Chapter 12 The Colonial Period 465dent” would be established in the Cambodian court but that no other countries
could have consuls there unless the French agreed. French citizens could settle
in Cambodia, and Cambodians could settle anywhere throughout the French
Empire. France would protect Cambodia from attack from the outside and
would maintain order within Cambodia. French goods could move freely into
the territory. French citizens would be ruled under their own laws by the princi-
ple of extraterritoriality used in other European colonies and in China.
But the king of Siam threatened war if this treaty was signed. He viewed
Cambodia as Siam’s protectorate; after all, only a few years earlier King Ang
Duong had fled to Bangkok during a rebellion, taking with him the crown, the
sacred sword, and the seal, which were the symbols of Cambodian monarchy.
Moreover, Siam provided the troops that enabled Norodom to take back his
throne—while retaining possession of the royal regalia that symbolized the
legitimacy of the Cambodian state. While the French were getting signatures to
the treaty with Cambodia in Paris, Norodom was trying to retrieve the royal
regalia from Siam; they signed a secret treaty that acknowledged Siamese
suzerainty and ceded several provinces that were under Siamese control. When
the French found out about this, they put pressure on Siam and got back the
crown, so that King Norodom could be crowned in 1864. This was the begin-
ning of French rule in Cambodia.
Throughout the nineteenth century, the Siamese watched what was going
on to the east and west of them with dismay. France continued to press inland
against the Siamese in a series of diplomatic and military moves. In 1893 they
sent a gunboat and an ultimatum to Bangkok; the British urged the Siamese to
negotiate with France, and under this pressure, Siam ceded to France Laos and
the whole east bank of the Mekong; they even evacuated the areas around Ang-
kor. And thus French Indo-china was complete.
The great King Mongkut (Rama IV), a devout Buddhist and shrewd ruler
who was determined to preserve the independence of Siam, was in a better
position than Burmese, Vietnamese, or Cambodian rulers, each of whom had
only a single, determined European power bearing down on them. Mongkut
had the English on the west and the French on the east. Their mutual jealou-
sies and frequent clashes could be manipulated in the interests of Siamese inde-
pendence. He set about making treaties of friendship and commerce with all
the European trading nations, giving them what they always wanted first: trade
opportunities. By and large, this strategy worked, even though they were forced
to cede Laos to the French, and also some Cambodian territories as well as sev-
eral small areas to the British in Burma. But their strategy worked, and they
were the single Southeast Asian nation to escape direct colonial control.
Mongkut’s son, Chulalongkorn, was brought up to be king in a world
increasingly dominated by Europeans. He traveled widely in his youth, and by
the time he came to the throne in 1868, he had a better understanding of Euro-
pean culture and character than most Asians of his age. As Rama V, he insti-
tuted important reforms, modernizing his country without needing colonial