On 9 March 1945, during the closing stages of the war, Japan overthrew the French rule in Indochina. The French colonial administrators were relieved of their positions, and French military forces were ordered to disarm. The Japanese hoped to revive the flagging support of local populations for Tokyo's war effort by encouraging indigenous rulers to proclaim independence. On 13 March, the young King Norodom Sihanouk proclaimed an independent Kingdom of Kampuchea (while changing the official name of the country in French from "Cambodge" to "Kampuchea") following a formal request by the Japanese. Shortly thereafter the Japanese government nominally ratified the independence of Cambodia and established a consulate in Phnom Penh. Sihanouk's decree did away with previous French-Cambodian treaties and he pledged his newly independent country's cooperation and alliance with Japan. The new government did away with the romanisation of the Khmer language that the French colonial administration was beginning to enforce and officially reinstated the Khmer script. This measure taken by the short-lived governmental authority would be popular and long-lasting, for since then no government in Cambodia has tried to romanise the Khmer language again. Other changes included the reinstating of the Buddhist lunar calendar.