Balkan Pact

For the 1953 Balkan Pact, see Balkan Pact (1953).
Balkan Pact

1940 Romanian stamp featuring the Balkan Entente

Members of the Balkan Pact
Formation February 9, 1934
Extinction 1938
Type Military treaty
Region served
 The Balkans
Membership


Official language
 Greek, Turkish, Romanian, Serbo-Croatian

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 October 1, 1934.[3]

The Balkan Pact helped to ensure peace between Turkey and the independent countries in southeastern Europe that had been part of the Ottoman Empire, most importantly Greece, 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. From its strengthened position, Bulgaria would occupy parts of Yugoslavia and Greece during the Second World War.

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