Siam and Its Struggle to Maintain Independence from Britain and France
Summary:
What we know today as Thailand used to be known as Siam until 1939. During the Chakri dynasty, King Mongkut began to modernize Siam. He fought hard against French and British forces to keep his land. They wanted to conquer it, so began forty-nine years of battles.
What we know today as Thailand used to be known as Siam until 1939. During the Chakri dynasty, King Mongkut began to modernize Siam. He fought hard against French and British forces to keep his land. They wanted to conquer it, so began forty-nine years of battles. This essay is going to explain how Siam struggled to maintain its independence from France and Britain.
King Mongkut wanted to bring Siam up to date by changing the way things were done. He allowed the laws to be published as well as judges to be voted in, and also made lots of public appearances, which had never been done before. These new reforms were very important to him because he wanted to make sure that his country could stand up to the European powers. Mongkut also had a very large family and he decided to pass his thrown to his oldest son Chulalongkorn when he turned twenty years old. But unfortunately when they were on a trip, they both got malaria and King Mongkut died, therefore Chulalongkorn became king at the age of fifteen. Since he was underage he had to have a regent, which appointed Prince Wichaichan as his heir-apparent because he thought that Chulalongkorn was going to die. Chulalongkorn was sick for many years but did not die as everyone thought he would.
Chulalongkorn turned out to be a very intelligent and knowledgeable young man of fairly essential political leanings. He created Privy Council, abolished slavery and he tried to pass different new reforms. The members of the new Privy Council gave the king the power to change its designated heir, so Chulalongkorn decided to change Prince Wichaichan, but customs didn't let Chulalongkorn choose an heir just because he agreed with his political views. Wichaichan got angry because Chulalongkorn tried to change him therefore he made an anti-Chulalongkorn force that was not in favor of the king. Wichaichan had his men burn down Chulalongkorn's palace and when Wichaichan's men said that they would put out the fire, Chulalongkorn didn't let them in. Wichaichan had to take shelter in the British Consulate and attempted to unite political support for himself.
Siam was getting closer to a civil war because of the internal struggle between Wichaichan and Chulalongkorn. Since So Chulalongkorn was a young kid he was more easily convinced to back down and change his political reforms to conform to his country. Chulalongkorn had to wait until the men in the government where old or dying to be able to replace them by men that he better liked which finally happened in 1888. Chulalongkorn made many reforms, for example he reformed the educational system, and he constructed railroads and made other public improvements. He selected his clever brother, Prince Damrong, to run the local administration. Within a very few years, Damrong's reforms had drastically improved local administration.
The greatest threat for Siamese independence was France in the 1890's. Through the 19th century the French were exploring more and more land by the Mekong River valley, they were searching the richness of China. Siam's borders are almost the entire Mekong valley. The French felt that their journeys would be much safer. After many years the French forced an event that was to take the Mekong from Siam. Then even though the Siamese soldiers were just defending the border against soldiers of other countries the French wanted all those soldiers executed. Then later on three French gunboats made their way up the Menam River to get to Bangkok and insist that the Siamese comply with them. Then when Siam saw that it couldn't win a war with France, they asked for help to Britain so they could bring pressure to France and use international law so that France would discard their demands. But there was one problem the British refused to get involved, so the Siamese gave the French the demands that they wanted, in those demands they gave up lots of territory to the French. Siam suffered from French interference and its own problems. Because Chulalongkorn didn't want to borrow money to pay foreign debts so that also slowed down the rate in which infrastructure could be constructed and that would be able to expand the economy. There were lots of problems in Siam such as very little educated men to fill essential functions on society.
This is the complete article, containing 720 words
(approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page).
