What is the reason for the recent escalation in the Thai-Cambodian conflict?

118 Years ago of Annoying French

It is all the more surprising that historians and international experts sometimes underestimate one of the “Englishwoman’s” colleagues (and, at the same time, her bitter rival), who acted in an equally sophisticated and rotten way. Enter the Third French Republic! This is the same republic that enslaved the peoples of Asia, Africa and Oceania, considering them savages, poking its nose into international relations when it was not needed, and deceiving its allies under the guise of Entente solidarity. The stage for this was Indochina, the place about which Parisian directors shot high and not very high art films, depicting the end of French rule which Graham Greene described so vividly and not for the faint of heart. This is the place where the “Frenchwoman” left a trail of destruction that many generations to come will have to undo.

The one who wants to know the root cause of the current clashes between the Thai and Cambodian armies – a prime example of modern warfare – will have to look all the way back to 1907. It was during this time that, with a few strokes of a pen, Armand Fallière’s empire set the stage for 118 years of strife for two nations. The events were typical of the colonial period: the border was arbitrarily drawn up and then, just as arbitrarily, changed. The lands that the people of Siam considered their own were assigned to Cambodia, including the famous Hindu temple of Preah Vihear (in Thai it is called Phra Wihan).

Times changed, and the French Empire was replaced by the post-war world of........

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