Four Power Pact

The Four-Power Pact also known as a Quadripartite Agreement was an international treaty initialed on June 7, 1933, and signed on July 15, 1933, in the Palazzo Venezia, Rome. The pact was not ratified by France's Parliament.

March 19, 1933 Benito Mussolini called for the creation of the Four-Power Pact as a better means of insuring international security. Under this plan, smaller nations would have less of a voice in Great Power politics. Representatives of Britain, France, Germany, and Italy signed a diluted version of Premier Benito Mussolini's Four-Power Pact proposal. Mussolini’s chief motive in suggesting the pact was the wish for closer Franco-Italian relations. If Mussolini’s purpose of the pact was to calm Europe’s nerves, he achieved the opposite result. The treaty reaffirmed each country's adherence to the Covenant of the League of Nations, the Locarno Treaties, and the Kellogg-Briand Pact. The Pact was intended to be the solution to the issue of how sovereign powers could come together and operate in an orderly way. Premier Mussolini's goal was to reduce the power of the small states in the League of Nations with a block of major powers.

The Four-Power Pact had little significance but is not completely devoid of merit. Mussolini’s Four-Power Pact was supposed to be a solution. The exploitation of the balance of power was at interest to Italy and also appealed to the British. However, the pact did face speculation among the French and Germans; London and Rome were close enough to mediate between Paris and Berlin. France was justifiably alarmed.

The document that was signed bore little resemblance to the initial proposal. In practice, the Four-Power Pact proved of little significance in international affairs, although it was one of the factors contributing to the German-Polish Non-Aggression Pact of 1934.

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