[5] But the pact's 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.

[8] The Governments of Japan, Germany, and Italy consider it as the condition precedent of any lasting peace that all nations in the world be given each its own proper place, have decided to stand by and co-operate with one another in their efforts in Greater East Asia and the regions of Europe respectively wherein it is their prime purpose to establish and maintain a new order of things, calculated to promote the mutual prosperity and welfare of the peoples concerned.

With a view to implementing the present pact, joint technical commissions, to be appointed by the respective Governments of Japan, Germany and Italy, will meet without delay.

Japan, Germany and Italy affirm that the above agreement affects in no way the political status existing at present between each of the three Contracting Powers and Soviet Russia.

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 Deutsches Nachrichtenbüro [de] (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[11]) instead of "accede to" were used.

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.

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".

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

[17] 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.

With no possibility of resisting Germany militarily, Prime Minister Bogdan Filov signed Bulgaria's accession to the pact in Vienna on 1 March 1941.

Seventeen opposition deputies submitted an interpellation and one, Ivan Petrov, asked why the National Assembly had not been consulted in advance and whether the pact involved Bulgaria in war.

The new Yugoslav government under Prime Minister and General Dušan Simović, refused to ratify Yugoslavia's signing of the Tripartite Pact and started negotiations with the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union.

[22] The Independent State of Croatia (Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, or NDH), created from some former territories of the conquered Yugoslavia, signed the Tripartite Pact on 15 June 1941.

In November, Finland signed the Anti-Comintern Pact, an anticommunist agreement directed against the Soviet Union, with many other countries allied with Germany.

The Japanese ambassador, Teiji Tsubokami, told the Thai foreign minister, Direk Jayanama, that Japan wanted only permission for its troops to pass through Thailand to attack the British in Malaya and Burma.

Phibun then met with Tsubokami, who offered him four options: to conclude a defensive–offensive alliance with Japan, to join the Tripartite Pact, to co-operate in Japanese military operations, or to agree to the joint defence of Thailand.

Germany and Japan conducted separate naval discussions, and Italy consulted the Japanese independently for its planned assault on Malta in 1942.

Italy was invited to sign a similar agreement in Rome at the same time for propaganda purposes, but none of the supplementary Berlin protocols applied to Italo-Japanese relations.

[29] ARTICLE I. Italy, Germany and Japan will henceforth conduct in common and jointly a war which has been imposed on them by the United States of America and England, by all means at their disposal and until the end of hostilities.

Italy, Germany and Japan undertake each for himself that none of the parties to the present accord will conclude either armistice or peace, be it with the United States or with England without complete and reciprocal agreement [of the three signatories to this pact].

It persuaded the American public that Japan was acting in concert with Germany, which played into broader narratives of a coordinated Axis effort to dominate globally.

[35]Moreover, the Pact's ideological underpinnings, rooted in global fascism and the aggressive ambitions for a new world order by its signatories, underscored the broader Axis strategy against the Allies.