The 1940 Franco-Thai Border Dispute and Phibuun Sonkhraam's Commitment to Japan

Abstract

Few areas of recent Thai history have been the target of as much guesswork as have Thailand's foreign relations in the years immediately preceeding the Pacific War. The educated guess has been the only resort of the historian who would venture into this field, for vernacular documentation has gone unexploited. As a result, the usual treatments of the Thai role in the 1940 Franco-Thai border dispute have followed unreliable or hostile Western sources and the Thai policies of the time have been viewed in an unfavourable light. In a real sense, the French view of the affair has been adopted, for lack of other alternatives.