Balkan Pact

For other meanings, see Balkan Pact (disambiguation).
Balkan Pact
Βαλκανικό Σύμφωνο
Balkan Antantı
Înțelegerea Balcanică
Балкански пакт
Military alliance
1934–1938
Members of the Balkan Pact
Balkan Pact:
Capital Not specified
Political structure Military alliance
Historical era Interwar
 •  Formation 9 February 1934
 •  Dissolved 1938

The Balkan Pact was a treaty signed by Greece, Turkey, Romania and Yugoslavia—the Balkan Entente—on February 9, 1934[1] in Athens,[2] aimed at maintaining the geopolitical status quo in the region following World War I. The signatories agreed to suspend all disputed territorial claims against each other and their immediate neighbors following the aftermath of the war and a rise in various regional ethnic minority tensions. Other nations in the region that had been involved in related diplomacy refused to sign the document, including Italy, Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, and the Soviet Union. Nonsignatories were mostly those governments with territorial expansion in mind. The pact became effective on the day it was signed. It was registered in the League of Nations Treaty Series on 1 October 1934.[3]

The Balkan Pact helped to ensure peace between the signatory nations, but failed to stem regional intrigue. The countries of the pact surrounded Bulgaria, but on 31 July 1938 they signed an agreement with her in Salonika, repealing those clauses of the Treaty of Neuilly and Treaty of Lausanne that mandated demilitarised zones on the Greco-Bulgarian and -Turkish borders, and allowing Bulgaria to re-arm herself.

Subsequently, during World War II, a re-armed Bulgaria indeed attempted to forcibly challenge the status quo, but its alliance with the losing Axis powers ensured that its attempts remained unsuccessful.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Pact of Balkan Agreement Between Yugoslavia, Greece, Romania and Turkey
  2. ↑ Army History Directorate, An Abridged History of the Greek-Italian and Greek-German War, 1940-1941: Land Operations, Hellenic Army General Staff, Army History Directorate, 1997, p. 2.
  3. ↑ League of Nations Treaty Series, vol. 153, pp. 154-159.

External links

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