More than five hours later, three planes slowly landed at the Baghdad capital airport under the cover of 24 of Germany's newest TA152 fighters.

On the Iraqi side, the 27-year-old previous king, Ghazi ibn Faisal, died in a car accident while driving a Buick sports car on April 4, so the throne was taken over by his son Felsa II, who was born in 1935 at the age of four.

So the Iraqi government was not responsible for the king, but the regent Abdul Ilah.

And Abdul Ila himself is not capable, and the reason why he can become the regent is all because he has the support of Nuri Yisayd behind him.

Born in Baghdad in 1888, Nuri al-Al Yasid participated in the great Arab uprising led by Hussein ibn Ali in the Hejaz in 1916 as a staff officer and fought in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria against Ottoman rule.

After France ousted Faisal from the Syrian throne in 1920, Nuri followed Faisal to Iraq, where he became Chief of Staff of the Royal Iraqi Army in 1921, assisting Faisal I.

In 1922 he became the first supreme commander of the Iraqi National Police, a position he used to put his cronies in prominent positions in the police system in order to control the entire police system. He repeated this tactic in his later positions, which became the basis for his later acquisition of great political power.

In 1929 Faisal suggested appointing Nouri as Prime Minister of Iraq, but the British opposed it (Iraq became a British "Mandate" in 1920), and it was not until 1930 that Faisal finally persuaded the British that Nouri became Prime Minister of Iraq for the first time.

As with all other positions, he was quick to appoint his supporters as government officials, but this weakened the king's own foundations in the government, and the relationship between the two men began to break down.

In 1930, Nouri signed the Anglo-Iranian Treaty, a 25-year treaty of alliance that was opposed by many, including King Faisal, because it effectively consolidated British power.

In October 1932, the frustrated Faisal dismissed Nuri as prime minister, transferred him to the post of representative to the League of Nations, and appointed Naji Shekat to take over as prime minister, which reduced Nouri's influence. Despite this, Nouri still had a lot of influence in the army, and he was trusted by the British.

When the Hicommet Revolution broke out in 1936, Nouri, who was still Foreign Secretary at the time, fled to the British Embassy to seek political asylum.

He returned to Baghdad in August 1937 and began to plot a return to power, but his ties to the army made the then Prime Minister Jamil Midfe very uneasy, and Midfeld approached the British and told them that it was best to get Nuri abroad, and the British persuaded Nuri to make him Iraq's ambassador to Britain for some reason.

But Nuri was a tyrant, and he was not willing to favor a couple, so in October 1938, Nuri returned to Baghdad and became Minister of the Interior.

In order to regain the center of power, Nuri convinces his friends in the army to support him in overthrowing Midfay's government.

On December 24, 1938, the Iraqi army staged a military mutiny, and Nuri became prime minister again.

Nuri's lack of regard for the king naturally upset the young and vigorous Gazi ibn Faisal (the previous king, Felsa the Elder, who died in September 1933), so he confronted Nuri on all fronts, while increasing his influence in the army.

Ghazi's co-opting of the army seriously threatened Nuri, causing him to become wary and try to isolate the king, raising the status of Ghazi's brother, Prince Zeid, to make him a candidate for succession to the throne.

At the same time, Ghazi's increasingly nationalist speeches on his private radio station were so displeased with the British that the British were secretly supporting Nouri's approach.

In January 1939, Ghazi appointed Rashid Ali Gharani, a high-ranking officer in the army who supported him, as the head of the Imperial Council, which angered Nuri even more. In March of the same year, Nuri took action against his opponent - he claimed to have uncovered a plot to murder Ghazi and used this as a pretext to purge army officers.

In April of the same year, King Ghazi I died suddenly in a car accident, which made many people suspect that Nuri had done something in it, and even at Ghazi's funeral, many people directly shouted: "Nuri, you will be responsible for Ghazi's blood." ”

Regardless of whether Ghazi really died at the hands of Nuri, there was always one less trouble for Nuri.

After the four-year-old Felsa II ascended the throne, in order to consolidate his position, Nuri elected Abdul Ilah, who had little ability but was more obedient to him, as the regent, so as to achieve the goal of controlling the whole of Iraq.

But he never expected that as the European side became more and more fierce, Britain gradually began to take care of Iraq flawlessly, which made one of the chess pieces that Ghazi had buried during his lifetime - Rashid Ali Gallani, the head of the Imperial Council, begin to move.

Rashid, like Ghazi, embraced nationalism and wanted to save his own nation and country from British control. However, because Britain had been keeping an eye on Iraq's oil resources, he had no chance to implement his ideals, so he had to wait for the opportunity.

And now the opportunity has finally come, Britain's attention is firmly drawn to Western Europe by the millions of German troops, and the home fleet has been heavily damaged by German naval aviation in the previous Battle of New Jutland, so that they have to assemble the powerful Mediterranean Fleet in the North Sea to fight the German high seas fleet, which has given Iraq an unprecedented environment!

As a result, Rashid changed his previous attitude of forbearance and immediately issued the slogan "Iraq is Iraqi for Iraqis, and Iraqi oil is Iraqi oil for Iraqis," and used his connections in the army to establish an anti-British officer corps called the "Golden Phalanx."

The German Gestapo Iraq quickly sniffed the opportunity and immediately sent someone to contact Rashid to explain Germany's support for the Iraqi independence movement and its willingness to provide limited arms aid.

Rashid was overjoyed when he heard this, and immediately said that as long as Iraq succeeded in freeing itself from the control of the British, he would be willing to help his German friends fight against the "evil European powers."

The two sides quickly agreed on a concrete course of action, and the first German arms aid – 15,000 G41 automatic rifles and more than 600 MG42 general-purpose machine guns and their ammunition – was soon delivered to neutral Turkey via Italian transport ships, and then to Rashid in Iraq, bypassing French-ruled Syria.