SOAS Research Online

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Abstract

The evolution of secular military institutions in Siam drew heavily upon what were identified as the best models in the West, heavy investments in officer training (including sending Thais abroad for officer training) and technical training among the lesser ranks, the emergence of limited upward mobility for peasant soldiers, minor nobility, and the emerging middle class, and the introduction of a national identity that increasingly depicted the military as a leading element of modernity in the kingdom. Ultimately, the military partnered with civil bureaucrats to end absolute kingship in 1932 in order to preserve its achievements in the aftermath of the world trade depression, and then took power directly from 1933, Siam seeing a series of military governments broken only by very brief episodes of Democratic rule. The chapter argues that it was the emergence of a strong military that could take over direct management of national affairs that proved the decisive element in preserving Siamese (and later Thai) independence, paralleling the cases of Japan, China, and Turkey and providing a contrast to examples of failure where traditional courts undermined military autonomy, such as Abyssinia and Hawaii, and kept in place conditions that made them vulnerable to colonial conquest.