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Read Ebook: Siam: Land of Free Men by Deignan H G Herbert Girton
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Phraya Chakkri had scarcely assumed his new dignity when Bodaw Phra, King of Burma, attempted a new conquest of Siam. King Rama's military ability was such that the Burmese were finally everywhere defeated and, with the abandonment of Mergui and Tavoy by the Siamese in 1792, the recurrent wars between the two powers may be said to have ended for good. With the foreign danger averted, the King was able to organize his government, the seat of which was transferred from Tonburi to Bangkok, on the left bank of the river, where he constructed a fortified city.
Rama II became involved in war at the beginning of his reign. In 1786, the regent of the now effete Kingdom of Cambodia had formally recognized Siamese suzerainty and had sent the infant King to reside at Bangkok, while he continued to rule the state under Siam's aegis. Annam, to the east, however, made identical claims to supremacy and when, in 1809, the Annamese King attempted to enforce his demands, an army was sent from Bangkok to repel him. The brief campaign ended with Rama's annexation of the Cambodian province of Phratabong, while the rest of the country became a dependency of Annam.
Toward the end of the reign, Cambodian politics again caused bad blood between Siam and Annam. A youth named Norodom, a son of the Cambodian King, had some time since been brought to Bangkok and reared at the Siamese Court. Upon his father's death, he was declared by Siam to be the rightful heir and, supported by a Siamese army, returned to Cambodia to gain the throne and, despite former agreements, to place the country again under Siamese protection.
In the year 1863, Norodom, whom Siam had placed upon the Cambodian throne, made a treaty with France, now master of Annam, by which he accepted French protection; at almost the same time he made an exactly similar compact with Siam. Thus each country found itself responsible for the protection of Cambodia against any possible aggressor, while each was given the sole right of dictating the foreign policy of that state. So absurd a situation could not last and, after 4 years of negotiation, Siam was compelled to yield to the French thesis of their superior rights as successors to the Annamese kings, to abrogate her treaty of 1863, and to abandon all claim to suzerainty over Cambodia.
Soon after Siam's withdrawal from Cambodia, the unofficial advocates of colonialism in France began to advance the idea that certain Siamese provinces east of the river Me Khong, having at one time formed a part of Annam, should be restored to that Kingdom, now a French protectorate. There is no historical basis for this claim, which was at first unsupported even in Paris, but when the colonial party added the argument that the unnavigable Me Khong, as one of the future trade routes of Southwest China, must at all costs be acquired by France, the French Government formally demanded of Bangkok the provinces in question. The Siamese replied by suggesting that the disputed territory be regarded as neutral until such time as the frontier could be properly demarcated and this was agreed upon but merely led to further trouble, each side accusing the other of violating the compact. Siam asked for arbitration, which was declined by the French. When, in 1893, bloody collisions occurred along the border, French gunboats, dispatched from Saigon, ascended the Chao Phraya, despite efforts of the Siamese naval forces to bar the way. In consequence of Siamese resistance, the French greatly increased their demands, now insisting that Siam give up all territory east of the Me Khong . After 10 days of blockade, the Siamese had no choice but to accept a humiliating treaty which, among other concessions, required immediate evacuation of her eastern outposts and the payment of an indemnity; as a guarantee, France established a military occupation of the southeastern province, of Chanthabun, which was to continue long after all the terms had been fulfilled.
Relations between the two countries were far from improved by this episode and, during the following years, abuses in the exercise of French extraterritorial rights were a fertile source of provocation. In fact, despite every effort to avoid unfortunate incidents, the Government of Siam found itself spending all its energies in replying to diplomatic representations and to demands for inquiries, explanations, and reparations.
As the French demands increased in numbers and severity, there was no longer any question that Siam's national survival was at stake. But, in 1896, Great Britain, at last alarmed by France's growing strength in southern Asia and unwilling to have her approach too near the eastern confines of India, intervened. High feelings were aroused in both countries but, after lengthy negotiations, an agreement was concluded in the same year, by which Siam's autonomy was guaranteed that she might serve as a buffer between the rival empires.
Thereafter, relations between France and Siam tended to improve. It was not, however, until 1907, that, in return for yet another "rectification of the boundary," the French agreed to revise their extraterritorial rights and to remove the garrison from Chanthabun. A second convention of the same year resulted in Siam's restoring to Cambodia the province of Phratabong, which she had held since 1809, and receiving in exchange a part of the territory yielded in 1904 and obtaining a recognition of Siamese jurisdiction over Asiatic French subjects. Altogether, in warding off the European neighbor, Siam had been compelled to sacrifice no less than 90,000 square miles of her eastern lands.
THAILAND
Whether the modern traveler enters Siam by steamer from Hongkong or Singapore or by comfortable Diesel-engined train from the Malay States, his destination is certain to be Bangkok. Here, in bewildering juxtaposition, the old Siam and the new Thailand confront him together on every side. The former is represented in the complicated network of canals, upon which thousands of boat-dwellers pass their lives; in the narrow streets hung with the vertical signboards of the inevitable multitude of Chinese traders; in the throngs of yellow-robed monks that appear at daybreak from hundreds of gaily colored shrines whose spires arise in every direction. The new is seen in the modern boulevards lined with spacious wooden houses set among gardens and orchards; in the motorcars competing for space with bicycle-drawn jinrikishas; in the air-conditioned cinema theaters, where, before World War II, were shown the new pictures shipped by air from California; in the cement and match factories; in the great airport of Don Muang, north of the city, where transports arrived daily from Britain and Australia, from Java and The Netherlands.
Until recently, the inhabitants of towns and villages outside the capital lived a life not greatly different from that of their ancestors: one which revolved around the annual cycle of planting, growing, and the harvest, with religious festivals to break the monotony of living. Poverty, as understood in the industrial Occident, was unknown for, while little actual money was seen by the average family during the course of a year, yet a house could be built of bamboo in a day or two; fruit trees bore around the year; clothing was woven at home and shoes were little worn; virtually everyone owned productive land or was at liberty to clear a tract from the forest which covers much of the thinly populated country; taxes were light and could be paid by a few days' labor on some project of public works.
During the decade just passed the Government has initiated a positive program aimed at raising the standards of living of the common people and especially of the peasants who constitute the great majority. Among the means adopted have been the development of such new sources of gain as the raising of tobacco and cotton on a large scale; the construction of great irrigation projects and the development of sources of electric power; the education of the farmer in livestock breeding and scientific agriculture; the establishment of agencies to enable him to obtain a fair market for his produce; the spread of public-health and medical services in far corners of the provinces. The results of this experiment had not yet become clear when the war interfered to hinder its fulfillment.
The political aspect of the program leaned heavily toward economic nationalism, in an endeavor to counteract the excessive proportion of foreign capital in the country and to encourage more active participation by the Thai in the building-up of their own land. If the means to these laudable ends were perverted, by the paid agents of Japanese propaganda and a handful of powerful men within the Thai Government, to serve the cause of "co-prosperity," it must not therefore be assumed that the misfortunes which have recently befallen them are traceable to any activities and desires on the part of the Thai people themselves.
A lively resistance to the usurpers continues, inside Thailand and through her spokesmen abroad; we may confidently expect that the Thai, with the aid and sympathy of their friends of the United Nations, will at the earliest opportunity rid themselves both of their quislings and their Japanese overlords, again proudly to style themselves "the free men."
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