Ayutthaya's Fall, Bangkok's Rise Part 2
- Date: 2009-12-02 - Word Count: 516
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His voracious reading convinced him that Thailand's continued independence could best be secured by encouraging equally friendly relations with numerous Western countries. Accordingly, in 1855, he concluded the Treaty of Commerce and Friend-ship with Britain (known as the Bowring Treaty) that contained several generous concessions limiting tariffs on imports and exports, and granting extraterritorial rights to British subjects whereby they could be tried for offences committed in Thailand by British consular courts.
During the following years, Mongkut concluded similar treaties with the U.S., France, Denmark, Holland, Portugal, Belgium, Norway, Prussia, Sweden and Italy. Simultaneously he employed Europeans to reorganize government services, and encouraged the study of foreign languages, particularly among Thai royalty. He promoted canal digging, road construction, shipbuilding, established Thailand's first mint and reorganized the army along European lines.
Additionally, during his 17-year reign, this remarkable leader found time to restore several Buddhist treasures, including the world's tallest Buddhist monument, the 127-metre-high Pra Pathom Chedi (pagoda) some 60 kilometres west of Bangkok. He undertook the revision of Thailand's historical records, which had been pieced together from surviving Ayutthayan fragments and corresponded in English, his second language, with inter-national scientists, businessmen and several world leaders. Letters that he wrote to Abraham Lincoln offering war elephants for use in the American Civil War are now in a museum in the United States (Lincoln politely declined the offer on the grounds the U.S. climate would prove inhospitable for elephants).
Despite his many official activities, King Mongkut found time to pursue his love of astronomy. In 1868, he accurately predicted a total eclipse of the sun, but in viewing it in marshy countryside south of Bangkok, contracted the malaria that caused his untimely death the following month.
On ascending the throne, his son Chulalongkorn consolidated Thailand's independence and smoothly advanced vital modernization by introducing reforms wherever he saw fit. The most widely travelled of Thai monarchs - to Java, India, Singapore, Russia, Germany, France and England - Chulalongkom pbssessed first-hand knowledge of Western modernization.
In an eventful 42-year-reign, Chula-longkom abolished slavery (which released manpower to grow more rice); constructed Thailand's first railways (which besides giving Bangkok stronger political and strategic control over upcountry areas, enhanced rice exports through Bangkok's ports); sent hundreds of young Thai men to Europe (where they learned western ways and western languages and, upon their return, could replace Western advisers and equitably deal with diplomats and visitors from Europe and the United States); and revitalized overnmental bodies (in 1892 forming Ministries of Defence, Foreign Affairs, Interior, Local Government, Royal Household, Finance, Agriculture, Justice, Education and Public Works).
Chulalongkom also reformed provincial administration, thus extending government control to the remotest comers of the kingdom. He actively initiated reforms in health, education and communication by establishing hospitals, schools and introducing the postal and telegraph services, and employed advisers from several European countries to restructure several government departments.
During his reign, it was also his unhappy task to cede 120,000 square kilometres of undefendable Thai territory in the south to the British and in the north and northeast to the French, who periodically engaged in gunboat diplomacy to present demands the Thais were militarily unable to resist.
During the following years, Mongkut concluded similar treaties with the U.S., France, Denmark, Holland, Portugal, Belgium, Norway, Prussia, Sweden and Italy. Simultaneously he employed Europeans to reorganize government services, and encouraged the study of foreign languages, particularly among Thai royalty. He promoted canal digging, road construction, shipbuilding, established Thailand's first mint and reorganized the army along European lines.
Additionally, during his 17-year reign, this remarkable leader found time to restore several Buddhist treasures, including the world's tallest Buddhist monument, the 127-metre-high Pra Pathom Chedi (pagoda) some 60 kilometres west of Bangkok. He undertook the revision of Thailand's historical records, which had been pieced together from surviving Ayutthayan fragments and corresponded in English, his second language, with inter-national scientists, businessmen and several world leaders. Letters that he wrote to Abraham Lincoln offering war elephants for use in the American Civil War are now in a museum in the United States (Lincoln politely declined the offer on the grounds the U.S. climate would prove inhospitable for elephants).
Despite his many official activities, King Mongkut found time to pursue his love of astronomy. In 1868, he accurately predicted a total eclipse of the sun, but in viewing it in marshy countryside south of Bangkok, contracted the malaria that caused his untimely death the following month.
On ascending the throne, his son Chulalongkorn consolidated Thailand's independence and smoothly advanced vital modernization by introducing reforms wherever he saw fit. The most widely travelled of Thai monarchs - to Java, India, Singapore, Russia, Germany, France and England - Chulalongkom pbssessed first-hand knowledge of Western modernization.
In an eventful 42-year-reign, Chula-longkom abolished slavery (which released manpower to grow more rice); constructed Thailand's first railways (which besides giving Bangkok stronger political and strategic control over upcountry areas, enhanced rice exports through Bangkok's ports); sent hundreds of young Thai men to Europe (where they learned western ways and western languages and, upon their return, could replace Western advisers and equitably deal with diplomats and visitors from Europe and the United States); and revitalized overnmental bodies (in 1892 forming Ministries of Defence, Foreign Affairs, Interior, Local Government, Royal Household, Finance, Agriculture, Justice, Education and Public Works).
Chulalongkom also reformed provincial administration, thus extending government control to the remotest comers of the kingdom. He actively initiated reforms in health, education and communication by establishing hospitals, schools and introducing the postal and telegraph services, and employed advisers from several European countries to restructure several government departments.
During his reign, it was also his unhappy task to cede 120,000 square kilometres of undefendable Thai territory in the south to the British and in the north and northeast to the French, who periodically engaged in gunboat diplomacy to present demands the Thais were militarily unable to resist.
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