Franco-Thai War

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Franco-Thai War
Part of the aftermath of the Japanese invasion of French Indochina and World War II

Map of the French Indochina prior to World War I
DateOctober 1940 – January 28, 1941[a]
Location
French Indochina, Laos, Cambodia
Result

Indecisive[1]

  • Japanese-mediated armistice[2]
Territorial
changes		 On Japanese decision, disputed territories in French Indochina ceded by France to Thailand[3]: 22 [4]: 78 
Belligerents

 Vichy France

Thailand
Commanders and leaders
Jean Decoux Plaek Phibunsongkhram
Strength
50,000 men
(38,000 colonials)
20 light tanks
100 aircraft
1 light cruiser
4 avisos		 60,000 men
134 tanks
140 aircraft[5]
3 coastal defense ships
12 torpedo boats
4 submarines
Casualties and losses
Land:
321 killed or wounded
178 missing
222 captured
22 aircraft destroyed
Sea:
None[6][7]
Total: 721+ casualties		 Land:
54 killed[8]
307 wounded
21 captured
8–13 aircraft destroyed
Sea:
36–300+ killed[6][7]
3 torpedo boats sunk[6]
1 coastal defense ship grounded
Total:
418–700+[6][7] casualties
  1. ^ Fighting ended with a ceasefire on January 28 and the war formally ended with a peace treaty on May 9

The Franco-Thai War (October 1940 – January 28, 1941, Thai: กรณีพิพาทอินโดจีน, romanized: Krṇī phiphāth xindocīn; French: Guerre franco-thaïlandaise) was fought between Thailand and Vichy France over certain areas of French Indochina.

Negotiations shortly before

Plaek Pibulsonggram (popularly known as "Phibun"), the prime minister of Thailand, decided that France's defeat strengthened the Thais' negotiating position to regain the vassal state territories that were ceded to France during King Chulalongkorn
's reign.

The German and Italian military occupation of

invasion of French Indochina
in September 1940, Japan forced the French to allow them to set up military bases. The French's seemingly subservient behavior lulled the Phibun regime into believing that France would not seriously resist a military confrontation by Thailand.

Opposing forces

French

The French military forces in Indochina consisted of an army of approximately 50,000 men, 12,000 of whom were French, organized into forty-one

Vichy French Army had a shortage of armor, and it could field only 20 Renault FT tanks against the nearly one hundred Royal Thai Army
armored vehicles. The bulk of the French forces stationed near the Thai border consisted of the Indochinese infantry of the 3rd and 4th Regiments of
Montagnards (indigenous Vietnamese highlanders), French regulars of the Colonial Infantry (Troupes coloniales), and French Foreign Legion units.[10]

The

Vichy French Navy had the light cruiser Lamotte-Picquet and four avisos
in French Indochina.

The Vichy French Air Force (Armée de l'Air) had approximately 100 aircraft, of which roughly 60 could be considered front-line. These included thirty Potez 25 TOE reconnaissance/fighter-bombers, four Farman 221 heavy bombers, six Potez 542 bombers, nine Morane-Saulnier M.S.406 fighters, and eight Loire 130 reconnaissance/bomber flying boats.[11]

Thai

The slightly larger Thai Army was a relatively well-equipped force.

Bofors guns and howitzers, while 60 Carden Loyd tankettes and 30 Vickers 6-ton
tanks made up the bulk of the army's tank force.

The

observation/attack aircraft.[5]

Campaign

While nationalist demonstrations and anti-French rallies were being held in

Sisophon, and Battambang with impunity. The French retaliated with their own air attacks, but the damage they caused was less than equal. The activities of the Thai air force, particularly in the field of dive-bombing,[13] was such that Admiral Jean Decoux, the governor of French Indochina, grudgingly remarked that the Thai planes seemed to have been flown by men with plenty of war experience.[14]

French troops used a handful of World War I-era Renault FT tanks during the conflict.

On 5 January 1941, following the report of a French attack on the Thai border town of

Cambodia. French response was instantaneous, but many units were simply swept aside by the better-equipped Thai forces. The Thai army swiftly overran Laos, but the French forces in Cambodia managed to rally and offer more resistance.[15]

The naval Battle of Ko Chang, January 17, 1941

At dawn on January 16, 1941, the French launched a large counterattack on the Thai-held villages of Yang Dang Khum and Phum Preav, initiating the fiercest battle of the war. Due to poor coordination and nonexistent intelligence against the entrenched and well-prepared Thai forces, the French operation was stopped and fighting ended with a French retreat from the area. However, the Thais were unable to pursue the retreating French, as their forward tanks were kept in check by the gunnery of French Foreign Legion artillery.

With the situation on land rapidly deteriorating for the French, Admiral Decoux ordered all available French naval forces into action in the

Ko Chang island. The subsequent Battle of Ko Chang was a tactical victory for the French and resulted in the sinking of two Thai torpedo boats and the disabling of a coastal defense ship, with the French suffering no casualties.[7]
Fearing the war would turn in France's favor, the Japanese intervened, proposing an armistice be signed.

On 24 January, the final air battle took place when Thai bombers raided the French airfield at Angkor, near Siem Reap. The last Thai mission bombing Phnom Penh commenced at 07:10 on 28 January, when the Martins of the 50th Bomber Squadron set out on a raid on Sisophon, escorted by thirteen Hawk 75Ns of the 60th Fighter Squadron.[5][11]

Armistice

Nakhon Champassak

Japan subsequently stepped in to mediate the conflict. A general ceasefire had been arranged to go into effect at 10:00 on 28 January, and a Japanese-sponsored "Conference for the Cessation of Hostilities" was held at Saigon, with preliminary documents for an armistice between the governments of Marshal

Laos
:

  • Phra Tabong Province
  • Phibunsongkhram Province
  • Nakhon Champassak Province
  • Lan Chang Province

Treaty

The resolution of the conflict was widely acclaimed by the people of Thailand, and was seen as a personal triumph for Phibun. For the first time in its history, Thailand had been able to extract concessions from a European power, albeit a weakened one. For the French in

Fall of France
. They felt that an ambitious neighbor had taken advantage of a distant colony being cut off from a weakened parent. Without hope of reinforcements, the French had little chance of offering a sustained resistance.

To commemorate the victory, Phibun erected the

Victory Monument
in Bangkok. Thailand invited Japan and Germany to join in the celebration of its construction.

The Japanese wanted to maintain both their working relationship with Vichy and the status quo; therefore, the Thais were forced to accept only a quarter of the territory that they gained from the French, in addition to having to pay six million piastres as a concession to the French.

However, the real beneficiaries of the conflict were the Japanese, who were able to expand their influence in both Thailand and Indochina. The Japanese wanted to use Thailand and Indochina as their military bases to invade

British Burma and British Malaya
later. The Japanese won from Phibun a secret oral promise to support them in an attack on Malaya and Burma. Phibun did not keep his word.[16]

Relations between Japan and Thailand were subsequently stressed, as a disappointed Phibun switched to courting the British and Americans to ward off what he saw as an imminent Japanese invasion.

Japanese invasion of Malaya. Pearl Harbor was attacked one-and-a-half hours after Malaya and Thailand were. Fighting between Japanese and Thai forces lasted only five hours before a ceasefire was agreed. Thailand would be allied with Japan
until 1945.

After the war, in October 1946, northwestern Cambodia and the two Lao enclaves on the Thai side of the

Franco-Siamese Settlement Treaty of 1946
that settled the issue and paved the way to restoration of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

Casualties

The French army suffered a total of 321 casualties, of whom 15 were officers. The total number of missing after 28 January was 178 (six officers, 14 non-commissioned officers and 158 enlisted men).[12] The Thais had captured 222 men (17 North Africans, 80 Frenchmen, and 125 Indochinese).[5]

The Thai army suffered 54 men killed in action and 307 wounded.[8] 41 sailors and marines of the Thai navy were killed, and 67 wounded. At the Battle of Ko Chang, 36 men were killed, of whom 20 belonged to HTMS Thonburi, 14 to HTMS Songkhla, and two to HTMS Chonburi. The Thai air force lost 13 men. The number of Thai military personnel captured by the French was just 21.

About 30 percent of the French aircraft were rendered unserviceable by the end of the war, some as a result of minor damage sustained in air raids that remained unrepaired.[13] The Armée de l'Air admitted the loss of one Farman F221 and two Morane M.S.406s destroyed on the ground, but its losses were really greater.[11]

In its first experience of combat, the Royal Thai Air Force claimed to have shot down five French aircraft and destroyed 17 on the ground, against the loss of three of its own in the air and another five to 10 destroyed in French air raids on Thai airfields.

See also

References

  1. ^ Tucker, World War II: The Definitive Encyclopedia and Document Collection p. 649
  2. ^ Fall, p. 22. "On the seas, one old French cruiser sank one-third of the whole Thai fleet ... Japan, seeing that the war was turning against its pupil and ally, imposed its 'mediation' between the two parties."
  3. ISBN 0-8117-1700-3
    .
  4. ISBN 0-306-81386-6
    .
  5. ^ a b c d Royal Thai Air Force. (1976) The History of the Air Force in the Conflict with French Indochina. Bangkok.
  6. ^ a b c d Journoud, Pierre (2012). Face à la France, une victoire de Thaïs (8 ed.). fr:Guerres & Histoire. p. 72.
  7. ^ a b c d "The Battle of Koh Chang (January 1941)" netmarine.net
  8. ^ a b Sorasanya Phaengspha (2002) The Indochina War: Thailand Fights France. Sarakadee Press.
  9. ^ Stone, Bill. "Vichy Indo-China vs Siam, 1940-41".
  10. ISBN 2-7025-0436-1
    page 90
  11. ^ a b c Ehrengardt, Christian J; Shores, Christopher (1985). L'Aviation de Vichy au combat: Tome 1: Les campagnes oubliées, 3 juillet 1940 - 27 novembre 1942. Charles-Lavauzelle.
  12. ^ a b c Hesse d'Alzon, Claude (1985). La Présence militaire française en Indochine. Vincennes: Publications du service historique de l'Armée de Terre.
  13. ^ a b c d e Young, Edward M. (1995) Aerial Nationalism: A History of Aviation in Thailand. Smithsonian Institution Press.
  14. ^ Elphick, Peter. (1995) Singapore: the Pregnable Fortress: A Study in Deception, Discord and Desertion. Coronet Books.
  15. ^ Vichy versus Asia: The Franco-Siamese War of 1941
  16. ^ Charivat Santaputra (1985) Thai Foreign Policy 1932–1946. Thammasat University Press.
  17. ISBN 0-8248-1393-6
  18. ^ Terwiel, B.J. (2005) Thailand's Political History: From the Fall of Ayutthaya to Recent Times. River Books.

Bibliography

  • Young, Edward M. (1984). "France's Forgotten Air War".
    ISSN 0143-5450
    .

Further reading

  • Paloczi-Horvath, George. "Thailand's War with Vichy France." History Today (1995) 45#3 pp 32–39.
  • Wong, Ka F. Visions of a Nation: Public Monuments in Twentieth-Century Thailand, White Lotus, Bangkok 2006

External links
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