Franco-Siamese War

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Artist's impression of the Pak-Nam incident by Joseph Nash : The French gunboats Inconstant and Comète are shelled by the Siamese coastal fortress

The Franco-Siamese War ( French Guerre franco-siamoise ; Thai สงคราม ฝรั่งเศส - สยาม , RTGS Songkhram Farangset-Sayam ), also known as the Franco-Siamese conflict or Siamese crisis for short, was a brief colonial war between the French Republic and the Kingdom of Siam (today's Thailand ) in 1893. As a result, Siam had to cede most of today's Laos to the French colonial empire.

From a Siamese point of view, the most significant event of the war was the Pak-Nam Incident (or Paknam Incident ) on July 13, 1893. In Thai historiography, the conflict is referred to as the “Crisis of the Year 112” (the Rattanakosin period ; วิกฤตการณ์ ร. ศ. 112 , Wikrittakan Ro. So. 112 ) and represents a historical turning point. After this, an accelerated modernization of the military and administration and orientation towards the west began in order to avert a complete loss of independence.

background

Laotian states before the beginning of the colonization of Indochina (as of 1750)

The armed conflict of 1893 was part of a larger conflict between the two colonial powers France and Great Britain and the independent Kingdom of Siam over the colonization of the Southeast Asian mainland (historically called Rear India or Indochina ). During the second half of the 19th century, the two major European powers - Great Britain from British India and the Straits Settlements in the south of the Malay Peninsula (e.g. Singapore ), France from Cochinchina (south of Vietnam ) - had more and more Parts of mainland Southeast Asia brought under their control.

Until the colonization by European powers, the mandala model prevailed in Southeast Asia : There were no sovereign territorial states with fixed borders, but the empires formed shell-shaped spheres of influence that weakened towards the outside and could also overlap. After the decline and collapse of the Laotian mandala Lan Xang around 1707, the two Laotian kingdoms Luang Prabang and Vientiane belonged to both Siam's and Vietnam's zone of influence (the third, Kingdom of Champasak , was exclusively a vassal of Siam). The same was true for Cambodia. They remained largely autonomous in internal affairs, but had to pay tribute to the respective overlord (s). Occasional punitive expeditions occurred when one of the subordinate rulers strove for independence or leaned too much on the other suzerain . Part of the population was abducted as forced laborers and / or members of the nobility were taken hostage in order to guarantee continued recognition of supremacy.

Advance of French and British colonization of Indochina (1862–1909)

After the establishment of French protectorates over Cochinchina, Annam and Tonkin (corresponds to South, Central and North Vietnam) until 1883, France - based on the traditional suzerainty of Vietnam over the Laotian states - also raised the claim to sovereignty over Laos. The French side ignored the mandala model of overlapping spheres of influence and instead tried to enforce the European concept of territorial sovereignty with clearly defined boundaries and consequently exclude Siam from its competing supremacy. Old imperial documents at the Vietnamese court in Huế , which listed Laotian principalities ( Müang ) as provinces of Vietnam (although the actual Vietnamese influence there was minimal), served the French colonial rulers to support these claims. The French colonial party was actually less interested in the sparsely populated and inaccessible Laos, but wanted to use it as a “springboard” to the resource-rich and populous areas west of the Mekong .

Negotiations on the establishment of a joint Franco-Siamese border commission to investigate the border between the two powers failed. However, France and Siam concluded a provisional agreement in 1886 that allowed France to set up a vice consulate in Luang Prabang and regulated French trade there. This was - in the sense of the "race" between France and Great Britain - also a reaction to the British-Siamese treaty concluded three years earlier, which granted Great Britain influence in the Siamese vassal state of Lan Na (now northern Thailand) and the dispatch of a British consul to Chiang Mai provided.

The French colonial official and explorer Auguste Pavie , who had been on duty in Southeast Asia since 1869, was appointed French Vice Consul in Luang Prabang. Pavie traveled through the country, measured it, studied the cultures of the various ethnic groups and made contacts with the local elites. Between 1865 and 1890 the north of Laos and Vietnam was repeatedly plagued by so-called Ho , gangs of southern Chinese marauders. The troops of a Siamese "pacification expedition" in northern Laos and Sip Song Chu Thai (a federation of the Tai peoples in the highlands of what is now northwestern Vietnam) withdrew shortly after Pavel's arrival in Luang Prabang with their captured prisoners in the direction of Bangkok View that Siamese supremacy would now be recognized. Only a small Siamese garrison remained in Luang Prabang. This was used by Kham Hum (Đèo Văn Trị), prince of the " White Tai " of Sip Song Chu Thai, who allied himself with the Ho rebels and attacked Luang Prabang. The Siamese troops fled while a Cambodian employee of Pavies rescued the aged King Oun Kham from his burning palace and Pavie traveled with him down the Mekong to the safe Pak Lay. This is how the French earned the goodwill of the local ruler. The latter considered submitting himself to the French protectorate instead of the Siamese.

Pavie achieved in 1888 the recognition of Sip Song Chu Thai, whose affiliation was disputed between Luang Prabang (and thus the Siamese sphere of influence) and Tonkin (French Indochina), as part of Tonkins. The Parti Colonial (colonial party) in the French parliament pushed for a further expansion of the French possessions in Indochina and a more aggressive policy towards Siam. She called the Mekong as "our river", from which she hoped an improved trade route to China. In the medium term, Pavie hoped to bring the entire former empire of Lan Xang (which stretched on both sides of the Mekong) and even Siam under French control. Jean de Lanessan, a proponent of this offensive strategy, became the new Governor General of Indochina in 1891. The French consulate in Bangkok was upgraded to an embassy in 1892 and Auguste Pavie was promoted to envoy. His express mandate was to negotiate to surrender Siam to Laos and make it a French territory.

trigger

In September 1892, on the orders of the Siamese governors, two or three French traders were expelled from Nong Khai and Khammuan and charged with smuggling opium. Independently of this, the French vice consul in Luang Prabang, Massie , who fell ill with a fever and was on his way to Saigon, committed suicide for unknown reasons. Pavie and the French Colonial Party used these two incidents - which they presented as evidence of Siamese "uncivilized" behavior - as an excuse to seek retribution against Siam. A chauvinist mood was fueled in France: newspapers claimed that Massie killed himself because he was badly insulted by the Siamese. In addition, a French flag was degraded by attaching a fish tail. Pavie now officially called on Siam, on behalf of France, to vacate its military posts on the east side of the Mekong.

course

Caricature in the British magazine The Sketch : A French soldier attacks a Siamese who is depicted as a passive wooden figure. This is supposed to reflect the inferiority and low resistance of the Siamese troops.

French offensive in Laos

In March 1893, the French Governor General of Indochina sent three plenipotentiaries, each accompanied by a military column, to central and southern Laos. The middle of the three columns that drew the valley of the Se Banghiang down to the Mekong met no Siamese resistance. The troops of the eight garrisons in their way withdrew. However, the northern and southern French columns encountered resistance. The southern one first took Steng Trung and Khong without firing a shot, but was then encircled on the island of Khong , where a French officer died and one was taken prisoner. The northern one initially drove the Siamese plenipotentiary from Khammuan without force of arms, then fell victim to a Siamese surprise attack. The French commander Grosgurin and his Vietnamese soldiers (except for three) died.

The French colonial party took this as an opportunity to further stir up the anti-Siamese mood and demand revenge. At the same time, there were riots against Western foreigners in Bangkok. Three British naval ships were stationed at the mouth of the Mae Nam Chao Phraya (Chao Phraya River - the main stream of central Thailand, which flows through Bangkok, among other things - at the time called Menam ) in the Gulf of Siam, in order to be able to evacuate British citizens if necessary.

Pak-Nam incident

"The French Wolf and the Siamese Lamb", in the British magazine Punch

For its part, the French government dispatched two warships to the Gulf of Siam in response to Siamese resistance to the offensive in Laos. Unlike the British, however, these did not anchor in front of the estuary, but drove upstream towards the Siamese capital Bangkok. Therefore, on July 13, 1893, they were shot at by the coastal forts in Pak Nam (today Samut Prakan ), which guarded the entrance to the Chao Phraya. According to Siamese information, only warning shots were fired, but the French gunboats fired back sharply and finally forced their passage. They drove up the river to Bangkok, where they anchored, their cannons aimed at the Royal Palace . The Siamese Foreign Minister, Prince Devawongse Varopakar, went to the river bank in person, congratulated the crews of the French ships on their courage and promised concessions.

The radical forces of the colonial party immediately demanded the complete annexation of Siam. The French envoy Pavie, however, issued an ultimatum to the Siamese government on July 20, demanding “only” the definitive cession of all areas east of the Mekong and the islands in the river to France; in addition, compensation of 3 million francs and the punishment of those responsible for bombarding French ships and killing inspector Grosgurin. The Siamese agreed to the last two demands, but not to the major territorial cession. The French then blocked the access to the Chao Phraya, the most important artery in central Thailand. Two days later, the Siamese King Chulalongkorn gave in and fully agreed to the French demands.

The End

Since Siam had not responded to the ultimatum in time, there were additional French demands: Until the complete withdrawal from the areas east of the Mekong, the French would occupy the Siamese port city of Chanthaburi as bargaining chip; Siam was also to withdraw its troops from Battambang and Siem Reap in the north-western part of Cambodia, which was then still under Siamese rule; and thirdly, Siam should also withdraw its troops from a strip 25 kilometers wide from the west bank of the Mekong, which would leave the provincial capitals of Mukdahan, Nakhon Phanom and Nong Khai defenseless.

On October 3, 1893, Charles-Marie Le Myre de Vilers as representative of the French Republic and Prince Devawongse Varopakar as representative of Siam concluded a contract in which Siam complied with all French demands.

consequences

As a result of the war, Laos became a French protectorate and part of French Indochina and remained so until its independence in 1949. The Mekong, which had previously been the “lifeline” and central connecting axis of the Lao countries, was the border river between Siam and the French colonial empire set. To this day it is the border river between Laos and Thailand. In the long term, this gave rise to today's idea of ​​Laos as a nation-state and the demarcation from northeastern Thailand ( Isan ) , which is also populated by ethnic Lao . The smaller areas of the Lao kingdoms of Luang Prabang and Champasak to the west of the Mekong initially remained with Siam. However, in a further Franco-Siamese treaty in 1904, these were also incorporated into the French protectorate of Laos, giving Laos its current borders in full. Chanthaburi and Trat in southeast Thailand remained under French occupation until 1907 and were only returned in exchange for the later Cambodian provinces of Battambang , Siem Reap and Sisophon . This treaty also removed the 25 km wide demilitarized zone on the west bank of the Mekong.

The conflict with France and in particular the Pak-Nam incident with the imminent threat to its own capital and the narrowly averted loss of independence hit the ruling circles of Siam as a severe shock. He encouraged King Chulalongkorn in his policy of modernizing the military, administration, education and law, economy and society. This had already begun, but he then accelerated it in order to be able to meet the colonial powers on an equal footing in the future and to preserve the independence of Siam. He also employed European consultants such as Gustave Rolin-Jaequemyns for the legal system, Andreas du Plessis de Richelieu for the navy or Karl Bethge for the railways; and sent young military men, intellectuals and his own sons (including the heir to the throne Vajiravudh ) to schools, universities and military academies in Europe.

In 1894, a year after the Pak-Nam incident, the Minister of the Interior, Prince Damrong Rajanubhab , a brother of the king, introduced the thesaphiban system of administrative division. As a result, the whole of Siam was uniformly divided into provinces, which were no longer run by traditional, hereditary heads, but by officials of the central government. The previous vassal states remaining with Siam ( Lan Na in the north, the Sultanate of Patani in the south and the Lao areas west of the Mekong) lost their autonomy and were integrated into the Siamese (later Thai) central state as ordinary provinces. As a result, Siam copied the methods of the colonial powers and practiced - although it was never a colony - even colonial measures against the minorities in their own country.

France and Great Britain signed a treaty in 1896 in which they delimited their spheres of influence in Southeast Asia and at the same time guaranteed Siam's independence - as a kind of buffer between the two.

After the " Siamese Revolution " in 1932, the nationalist wing of the People's Party , namely Phibunsongkhram (Prime Minister from 1938 to 1944) and his chief propagandist Wichitwathakan, pursued a revanchist policy towards France and demanded the return of the "lost territories". This led to another war between the two nations, the Franco-Thai War 1940-41.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Martin Stuart-Fox: A History of Laos. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge / New York 1997, p. 21.
  2. ^ Martin Stuart-Fox: A History of Laos. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge / New York 1997, p. 20.
  3. ^ A b c Martin Stuart-Fox: A History of Laos. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge / New York 1997, p. 22.
  4. ^ Arthur J. Dommen: The Indochinese Experience of the French and the Americans. Nationalism and Communism in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. Indiana University Press, Bloomington (IN) / Indianapolis 2001, p. 17.
  5. ↑ Peter and Sanda Simms: The Kingdoms of Laos. Six Hundred Years of History. Curzon Press, Richmond (Surrey) 1999, p. 206.
  6. ↑ a b Peter and Sanda Simms: The Kingdoms of Laos. Six Hundred Years of History. Curzon Press, Richmond (Surrey) 1999, p. 207.
  7. ^ Martin Stuart-Fox: A History of Laos. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge / New York 1997, p. 23.
  8. ^ Martin Stuart-Fox: A History of Laos. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge / New York 1997, p. 24.
  9. ^ A b Arthur J. Dommen: The Indochinese Experience of the French and the Americans. Nationalism and Communism in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. Indiana University Press, Bloomington (IN) / Indianapolis 2001, p. 18.
  10. ↑ a b Martin Stuart-Fox: A History of Laos. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge / New York 1997, p. 25.
  11. ↑ a b Peter and Sanda Simms: The Kingdoms of Laos. Six Hundred Years of History. Curzon Press, Richmond (Surrey) 1999, p. 209.
  12. ↑ Peter and Sanda Simms: The Kingdoms of Laos. Six Hundred Years of History. Curzon Press, Richmond (Surrey) 1999, p. 210.
  13. ↑ Volker Grabowsky : The Isan up to its Integration into the Siamese State. In: Regions and National Integration in Thailand, 1892-1992. Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden 1995, pp. 107–129, on p. 124.
  14. ↑ Martin Stuart-Fox: Historical Dictionary of Laos. Scarecrow Press, Lanham (MD) / Plymouth 2008, p. 112, entry Franco-Siamese Agreements of 1904 and 1907 .
  15. ^ Niels P. Petersson: Imperialism and Modernization. Siam, China and the European Powers 1895–1914 . R. Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 2000, p. 95.
  16. ↑ Tamara Loos: Subject Siam. Family, Law, and Colonial Modernity in Thailand. Cornell University Press, Ithaca (NY) / London 2006, pp. 54-55.
  17. ↑ MR Rujaya Abhakorn, David K. Wyatt: Administrative Reforms and National Integration in Northern Thailand, 1892-1932. In: Volker Grabowsky: Regions and National Integration in Thailand, 1892-1992. Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden 1995, pp. 68-81, at pp. 73-74.
  18. ^ Rachel V. Harrison: The Allure of Ambiguity. The "West" and the Making of Thai Identities. In: Rachel V. Harrison, Peter A. Jackson: The Ambiguous Allure of the West. Traces of the Colonial in Thailand. Hong Kong University Press, Hong Kong 2010, pp. 1–36, at p. 12.
    Tamara Loos: Competitive Colonialisms. Siam and the Malay Muslim South. In the same volume, pp. 75-91.