Siam in World War I instance of country in World War I
The Kingdom of Siam, now known as Thailand, is one of the lesser known participants in World War I. Siam contributed to the fight against the Central Powers in one of the critical campaigns of the war. It sent an Expeditionary Force to France to serve on the Western Front.
At the start of the war in 1914, Siam declared their neutrality. The Kingdom maintained this status until July 1917 when it declared war on Germany and Austria-Hungary. Following both military and specialist training, a Siamese military contingent arrived on the Western Front in mid-September 1918, only two months before the war ended. Following the Armistice of 11 November 1918, Siamese troops contributed to the initial occupation of Rhineland, when they took over the town of Neustadt an der Haardt.War
On 22 September 1916, Siam declared war on the German and the Austro-Hungarian empires. Twelve German vessels docked in Siamese ports were immediately seized. The crews and other Central Power nationals were detained and sent to India to join their fellow citizens in internment camps.
Siam was the sole country in Southeast Asia to maintain full independence from the various colonial empires during the colonial era. It was the only state in the region to enter the conflict entirely of its own free will, as an equal of the European powers rather than as part of their colonial contingents.As a clear symbol of the new two-track strategy of active association with the world powers and of renewal and restructuring within the nation, the King authorised a re-design of the national flag. The new flag had an extra colour, blue, and was arranged in stripes. It was said to represent the three elements of the nation: creed, crown, and community. Representation of the military was subsumed between the King and the people. The new colours of blue, white, and red, also sat comfortably, almost certainly deliberately, with the flags of Great Britain, France, the United States, and Russia. The new flag appeared on the 28 September 1917. Initially, two variants were common: the current minimalist five horizontal bands and a variant maintaining the continuity and prestige of the old flag, with the traditional white elephant symbol on a red disc, from the old flag, superimposed over the new stripes, a variant the remains today the flag of the Royal Thai Navy. When the Siamese Expeditionary Force marched in the 1919 Paris victory parade, it was beneath the hybrid flag.
In September 1917, a volunteer expeditionary force was assembled, consisting of medical, motor transport, and aviation detachments. By early-1918, 1,284 men were selected from thousands of volunteers. The force, commanded by Major-General Phraya Pichai Charnyarit, was to be sent to France. On 30 July 1918, the Siamese landed in Marseilles. Some 370 pilots and groundcrew were sent to aerodromes in Istres, Le Crotoy, La Chapelle-la-Reine, Biscarosse and Piox for retraining, as the pilots were deemed incapable of withstanding high altitude air combat.On 1 August, with French and British divisions advancing on German positions on the Marne, the French selected some men from the Siamese detachment to form the first Siamese labour volunteer detachment. They received brief training and arrived at the front on 4 August 1918 during the Second Battle of the Marne. Phya Bhijai Janriddhi served as observer during the battle. This was the first Siamese contingent to see the front line trenches. This was followed by the ground forces actively proceeding to the fighting front in mid-September.Also in August 1918, the medical and motor transport detachments were sent to the front and took part in the 1918 Champagne and Meuse-Argonne offensives. Siamese airmen had not finished training when the time the Armistice of 11 November 1918 was signed. The ground forces, on the other hand, had distinguished themselves under fire and were awarded the Croix de Guerre and Order of Rama decorations. The ground forces participated in the occupation of Neustadt an der Haardt in the Rhineland region of Germany and also took part in the 1919 Paris Victory Parade.
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