On 6 April 1941, Axis forces invaded the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Poorly equipped and poorly trained, the Royal Yugoslav Army was quickly defeated. The country was then dismembered. The extreme Croatian nationalist and fascist Ante Pavelić, who had been in exile in Benito Mussolini's Italy, was appointed "Poglavnik" (leader) of an Ustasha-led Croatian state – the Independent State of Croatia (, NDH). The NDH combined almost all of modern-day Croatia, all of modern-day Bosnia and Herzegovina and parts of modern-day Serbia into an "Italian-German quasi-protectorate." NDH authorities, led by the Ustasha Militia, subsequently implemented genocidal policies against the Serb, Jewish and Romani populations living within the borders of the new state.