged the Bulgarians to sign a mutual assistance pact that had first been discussed in October 1939. He offered Soviet recognition of Bulgarian claims in Greece and Turkey. The Bulgarian government, however, was disturbed by the subversive actions of the Bulgarian Communist Party in response to the talks, apparently at the Soviets' urging.

On 26 December 1940, the far-right politician Alexander Tsankov introduced a motion in the National Assembly urging the government to accede to the Tripartite Pact immediately, but it was voted down.

Bulgaria's hand was finally forced by Germany's desire to intervene in the Italo-Greek War, which would require moving troops through Bulgaria. With no possibility of resisting Germany militarily, Prime Minister Bogdan Filov signed Bulgaria's accession to the pact in Vienna on 1 March 1941. He announced that it was done partly in gratitude for Germany's assistance to Bulgaria in obtaining the Treaty of Craiova with Romania and that it would not affect Bulgaria's relations with Turkey or the Soviet Union. Later that day, Ribbentrop promised Filov that after the fall of Greece, Bulgaria would obtain an Aegean coastline between the Struma and Maritsa

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