Japan wanted a pact aimed at the USSR; Germany and Italy, at Britain and France. Tokyo declined. The instrument, Italo-German only, was signed on 22 May 1939, at the Reich Chancellery in Berlin. For the Reich: Joachim von Ribbentrop. For the King of Italy and Albania, Emperor of Ethiopia: Count Galeazzo Ciano. Mussolini changed the name from "Pact of Blood" to "Pact of Steel". The official title: Pact of Friendship and Alliance between Germany and Italy. It enters into force on signature, for ten years. German and Italian.

The preamble speaks of the "bridge" of the common frontier, "fixed for all time", of Lebensraum and of "the foundations of European culture". Article I: permanent contact on common interests and the European situation as a whole. Article II: if those interests are jeopardised, immediate consultation; if the security of one is threatened from outside, the other gives full political and diplomatic support.

Article III: if one is drawn, "against the wishes and hopes" of the parties, into military complications, the other immediately steps to its side with all its might on land, at sea and in the air. Article IV: military and war-economy cooperation; standing commissions under the foreign ministers. Article V: armistice and peace only by joint agreement. Article VI: relations with friendly powers. The secret protocol, two parts: faster military-economic cooperation; press, news and propaganda, with specialists in the capitals.

The alliance assumed that war would not come within three years. On 1 September 1939 Germany attacked Poland; Italy was not ready and stayed out until June 1940, the invasion of southern France. In September 1943 the Badoglio government signed an armistice with the Allies. The Italian Social Republic kept the pact in name only.

This is not the 1936 Anti-Comintern Pact and not the 1940 Tripartite Pact, with Japan. The cover is the Bekanntmachung in Reichsgesetzblatt Part II no. 25, 22 June 1939, with the text of the pact; the Commons file labelled Patto-acciaio is the ceremony of 27 September 1940.

Sources: Pact of Steel; Pact of Friendship and Alliance between Germany and Italy.