Willis Crawford

Willis Crawford
Personal
Born	ca.2959
Died	1 July 3003
Affiliation	Free Worlds League
Profile
Rank	General

Willis Crawford was a general in the military of the Free Worlds League, who was notable for being the first person to be sentenced to death for a catastrophic military failure in over a century, an incident that may indirectly have been one of the causes for the catastrophic Marik Civil War that began in 3014.

History

At the League's renowned Princefield Academy, Willis Crawford and his younger classmate Anton Marik were noted to be good friends.

On Anton's recommendation, Willis Crawford was assigned as commanding general for an attack against Solaris VII in September 3002. This attack was in fact the second phase in an offensive on the Lyran front that had begun with an attack on Loric six months earlier. However, the Lyrans had reinforced Loric and ultimately bogged down the Loric offensive into an eight-month campaign until the FWLM withdrew.

Captain-General Janos Marik, Anton's brother, was under great political pressure to succeed in the offensive, and ordered the second phase to begin prematurely while fighting still continued on Loric. On Solaris, Crawford's troops failed to meet their objectives in the initial landings, but he pressed on, presumably because of the pressure put on him to succeed. He admitted defeat after suffering dreadful casualties and returned with less than half of his command.

The blame for this catastrophic failure was laid at Crawford's feet. On behalf of his friend, Anton Marik appealed to his brother Janos for leniency but Janos Marik refused as he was busy controlling the political fallout from the military debacle that endangered his own standing as Captain-General. Willis Crawford was court-martialed and then executed. His execution was the first military execution in the Free Worlds League in over a century. It is believed that the death of his friend was a major cause for the estrangement between Anton Marik and his brother which culminated in the bloody civil war in 3014.

Notes

• Crawford's overconfidence and flawed strategic acumen are lampshaded in Bear Peters's short story Final Exam in the Shrapnel anthology. The author's only other BattleTech story–The Race is not to the Swift–was printed in the same anthology. Undated, it describes a faltering attack against Solaris VII by Free Worlds League forces, apparently meant to be Crawford's ill-fated attack in 3002 (which would make the two stories companion pieces). However, the anachronistic appearance of Hansen's Roughriders, a unit only formed in ca. 3017, rules this out and Crawford is not mentioned in the story either. Later sources fixed the problem by establishing that another unsuccessful raid, with the Roughriders involved in the defense, had occurred at a later point in time.

Bibliography

• Final Exam (short story)
• Handbook: House Marik
• Historical: Brush Wars
• House Marik (The Free Worlds League)