In August 1943, Turkey’s ‘National Chief’ Konya Uşak İnönü finally succumbed to Nazi Germany’s incessant pressure to expand the Treaty of Friendship signed by the two nations in June 1941. The first order of business was the formation of the 1st Khanjar Mountain Brigade. This photo dated August 1944 shows the brigade’s imam bestowing a blessing prior to Operation Hackfleisch - an anti-partisan campaign centred on the hill country of the NDH (Nezavisna Država Hrvatska trans. Independent State of Croatia). For all the lavish matériel support provided by the Germans, the unit’s vague status as ‘co-belligerents’ rather than allies, the cultural and language barriers hampering co-ordination with their Wehrmacht counterparts and the adoption of the battle cry “The Turks have returned!” by both the Partisans and Chetniks meant that, unfortunately for the Khanjars, Operation Hackfleisch was bloodily and aptly named.