Background and The Agreement
Further information: Germany–Japan relationsThe three nations agreed that for the next ten years they would "stand by and co-operate with one another in... their prime purpose to establish and maintain a new order of things... to promote the mutual prosperity and welfare of the peoples concerned." They recognized each other's spheres of interest and undertook "to assist one another with all political, economic and military means when one of the three contracting powers is attacked" by a country not already involved in the war, excluding the Soviet Union.
The pact supplemented the Anti-Comintern Pact of 1936 and helped heal the rift that had developed between Japan and Germany following the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between Germany and the Soviet Union.
The Tripartite Pact was subsequently joined by Hungary (November 20, 1940), Romania (November 23, 1940), Slovakia (November 24, 1940), Bulgaria (March 1, 1941, prior to the arrival of German troops), Yugoslavia (March 25, 1941), and Croatia (June 15, 1941).
Read more about this topic: Tripartite Pact
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