Thailad and the southeast Asian Networks of the Vietnamese Revolution 1885-1954

 CHAPTER 4  Building Indochinese Links To Thailand ( 1945-46 ) The period between the end of the Pacific War in August 1945 and the outbreak of full-scale war in Indochina in December 1946 marks a turning point in our story. Within the span of little more than a year, Vietnamese leaders began reviving their operations in Thailand as full-scale war looked ever more likely in Indochina. Unlike the earlier period, however, this time Ho Chi Minh and his lieutenants were on the inside of Indochina looking out. What they saw in the wake of the August revolution left little room for optimism. To the south, by late September southern Viet Minh forces had taken cover in the marshes of the Mekong as the French Expeditionary Corps and Navy took control of ports, towns, canals and roads in southern Vietnam, Cambodia and the southern tip of Laos. To the north, the KMT’s control of southern China made decis​ive, although not impossible (see Chapter 5), for the DRV. Along the entire eastern ...

 Chapter 3 A Thai Brak ( 1940-45 ) The sad state of Vietnamese revolutionary activities in Siam improved during World War II, thanks to regional and international changes and above all because of new Siamese policies towards the Vietnamese. Emboldened by the German defeat of France in mid-1940 and Japan’s simultaneous expansion into Southeast Asia, Siamese leaders dusted off their plans to recover Indochinese territories ‘lost’ to the French at the turn of the century. Although Japan was the crucial backer for the Siamese in their bid to break up western Indochina, what is less known is how the weakening of France in 1940 allowed Siamese leaders to bring their clandestine relationship with Vietnamese anticolonialists into the open (see Chapter 1). From 1940 Siamese leaders of all political persuasions began to adopt a remarkably sympathetic view of the Vietnamese anticolonial movement, communist or not. This first occurred when Phibun Songkhram sought the support of the Vietnamese ...