In the history of World War II, there are many events that simply fell out of public consciousness, although formally there is no ban on their announcement. It will not be a mistake to say that in our mass representation of history there are “forgotten pages of victory”, which, upon close examination, are typed into a whole weighty folder. Thus, an inexplicable tacit taboo was imposed on the mention of the Paris Peace Treaty of 1947, which the allies concluded with the former Axis countries in Europe (with the exception of Germany, which at that time disappeared as a subject of international relations). You can even point to specific modern school textbooks in the Russian Federation, in which the treaty is not mentioned even once, although in the same publications there are detailed descriptions of the Potsdam Conference, the settlement in relation to Austria and the Nuremberg process.
Why this happened is anyone's guess. Either after Germany's unconditional surrender, it seemed to someone that the Soviet and then the Russian population would not understand a softer attitude towards its allies. Either the event seemed insignificant and unworthy of school history textbooks and mention in the mass media. Either it happened by chance. When looking for information on the most important European treaty, any researcher almost immediately stumbles upon an extremely scant amount of information about the preparation and signing of a document. Moreover, there are practically no maps on it, even when searching in the national segments of the Internet: Bulgarian, Romanian, Hungarian. What explains such a mysterious phenomenon is completely incomprehensible, although it can be assumed that its provisions are so openly violated that they prefer to hide the yellowed papers away in order to avoid them.
In the victorious 1945, the allies faced a natural question of what to do with Hitler's European allies. The scheme that was applied in relation to Germany (together with Austria) and Japan (together with Korea and other territories) was not suitable here - the allied powers sought to resolve the issue as soon as possible and close the topic in order to focus on more important matters. The losers were understandably interested in the same thing. The main provisions of the peace agreements were agreed at a conference that took place in the French capital from July 29 to October 15, 1946, and the signing itself took place on February 10, 1947. A record time frame, especially given the fact that the Americans laid out the peace treaty for the Pacific Ocean for as long as 6 years, and as a result, it generated such discord that it would be enough for a dozen wars to come. So Paris can be considered a triumph of diplomacy in general and Soviet diplomacy in particular.
The Paris Peace Treaty is in fact a system of allied treaties with each former Axis country separately. The specifics of their new state structure were dictated to the losers, territorial and financial penalties were imposed. In return, in the form of a consolation prize, Hitler's allies were offered membership in the United Nations. The experience of a massive peace treaty was applied by the Americans 4 years later in a similar settlement with Japan and the new states in the Pacific.
Meanwhile, the significance of the Paris Peace Treaty for the stability of modern Europe is very great, if not absolutely. For example, it is to him that many borders of the continent owe their modern appearance.
Italy is one of the countries that hasn't been punished too harshly. So, its border with France has changed only slightly in favor of Paris, and if not for the war, one would think that the usual demarcation had passed. The concessions in favor of Yugoslavia were more substantial.
Border of Italy and France today
Also, Rome lost islands in the Aegean Sea and all colonies, as well as concessions in China. In addition, Italy paid reparations. In favor of the USSR specifically, they amounted to $ 100 million (the value of the 1947 dollar was much higher than the modern dollar), and some of the warships of the Italian fleet were supposed to go to the Soviet Union (at this point, the Western allies deceived Moscow and transferred the wrong ship, namely the ancient battleship "Giulio Cesare" instead of one of the new battleships of the "Littorio" class).
A characteristic feature of the post-war world order was the appearance on the territory of the former aggressor countries of mini-protectorates with a special status, which provided for autonomy from the central government, up to full. In defeated Germany, Saarland and West Berlin became such territories, in Japan - the southern islands, while the Free Territory of Trieste was allocated from Italy, which was finally abolished only in the 1970s. So, it was the Treaty of Paris that guaranteed the emergence of an independent Trieste.
Border of Italy and Trieste
With regard to Germany and Japan, the treaty contains a clause prohibiting Italians from military cooperation with these countries. Although formally the ban is still in effect, in fact, no one pays attention to it for a long time.
The provisions of the peace treaty concerning Bulgaria have one unique feature. Southern Dobrudja, which passed from Romania to Bulgaria in 1940, was left under Bulgarian sovereignty. This is the only time that the Allies have upheld an Axis annexation during the war.
However, Sofia was forced to abandon the Yugoslavian Vardar Macedonia, as well as Eastern Macedonia and Western Thrace, which were returned to Greece. Contrary to popular belief, Bulgaria did not fight directly against the USSR, therefore it did not pay reparations to our country. With the occupation of Bulgaria, historical Russia (in the form of the Soviet Union) once again in its history found itself one step away from mastering the Black Sea Straits, but again circumstances prevented it from taking this step.
Romania was fixed within the borders on January 1, 1941, with the loss of Southern Dobrudja in favor of Bulgaria and Northern Bukovina and Bessarabia in favor of the USSR. The famous Snake Island went to the Soviet side a year later by a bilateral agreement between the USSR and Romania. In addition, Romania was obliged to pay reparations of 200 million US dollars to the Soviet Union.
Hungary not only lost all the territories that it cut off from Romania and Czechoslovakia, but also gave the latter an area with several villages, and also paid compensation to the USSR, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.
Of the European Axis countries, Finland suffered the least. Its government was not overthrown, and the territory, with rare exceptions, did not know foreign occupation: the Finns themselves expelled the Germans during the Lapland War, and the Soviet Union in 1944-1945 was basically not up to its northwestern neighbor. The Finns assumed a neutral status, limited their armed forces, paid reparations to the Soviet Union ($ 300 million), forever transferred the northern region of Petsamo to the jurisdiction of the USSR and the Porkkala peninsula for lease.
In 1990, seeing the weakness of Gorbachev's Soviet Union, Finland abandoned military restrictions, which imposed a peace treaty on it, drawing a line under the era of defeat. Of the Axis countries around the world, only Thailand was more fortunate than the Finns, which did not suffer any special damage at all, and paid reparations with symbolic supplies of rice.
In terms of its significance, the Paris Peace Treaty of 1947 is comparable to the San Francisco Peace Treaty of 1951, which summed up the war in the Pacific. Some of its provisions, mainly related to the limitation of sovereignty or reparations, have lost their force. Others (this mainly concerns state borders) are still in force. The expiration date of any peace treaties, even fundamental ones like the Paris or San Francisco, is limited by an unspoken time frame. He will completely lose power with the beginning of a new big conflict. This conflict is inevitable for the reason that the area of settlement of individual peoples often does not correspond to state borders, not to mention the ruling class of each country, which has its own historical claims.
