Bangkok (Lonely Planet) - Andrew Burke [7]
Shortly thereafter, Rama IV ordered the construction of the much shorter Bamrung Meuang (a former elephant path) and Feuang Nakhon roads to provide access to royal temples from Charoen Krung. His successor Rama V (King Chulalongkorn; r 1868–1910) added the much wider Th Ratchadamnoen Klang to provide a suitably royal promenade – modelled after the Champs-Élysées and lined with ornamental gardens – between the Grand Palace and the expanding commercial centre to the east of Ko Ratanakosin.
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THE AGE OF POLITICS
European Influence & the 1932 Revolution
Towards the end of the 19th century, Bangkok’s city limits encompassed no more than a dozen square kilometres, with a population of about half a million. Despite its modest size, the capital successfully administered the much larger kingdom of Siam – which then extended into modern-day Laos, western Cambodia and northern Malaysia. Even more impressively, Siamese rulers were able to stave off intense pressure from the Portuguese, the Dutch, the French and the English, all of whom at one time or another harboured desires to add Siam to their colonial portfolios. By the end of the century, France and England had established a strong presence in every one of Siam’s neighbouring countries – the French in Laos and Cambodia, and the British in Burma and Malaya.
Facing increasing pressure from British colonies in neighbouring Burma and Malaya, Rama IV signed the 1855 Bowring Treaty with Britain. This agreement marked Siam’s break from an exclusive economic involvement with China, a relationship that had dominated the previous century.
The signing of this document, and the subsequent ascension of Rama V led to the largest period of European influence on Thailand. Wishing to head off any potential invasion plans, Rama V ceded Laos and Cambodia to the French and northern Malaya to the British between 1893 and 1910. The two European powers, for their part, were happy to use Thailand as a buffer state between their respective colonial domains.
Rama V gave Bangkok 120 new roads during his reign, inspired by street plans from Batavia (the Dutch colonial centre now known as Jakarta), Calcutta, Penang and Singapore. Germans were hired to design and build railways emanating from the capital, while the Dutch contributed the design of Bangkok’s Hualamphong Train Station, today considered a minor masterpiece of civic Art Deco.
In 1893 Bangkok opened its first railway line, extending 22km from Bangkok to Pak Nam, where Mae Nam Chao Phraya enters the Gulf of Thailand; at that time it cost just 1B to travel in 1st class. A 20km electric tramway opened the following year, paralleling the left bank of Mae Nam Chao Phraya. By 1904 three more rail lines out of Bangkok had been added: northeast to Khorat (306km), with a branch line to Lopburi (42km); south-southwest to Phetburi (151km); and south to Tha Chin (34km).
Italian architects, engineers and artists contributed numerous buildings and monuments to the city, from the Old Customs House and grand Ananda Samakhon Throne Hallaround the turn of the century, to the Democracy Monument and the city’s first fine-arts university Click here, which was set up by and named for Italian sculptor Corrado Feroci (aka Silpa Bhirasi). Americans established Siam’s first printing press along with the kingdom’s first newspaper in 1864. The first Thai-language newspaper, Darunovadha, came along in 1874, and by 1900 Bangkok boasted three daily English-language newspapers: the Bangkok Times, Siam Observer and Siam Free Press.
As Bangkok prospered, many wealthy merchant families sent their children to study in Europe. Students of humbler socioeconomic status who excelled at school had access to government scholarships for overseas study as well. In 1924 a handful of Thai students in Paris formed the Promoters of Political Change, a group that