In Berlin, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Galeazzo Ciano and Saburō Kurusu sign the Three-Power Pact, in the presence of Adolf Hitler. The date of the instrument is 27 September 1940. It is not the Anti-Comintern Pact of 25 November 1936, and it is not the Pact of Steel of 22 May 1939.

The act is in triplicate. The Fascist era date is year 19; the Showa date is the 27th day of the ninth month of year 15. Hitler does not sign. Kurusu signs as ambassador, not Yosuke Matsuoka.

Article 1: Japan recognizes and respects the leadership of Germany and Italy in the establishment of a new order in Europe. Article 2: Germany and Italy recognize and respect the leadership of Japan in the establishment of a new order in Greater East Asia.

Article 3: the three assist one another with all political, economic and military means if one of them is attacked by a Power not at present involved in the European war or in the Chinese-Japanese conflict. The United States is not named. Article 4: joint technical commissions, without delay.

Article 5: the agreement does not affect the political status then existing between each of the three and Soviet Russia. Article 6: the pact comes into effect on signature and remains in force for ten years; before the term, at the request of any one of them, they negotiate its renewal.

It is not the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of 23 August 1939. It is not the accord of 11 December 1941, by which the three undertake not to conclude a separate armistice with the United States or England; that text invokes the present pact, but it is another instrument.

Hungary accedes on 20 November 1940, Romania on 23 November, Slovakia on 24 November, Bulgaria on 1 March 1941, Yugoslavia on 25 March 1941 — two days before the coup in Belgrade. The Independent State of Croatia signs on 15 June 1941. Those accessions are not on the Berlin instrument.

Ciano notes, on 20 November, that small states weaken the pact. The preamble speaks of a “new order” and of peace; the assistance clause in Article 3 remains defensive, written for a Power still outside the two wars.

Image: signing of the Tripartite Pact, Berlin, 27 September 1940; photographed at the Japan Foreign Ministry Archives, World Imaging, 2009; CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. Cropped to 16:9.

Source consulted: Tripartite Pact. Treaty text: Three-Power Pact, Berlin, 27 September 1940 (Avalon).