Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
powers. He engaged European officers to manage the departments and train the troops,
and following the brief Franco-Siamese War in 1893, during which the possibility of Siam
being absorbed into the French colonial empire became frighteningly apparent, the de-
partment was upgraded to the Ministry of Defence, with the army and navy under its
command. Rama
VI
continued the policy of continually developing the nation's military
capabilities.
Much of the Rama
VI
Museum, situated nearby in the Ratchawonlop Building, which
is part of the Territorial Defence Department, is devoted to the king's military interests.
As Prince Vajiravudh, he had trained at Sandhurst and served with a light infantry division
of the British Army, and as soon as he became king he established the Wild Tiger Corps,
a paramilitary force inspired by the British Volunteer Force. During World War i, Siam
joined the Allied forces when the United States entered the war in 1917, declaring war
on Germany and the Central Powers. Rama
VI
despatched a force of 1,300 troops to the
European front, and they arrived in 1918, flying the new tri-colour national flag. At the
end of the war, the Siam Expeditionary Force joined the victory parade in Paris, and they
returned to Bangkok in September 1919. They suffered nineteen dead. These men were
cremated in Europe, and their ashes were brought back and enshrined in the Monument
to the Expeditionary Force, which is set at the northern end of Sanam Luang, a white four-
sided structure topped by a small
chedi
and with the names of the dead inscribed on the
four sides.
At the northern end of Sanam Luang the inner moat passes beneath Pan Pibhop Leela
Bridge, originally built in 1906 for Ratchadamnoen Avenue, and from here the canal dis-
appears under the approach road for the modern Pinklao Bridge, which crosses to Thon-
buri and has its landing behind the Royal Barge Museum. Die-hard moat followers can
find the northern entrance next to the Pinklao Ferry Pier. At the point the canal disap-
pears under the road stands a shrine to U-Toktan, the earth goddess. More than a shrine,
it also serves as a public water faucet and was installed in 1872 from the private funds of
Queen Mother Sri Patcharintra.
