Hello everyone and thank you all once again for listening to the saga of World War II,

a Cassus Belly project. The website is still up at cassusbellypodcast.com, and of course we're

still streaming on SoundCloud. Again, it's been a while since our last installment, but I'm hoping to

pick up the pace and we've got some exciting stuff coming up, including Operation Barbarossa and the

sinking of the Bismarck.

But in this episode, we cover the invasion of Yugoslavia and Greece, the Battle for Crete,

and discuss the life and career of Erwin Rommel. There's some Greek names in this episode that

I'm not 100% sure how to pronounce, so please go easy on me. Okay, so I wasn't able to come up with a very clever name for

this episode, so I went with a simple one. Let's begin Episode 10, Battle on the Periphery.

Frankly and definitely there is danger ahead.

Danger against which we must prepare. We shall defend our island.

We shall defend our island, whatever the cross may be.

We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields, and in the streets,

we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender.

As 1941 marched on,

Hitler's plans for the Soviet Union were behind schedule.

Before invading, he needed to secure his right flank. As discussed previously,

Hungary and Romania had been brought into Nazi orbit, but two outliers remained. Mussolini's

disastrous invasion of Greece not only created a potential allied base of operations in the Balkans,

but also disrupted Hitler's carefully laid plans for the Balkans. In addition, Yugoslavia remained staunchly outside the German sphere of influence.

Both of these problems would be swiftly resolved.

Yugoslavia would come first.

...