region refused to pay Kurds the jizya, and "by way of reprisal 4350 Nestroians were slaughtered, about 400 women and children were reduced to slavery and all their houses and churches destroyed". Historians have noted that in "Kurdistan Jews, Nestorians and Armenians were subject to tallage and corvees at whim of authorities". Historians have noted that Bedir Khan Beg (also known as Bedirhan) called the Kurdish Muslims to fight a sacred war against Christian Syriac, Nestorian, Chaldean and Armenian people and ordered to massacre and annihilate them". Kurdish writers have recounted that "the Kurdish troops attacked the Assyrians and started slaughters. Consequently, a few Assyrians were killed, their villages were destroyed and set into fire... For the second time, in 1846, the Assyrians residing at the Thuma region have been massacred...." British writer William Eagleton said that "in 1843 and 1846, Bedirhan started a massacre and booting campaign against the Christian Assyrians (Nestorians) he was anxious about whose getting stronger and independent through becoming able to rule themselves. It was intolerable for Bedirhan to see the Assyrians living on his own territories getting stronger. Thus he killed ten thousand Assyrians. Even though Bedirhan was a feudal tribal leader, he was expressing the aspirations of Kurdish nationalism." Kurdish and Arab attacks on Assyrians continued, culminating in the August 1933 Simele massacres. About 3000 Assyrians were killed in that single month alone. Beginning in August 1933 Iraqi soldiers and Kurdish militia killed thousands of Assyrias in Simele (Iraq). The massacre had a big influence on Raphael Lemkin, the jurist who coined the word "genocide. The Simmele Massacre is also commemorated yearly with the official Assyrian Martyrs Day on 7 August. The massacre was carried out by the Iraqi Army, led by Kurdish General Bakir Sidqi, and Kurdish and Arab irregulars. There were about 3,000 victims of the massacre. Kurdish-Christian Armenian relations were bitter at the turn of the 19th century and land conflicts were a major problem. Many Christians and Europeans regarded the Kurds as barbarians and a major threat, the French consul at Erzurum describing them as a blood-thirsty savage population which is used to plundering and a nomadic life. Kurds also played a major part in the Ottoman army, also through the Hamidiye. The Kurdish chieftain Bedr Khan during his rise to power massacred about 10,000 Assyrians in 1842. Nestorian tribes were massacred by Kurds in 1843. In 1915 Kurds