The Haywood Doctrine
Under the rulership of Bill Haywood, Texas began the systematic disruption of the balance of world power that would lead to the Great War some short time later. Texas took an increasingly aggressive posture towards the nations of unaffiliated Europe.
Before, the threat of the United States allying with a foreign power kept the expansionist tendencies of Texas in check. Now the concept of manifest destiny was being adapted to the world - the Mission to Civilize was the beating heart of Texan national philosophy, and it terrified the standing European powers.
In 1907, the time had come for action. Haywood formally demanded Greece repudiate its claims on the Aegean Republic, a direct puppet of Texas. Greece, pursuing the same policy that had driven it for nearly half a century, refused.
The response was swift: Haywood declared war on Greece. Austria, the Greeks' major patron state, interceded on their behalf. And the world watched nervously as Texas entered another international struggle.
Houston's corps - the same that had intervened in Tunis some time before - forced a landing in Croatia, swiftly liberating the natives from Austrian rule. Meanwhile, ten new vessels prowled the Adriatic for Austrian response forces.
The result of the first contact was catastrophic. The Texan submarine boats systematically obliterated the majority of the Austrian navy, and terror thereof pinned the rest in port. The Texan navy could now operate without sea-based interference.
By early 1908, the Texan assault had been bolstered by a second landing corps, another 17 divisions and a massive force of artillery strong.
And in Greece, the regular army -- weaker than defense schemas had projected due to the Austrians being bottled up in the Adriatic - had been forced into the hill country, allowing a combined South African and Korean force to take Athens. The Koreans, the senior of the two states, had the honor or hoisting their flag above the Parthenon.
Also pictured is the
South Africa, the most powerful ship Texas had ever made, patrolling the Aegean.
Late in 1908, the Texan military swept over the Slavic dominions of Austria without heavy opposition. Some blamed the swift expansion on the Austrian army's significant distraction from Russia, a Texan ally (which was, itself, fighting a war in China which prevented it from throwing its full weight into the battle), others on the Slavs' resentment of Austrian rule. But the most telling factor was experience; the Texans had been taught modern warfare a decade ago in the hills and forests of Minnesota, and the Austrians had to adapt quickly to survive in the face of poison gas and heavy artillery.
The Austrians were breaking hard.
Meanwhile, Greece was a scene of chaos. The communist revolt in Tripolis was put down, and the Dominion forces expelled from Athens - they would go on to land in the Ionian Islands and West Crete, respectively - and the Greeks were more or less in control of their country.
Then came the Battle of Lamia.
On June 8, 1909, a force of roughly 40,000 men attacked Lamia by sea and managed to secure a safe harbor for five new death machines. General Parmer's Barrel Corps then moved on into the countryside.
The Texan press would make the names famous:
Mirabelle, Bucephalus, Emmeline, Golem, and
Lone Star. While armored cars had been tested in the latest days of the North American War, these would be the first true barrels, and their presence wreaked a holy havoc in the Greek army.
The battle of Lamia was a decisive victory for the Texans; the Greek army, terrified by these machines that spat death from armored machine guns and knocked bullets and light artillery shot aside like pinpricks, had to retreat south. At Athens, they regrouped and prepared for the Texan assault.
It came in July, and began with a major rout of the defending Greek line - from which the Greeks never fully recovered. Then the regular army emerged from the south, announced with a fierce cannonade that threw the Texans into disarray. By some reports - which remain a staple of modern Greek legend to this day - the first shot took the Texan force entirely by surprise, striking the
Lone Star in the ammunition magazine and causing it to explode spectacularly. Further bombardment would damage the
Mirabelle and
Bucephalus, but the Greeks were unable to effectively hold any sort of line, and so withdrew to the south to fight another day.
But as it turned out, it was not to be. The first retreating Greek forces had not reached Corinth when it was announced Vienna had fallen...
...and the Austrian government had been replaced by a Texan military council. Boroevic von Bojna, effective supreme commander of the Austrian military, agreed to turn in his sword so long as "not an inch of Austrian soil is forfeited to foreign invaders".
And so it was.
The Greeks, realizing that any further fighting would be suicide, surrendered to meager Texan demands - no territorial concessions - days later.
Meanwhile, Bill Haywood, having won his second term by a margin unprecedented in recorded history - 80%, and surprisingly reckoned today to have been legitimate - had been cutting deals with Russia for some time, and was prepared to move on to his next target...
