Italy's position in the war with Greece was precarious, and Yugoslavia was cozying up to Germany's

enemies. So Adolf Hitler ordered the Wehrmacht into the Balkans, even at the cost of postponing Operation Barbarossa.

Welcome to the history of the 20th century.

The 20th century.

The Episode 343, The Balkan Detour.

As I promised last time, I'm going to talk about the German invasions in the Balkans today.

But before I get into that, I want to talk about the other topic I dangled in front of you at the end of last week's episode, the April 1st, 1941 coup in Iraq.

All the way back in episode 192, I told you that in 1932, Iraq won full independence from Britain, or so it was called,

and became a member of the League of Nations.

But this independence agreement also allowed the British military basing rights in the country.

The Iraqi king, Faisal I, had been installed on his throne by the British when Iraq was a British mandate,

and he continued to reign as king after Iraqi independence.

In August 1933, less than a year after Iraq became independent, an irregular force of Kurds in the northern part of the country

massacred thousands of ethnic Assyrians in and around the town of Simula in northern Iraq.

These Assyrians were refugees from the Ottoman atrocities of the First World War. They had been resettled in Iraq by the British.

This made the Assyrians into staunch supporters of British rule to the point of massacring the anti-British Kurds during the uprising against British rule in the early 20s.

Now that the British were no longer in charge, the Kurds took their revenge.

As a side note, a 33-year-old Polish lawyer named Raphael Lemkin had taken an interest in the history

of persecution and massacre of minority groups, including the then-recent mass killings of Armenians in the history of persecution and massacre of minority groups,

including the then-recent mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during the First World War.

In an era when there were those willing to argue that the internal affairs of a nation were no one else's business,

Lemkin argued the contrary, declaring,

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