The Tightening of French Control Cambodia

Within the Palace, Norodom governed in what the French considered to be an arbitrary ,authoritarian way, the French, however, offered him no alternative style, and throughout his Reign, Norodom was drawn less by the idea of a sound administration than by the imperatives of personal survival, revolts against his rule ( and implicitly against his acquiescence to the French) broke out in 1866 and 1870s, both attracted considerable support, able both were put down with difficulty by the French, unwilling to blame themselves for this state of affairs, the French blamed Norodom and were increasingly drawn to support his half-brother, Sisowath, who had led troops alongside the French in both rebellions.
Under French pressure, while another half-brother, Sivotha, was in revolt against him, Norodom agreed in 1870 to promulgate a series of reforms, although these were never carried out, they are worth noting as precursors of more extensive French control and as indications of areas of french concern, the reforms sought to dismantle royal involvement in land ownership, to reduce the numbers of Oknha, to rationalize tax collection, and to abolish slavery, had they been enacted, they would have worn away the power bases of the Cambodan elite, what the French disliked, as Minh Mang had in the 1830s, was the Cambodian way of doing things, which interfered with their ideas of rational, centralized control, institutions like slavery and absolute monarchy, moreover, went down poorly with officials of the third Republic, less charmed by the romantic operetta aspects of Cambodia than Napoleon III and his entourage had been.
In the early 1880s, as the French tightened their grip on Vietnam, it was only a matter of time before they solved Cambodia's problems, and imposed their will on the Cambodian court, the comedy in Phnompenh had gone on too long and had cost too much, the Cambodians had not seen the importance of paying for French protection, the French became impatient and assumed for this reason that time was running out, the "riches" of Cambodian remained untapped, what had seemed exotic and quaint in Cambodian Society in the 1860s, and 1870s was now seen by a new generation of officials as oppressive, it was time for protection to became control.
In 1884, the French succeeded in getting Norodom to agree to siphon off customs duties, especially on exports, to pay for French administrative costs, Norodom sent a cable to the President of French protesting against French pressure and was chided for doing so by the governor-general of Cochin China, Charles Thomson,   who had been negotiating secretly with Sisowath to arrange a transfer of power should Norodom prove resistant to the reform.
The blow fell a few months later when Thomson sailed from Saigon to Phnompenh and confronted Norodom with a wide- ranking set of reforms encased in treaty that went much further than previous documents to establish de jure French control. Thomson arrived at the Palace with the treaty, traveling aboard a gunboat that was anchored within sight, as Norodom reviewed the document, Thomson's armed body guards stood nearby ,aided by a complaisant interpreter, Son Diep,

 

who rose to bureaucratic heights after Norodom's death, the King signed it because he saw that doing so we the only way to stay on the throne, he undoubtedly knew of Sisowath's machinations, perhaps he thought that the document's provisions would dissolve, when the French encountered opposition to them among the Cambodian elite, this is, in fact, what happened almost at once. but Article 2 of the treaty nevertheless marked a substantial intensification of French control' His majesty the Kingdom of Cambodia ( It read) accepts all the administrative, judicial, financial and commercial reforms which the French government shall judge, in future, useful to make their protectorate successful.
It was not this provision,however that enraged the Cambodian elite,who by this time probably saw Norodom as a French puppet in any case, the features that they saw as revolutionary ( and that the French saw as crucial to their program of reforms) were those that placed French residents in provincial cities, abolished, slavery,and institutionalized the ownership of land. these provisions, of course, struck at the heart of traditional Cambodian politics, which were built up out of entourages, exploitation ការគេងប្រវ័ញ្ច of labor,and the Taxation of harvests (rather than land) for benefit of the elite, who were now to become paid servants of the French administering rather than " consuming" the people under their control.
Although few French officials had troubled themselves with studying the nuance ភាពលាំគ្នា of slavery in Cambodia, and although their motives for abolishing it may have included a cynical attempt to disarm political opposition in France to their other reforms,it is clear that the institutionalization of servitude was more crucial reform, in Cambodian terms, than the placement of few French officials in the countryside to oversee the Cambodian elite, without this reform, the French could not claim to be acting on behalf of ordinary people, and more important, they could nothing to curb the power of elite, which sprang from control over personal , without abolishing slavery, moreover, the French could not proceed with their vision- however misguided it may have been-of a liberated Cambodian yeomanry ពួកម្ចាស់ដីធ្លី responding rationally to market pressures.
By cutting the ties that bound master and servants- or more precisely, by saying that this was what they hoped to do- the French were able to justify their interference at every level of Cambodia life, their proposal effectively cut the King off from his entourage and this entourage, in turn, from its followers, what the French wanted to administer in Cambodia was ,in fact, an extension of Vietnam. with communal officials responding directly to the French, even though government of this sort and at this level was foreign to Cambodia, where no commercial traditions -had they ever existed- had survived into the nineteenth century.
In the short run, the Cambodian reaction to the treaty was intense and costly to the French, in early 1885. a nationwide rebellion, under several leaders, broke out at various points, it last a year and a half, tying down some four thousand French and Vietnamese troops at a time when French resource were stretched thin in Indochina, unwilling to work through Norodom, who they suspected of supporting the rebellion, the French relied increasingly on Sisowath, allowing him a free hand in pointing pro- French officials in the Srok and thereby further undermining Norodom's authority. it seems likely that Sisowath expected to be rewarded with the throne while the Norodom was still a live, but as revolt wore on, the French found that they had to turn back to Norodom to pacify the rebels, in June 1886, the King proclaimed that if the rebels laid down their arms, the French would continue to respect Cambodian customs and laws- in other words, the mixture as before, the rebellion taught the French to be cautious, but their goals remained the same, namely, the rationalization of Cambodian government and control over the economy of the Kingdom, it was at this stage that the French began to surround Norodom with Cambodian advisers who were loyal to them rather than to the throne, these were drawn, in large part, from the small corps of interpreters trained under the French in the 1870s, the most notable of them, a Seno- Khmer named Tionn.
  was to play an important role in Cambodian politics for more than fifty years.
The issue at stake in the rebellion, as Norodom's chronicle points out, was that the "Cambodian people (were) fond of their own leaders" especially because alternatives to them were so uncertain. a French writer in the 1930s blamed the French for their hastiness in trying to impose" equality,property,and(an) electorate" for Cambodians were supposed to choose their own village leaders under an article of the treaty, he added that is fact, the masters wanted to keep their slaves and the slaves their masters" people clung to the status quo.
Faced with the possibility of drawn out war, the French stepped back from their proposed reforms, and although the treaty was ratified 1886, most of its provision did not come into effect for nearly twenty years after Norodom dead.
At the same time, it would be wrong to exaggerate និយាយបំផ្លើស the Cambodian seen " Victory " or to agree with some recent Cambodian writers who have seen the rebellion as a watershed of Cambodian nationalism. with Norodom cast as a courageous patriot cleverly opposing French control,the evidence for these assertions is ambiguous.Norodom, after all accepted French protection in general way out but attacked it when he thought his own interests-especially financial ones-were at stake, there is a little evidence that he viewed his people as anything other than objects to consume, and certainly the French distrusted him more after 188, they spend the rest of his Reign reducing his privileges and independence, but it would be incorrect to endow Norodom or the rebellious Oknha with systematic ideas about the Cambodian nation ( as opposed to particular, personal relationship).
 With hindsight, we can perceive two important lesson of the rebellion one was that the regional elite, despite French intervention in Cambodia, was still able to organize sizable and efficient guerrilla force, as it had done against the Thai 1834 and the Vietnamese 1841 it was to do again in the more peaceable"1916 affaira' discussed in the period the second lesson was that guerrilla troops, especially when supported by much of population, could hold a colonial army at bay.
 The next ten years of Norodom's Reign saw an inexorable increase in French control, with policies changing from(ones) of sentiment,,to a more egotistic, more personal policy of colonial expansion, all that stood in the way of French was the fact that Norodom still made the laws, appointed the officials, and controlled the national economy by farming out sources of revenue( such as the opium monopoly ឯកាធិជន and gambling concession,) by demanding gifts from his officials and by refusing to pay his bills, by 1892, however, the collection of direct taxes had come under French control, two years latter, there were ten French residence in the Srok, the 1890s, saw increasing French consolidation throughout Indochina, culminating in the Governor- Generalship of Paul Doumer (1897-1902).
In Cambodia, this consolidation involved tinkering with fiscal procedures and favoring Sisowat rather than any of Norodom's children as the successor to the throne, French officials were eager for Norodom relinquish control but were frightened by the independent- mindedness of many of his sons
one of whom was exiled to Algeria in 1893 for anti colonial agitation King's health was poor in any case and was made worse by his addition to opium, which the French provided him,in ornamental boxes, free of charge, as french officials grew more impatient with Norodom and as he weakened, they became abusive, after all, there were fortunes to be made by colonist inn Cambodia, or so the thought, and Norodom barred the way , the climax came in1897, when the resident Superior, Huynh De Vernevile, cable Paris that the King was incapable of ruling the country De vernevile asked to be granted executive authority instead, Paris concurred, the resident was now free to issue royal decrees appoint officials , and collect indirect taxes, as Milton Osborn has pointed out, high-ranking Cambodian officials ,previously dependent on Norodom's approval. were quick to sense a shift in the balance of power by the end of the year,  the King's advice-even though he had now regained his seal and de Vernville had been dismissed- was heeded only as a matter of form, the new resident Superior was in command, answerable to authorities in Saigon, Paris, and Hanoi.
In the mean time, long-postponed royal decrees- such as on allowing French citizens to purchase land had product ed a real estate boom in Phnompenh, the effect of the reforms in the Srok, as far as we can tell, was less far-reaching, throughout the 1890s, French residents complained officially about torpor, corruption, and timidity among local officials , although one of them.sensing the tune he was now expected to play. reported to hid French superiors that ' the population of all the villages in my province is happy, ( the people) have not even the slightest complaint about the measures that have been taken" the Cambodian countryside, however, as many French officials complained, what the thought, or who held tiles to land, although slavery had been abolished, millenarian leaders occasionally gathered  credulous followers and led them into revolt, gangs of bandits roamed were handy secure than they had ever been.
And yet high- ranking French officials still saw their role in the country in terms of a " civilizing mission " and of rationalizing their relationship with the court, in the countryside, ironically, Sisowath was more popular than Norodom, partly because the people had seen him more often,on ceremonial occasions, and partly because Norodom's rule had been so rapacious and unjust, Sisowath, in fact, looked on approvingly at developments in the 1890s, and by 1897 or so he had been formally promised the throne by French officials.
Norodom took seven more years to die, the last years of his Reign were marked by scandal involving his favorite son, Prince Yukanthor, who sought to publicize French injustice in Cambodia when he was in France by hiring a French journalist to press his case with French officials paid slight attention
except to take offense,Yukantor's accusations were largely true, if perhaps too zealous and wide ranking, as when he declared to the people of France " you have created property ( in Cambodia) and thus you have created the poor.
Officials in Paris persuaded Norodom by cable to demand an apology from his son ,it never came, for Yukanthor preferred to remain in exile, he died in Bangkok in 1934 and until then was viewed by French colonial officials with slight, but unjustified,apprehension.
The two last prerogatives that Norodom surrendered to be French were the authority to select his close advisers and the right to farm out gambling concessions to Chinese businessmen in Phnompenh, little by little, the French encroached on his freedom of action. Osborne has recorded the battles that Norodom lost, but the last pages of the royal chronicle (compiled during the Reign of Sisowath's son, King Monivong in the 1930s) say almost nothing about the confrontation, leaving the impression that the Reign was moving peacefully toward its close.

End of the Tightening of French Control Cambodia

The Establishment of the French Protectorate Cambodia

The beginning of French involvement in Cambodia are to be found in eighteenth century, when missionaries took up residence in the Kingdom, especially in the vicinity of Udong, involvement did not become political, however, before the 1850s, coincidentally with French involvement in Vietnam in the mid-1850s, King Duang sought French support in an attempt to play off the Thai against the Vietnamese, but the French diplomatic mission to Cambodian 1856, armed with draft treaty of cooperation, failed to reach the Cambodian court, which was frightened away from welcoming it by the Thai political advisers, the draft treaty,incidentally, contained several clauses that passed into the operative one concluded in 1863, the French wanted teak for shipbuilding, for example, freedom to move about the country, and freedom to proselytize for the Roman Catholic faith.
French interest in Cambodia deepened with its involvement in Vietnam also after a French naturalist, Henri Muohot (1826-1861), Visited Duang's court and then proceeded to Seam-Reap, where he" discovered" the ruins of Angkok, Mouhot suggested in a book about his travels that Cambodia was exceptionally rich and that its rulers were neglecting their patrimony, Duang's openness to Hout and and other European visitors in this period stemmed in part of from his friendship with a French missionary, Monseigneur Jean claude Miche, whose mission headquarters was located near Udong and who had actively supported the 1856 diplomatic mission, Miche persuaded the King that there could be advantages in being free from Thai control and Vietnamese threats, in the last two years of his Reign, moreover, Duang saw French expansion into Vietnam as an opportunity for him to regain territory that Cambodia had lost to the Vietnamese over the preceding two hundred years.
Bogged down in guerrilla warfare in Vietnam, and unsure of support from Paris, the French administrators in Saigon were slow to respond to Cambodia's assertions of friendship, the matter lapsed when Duang Died in 1860 and Cambodia was plunged into series of civil wars, Duang's designated heir, Norodom, was unpopular in Eastern Srok and among Cham dissidents, who had almost captured Udong while Duang was alive, Norodom had spent much of his youth as a hostage at the Thai court, unable to rule, he fled Cambodia in 1861, returning with Thai support at the end of the following year, but he returned on a probationary basis, for his regalia remained in Bangkok, angered by Thai interference, and attracted by French promises of gifts, Norodom re-opened negotiations with French, according to a contemporary, the French admiral in charge of South-Vietnam, having no immediate war to fight, looked for a peaceful conquest and began dreaming about Cambodia.
The colonial era began without a shot and in a very tentative way,a delegation of French naval officers concluded a treaty with Norodom in Udong in August 1863, offering him protection at the hands of a French resident in exchange for timber concessions and mineral exploration right, Norodom managed to keep the treaty secret from his Thai advisers for several months, when they found out about it and notified Bangkok, he quickly reasserted his dependence on the Thai King, declaring to his advisers that" I desire to remain( the Thai King) servant, for his glory, until the end of my life, no change ever occurs in my heart" the Thai,  in turn, kept Norodom's, change of heart a secret from the French, who learned of it only after his early declaration of faith had been ratified in Paris in early 1864.
What Norodom wanted from the French Vis-a' Vis the Thai is unclear, he seems to have been playing for time,and the method he shose resembled that of his uncle, King Chan, with French in the role of
the Vietnamese, he wanted to be crowned, and by the middle of 1864, the Thai and the French had agreed to cosponsor his coronation, the unintentionally comical aspects of the ceremony are re-counted by several French source, Thai and french officials quarreled about precedent,protocol, and regalia while Norodom, using time-honored filial imagery proclaimed his dependence on both courts, for the last time, the Cambodian King's title were chosen and transmitted by Bangkok, for the last time,too, The Cambodian King claimed to draw legitimacy from two foreign courts, for the first time, a Cambodian King accepted his crown from a European, the next three Cambodian monarch followed suit , from this point on, Thai influence in Cambodian began to wane fading even more sharply and more or less for good after King Mongkut's or ( Rama IV ) death in 1867.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mongkut_in_the_Sangha.jpeg


The imposition of French protection over Cambodia did not end the dynastic and millenarian rebellion that had plagued the earlier years of Norodom's Reign, although French military force were helpful in quelling these rebellions by 1867, the most important of these was led by Pou Kombo ពោកំបោរ, an ex-monk who claimed that he had better right than Norodom to be King, a year before, Norodom had shifted his Palace to Phnompenh, he had been urged to do so by French, just as Chan had been encouraged to move by the Vietnamese earlier in the century, and for similar tactical reasons, in the French case,commercial motives were also at work, for Phnompenh was more accessible from Saigon than an inland capital would have been, and it was hoped that the exploration of the Mekong river under commandant E,Doudart de lagree'( 1823-1868)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ernest_Doudart_de_Lagree.jpg
would result in Data about the river's Northern reaches that would justify French pipe dreams of Phnompenh as an important commercial City.
For the French, the 1860s and 1870s were a heroic period, partly because government retained in the hands of young naval officers hungry for glory, eager for promotion, and entranced by the exotic setting in which they found themselves, by the large, these pioneers of colonialism- men like Doudart de largree', Francis Garnier, Jean Moura, and Etienne aymonier- possessed great energy, sympathy for the Cambodians and intellectual integrity, they explored the Mekong, translated Cambodian chronicle, deciphered inscriptions, and arranged for the shipment of tons of Cambodia sculpture to museums in Paris, Saigon, and eventually Phnompenh, the grandeur of their exploits and of Cambodia's distant past formed a sharp contrast in their minds with the "decay" of the Cambodian court and the Helplessness " of the Cambodian people.
And yet there was probably little difference between the way Cambodia was governed in the 1860s, and the way Angkok had been governed almost a thousand years before, in both cases, perhaps ,and certainly for most of the years between, government meant a network of status relationships whereby peasants paid in rice, forest products or labor support their officials , the officials ,in turn, paid the King, using some of rice, forest products, and peasants labor with which they had been paid, the member of peasant one could exploit in this way depended on the position one was granted by the throne, positions themselves were for sale, and this tended to limit officeholders to members of the elite with enough money or goods on hand to purchase their positions.
 In the nineteenth century, the destabilization of rural Society pummeled  the infrastructure of these arrangements , but they persisted into the colonial era when the King's personal demands on the system were frequently tempted him into unwise investments.

End of The Establishment of the French Protectorate Cambodia

The early Stages of The French Protectorate " Cambodia "

There are several ways of looking at the years of French hegemony over Cambodia, one is to break them into phases and to trace the extension and decline of French control, another would be to examine the period and its ideology and practice- political, economic, educational, and so forth- from a French point of view , a third would be to treat the period as part of Cambodian history, connected to the times before and after French control, the French are gone, and the third perspective seems the most attractive, although there are serious gaps in the sources and useful primary material in Cambodian, aside from royal chronicles, is very scarce, in this chapter I attempt to see the French as often as possible through Cambodian eyes.
In the mean time, if we look at the colonial era in terms of the waxing and waning of French, control(the first of the three perspectives), the years break fairly easily into phases, the first phase lasted from the establishment of protectorate in 1863 to the outbreak of a national rebellion in 1884, the second phase would extend from the suppression of rebellion 1886 to King Norodom's death in 1904, when a more cooperative monarch, Norodom's half-brother, Sisowath, came to the throne, the third phase lasted until Norodom-Sihanouk's coronation in 1941 and spans the Reigns of Sisowath(r 1904-1927) and his eldest son Monivong(r 1927-1941) this period, it can be argued, was the only systematically Colonial one in Cambodian history,for in the remainder of the colonial era(1941-1953)
The French were concerned more with holding on than with systematizing their control.

From a Cambodian perspective, however, it is possible to take the view that the colonial era falls into periods rather than four, with the break occurring at Sisowath's coronation in 1906, from that point on, Cambodians stopped governing themselves and the westernization of Cambodian life intensified, what would have been recognizable in a Srok in 1904 to a Cambodian official of the 1840s had been modified sharply by 1920, when French government, particularly at the local level, had been organized as part of a total effort in Indochina.
But until the late 1940s, I suspect, few Cambodians would have considered these mechanical changes, or French presence as a whole, as having a deleterious effect on their lives or on their durable institutions of subsistence farming, Buddhism, and Kingship, the political stability that characterized most of the colonial era can be traced partly to French patronage of the King and the King's patronage of the Sangha, which tended to keep these two institutions aligned- politically, at least- with French objectives, partly because Kings, Monks and officials had no tradition of innovation and partly because popular methods of  questioning their authority, heresy and rebellion had been effectively smothered by the French since 1880s, in terms of economic transformations, the significant developments that occurred in the technology of rice farming tended to be limited to the northern part of the Kingdom, where huge rice plantations had come into being, in the rest of the country, as Jean Delvert has shown, the expanding population tended to cultivate rice in small, family oriented plots.
Because of this stability, perhaps, the French in many their writings tended to romanticize and favor the Cambodians at the expense of the Vietnamese, at the same time, because in their terms so little was going on they tended to look down on the Cambodians as " Lazy" or "Obedient" an ambiguous and not very thoughtful romanticism suffuses many French language source composed on the colonial era, especially in the twentieth century, when cliches' about the people were passed along the heirlooms from official( or one issue of a newspaper) to the next, at the same time, until the early 1994s, no Cambodian-language sources questioned the efficacy of French rule or Cambodia's traditional institutions.
For these reason,it is temping to join some French authors and skip over era when"nothing happened"
to do so would be a mistake, because what was happening, especially after the economic boom of the 1920s, was that independent, pre-revolutionary Cambodia( with all its shortcomings) was being built or foreshadowed in spite of large areas of life that remained , as many French writers would say part of the " Timeless" and" Mysterious" Cambodia of Angkor.
It is tempting also to divide French behavior in Cambodia into such as categories as "Political, Economic" ans Social " terms that give the false impression that they separable segments of reality, what the French meant by them in the context of the colonial situation tended to be idiosyncratic, Politic, for example, meant dissidence and manipulation rather than participation in a politic process, Ideally, in a colonial there should be no politic at all, Economics meant Budgets, Taxes , and revenues- in other words, the economic  of bureaucratic control, on the rare occasions when French writers looked at Cambodia's economy, they related it to the rest of Indochina, particularly in terms of export crops and colonial initiatives, like public works, rather than to Cambodian needs and capabilities, by the 1920s, in the eyes of French officials , Cambodian had become a rice- making machine, producing revenue as well in exchange for " Guidance " this meant that the essence of government-Rajarkar (រាជការ=រដ្ខាភិបាល) or royal work- remained what it had always been, the extraction of revenue from the peasants, as for "Social" the word as French used it did not refer to solidarity among people or relationships that added up to political cohesion សិនិទ្ធពល,instead" " Society " meant a conglomeration of families, obediently at work.
The chronological perspective and the analytical ones just dealt with may be helpful in looking at the period 1863-1953, for looking at these years in terms of Cambodian history means looking at them in terms of continuity and change ,from this angle, the alterations to Cambodian Society and thinking of Cambodian elite are as important as the apparently timeless life in the villages, which was also changing.

End of The early Stages of The French Protectorate "Cambodia"

The Restoration Of Cambodia Independence

As the Vietnamese court and its officials in Cambodia sought a solution to what they saw as an internal Vietnamese problem, Chaophraya Bodin's expeditionary force, numbering thirty-five thousand men, assembled near Battambang and then attacked and defeated the Vietnamese garrison at Pursat, Bodin was prepared to attack the capital but hesitate because he was short of supplies and lacked confidence in his troops instead he withdrew to Battambang, where he sought to consolidate his political position, during the siege of Pursat,eighteen rebellious Oknha had written him pleading for Thai support and for Duang's return from Bangkok, the Oknha pledge allegiance to Rama III, complained about shortages of supplies, and asserted That Cambodians would be happy only if the political conditions of the early nineteenth century, before the Vietnamese had arrived, were re-established.
Bodin transmitted the letter to Bangkok and added a recommendation for Duang's release from Custody and his return to political power,in January 1841,Duang reached Battambang, accompanied
by Thai and Cambodian advisers and carrying gifts for his supporters, including insignia of rank and royal accoutrement's គ្រឿងផ្គុតផ្គង់ទាហាន provide for him and Rama II according to one source, Bodin had urged Duang's release because"If there are no superior people to took after a population, the common people have no security" the records alsosuggest that Bodin's motives included winning over the Oknha (he was eager that local Khmer, rather than his own inexperienced troops, should engage the Vietnamese)by promising them that Duang would ruler over Cambodia, for the rest of the 1840s, Duang was to be closely watched and manipulated សម្របសម្រួល by Bodin. Duang's return to Cambodia and Rama III's solicitude for him opened an era in Thai-Cambodian relations that lasted until French intervention in 1863.

While Duang was conferring with potential courtiers and Bodin was complaining that the newcomers were consuming Thai supplies, Thieu Tri was attempting to understand and control Vietnamese policy toward Cambodia, with a view to thwarting a Thai invasion, pacifying rebellious provinces of Southern Vietnam, and retaining Vietnamese prestige, in late 1841s, Truong Minh Giang attempted once again to bring Prince Im to power, but edicts in his name attracted no support, it was at this point, perhaps that Truong Minh Giang (Trương Minh Giảng)  realized that he had almost no chance of restoring a favorable political balance in Cambodia, he withdraw to Vietnamese, talking Im, the Princesses, and the population of the City, numbering some six thousand people, with him,when he arrived in Vietnam, he sent a letter to Hue' in which he took the blame for"losing" Cambodia, to which he referred as emperor's rightful property" he then took poison and died.
The Vietnamese failure did not mean that the Thai had succeeded and by 1843 Cambodia had become a quagmire for Chaophraya Bodin, as he wrote Bangkok" we have been in Cambodia for three years without accomplishing anything ,we are short of supplies, people are going off into the forest to live on leaves and roots and nearly a thousand men in our army have died from lack of food",in 1844, he had to abandon Phnompenh, where the Vietnamese soon reinstalled Princess Mei as Cambodia's "Legitimate Queen" while Thai force congregated near Udong, the Vietnamese maneuver infuriated Bodin, who saw that many Oknha might now be unwilling to support the Thai, he complained to Bangkok that " all the Khmer Leader and nobles, all the district chiefs and all the common people are ignorant, stupid foolish and gullible, they have no idea what is true and what is false".
In spite of these difficulties , Vietnamese attempts to dislodge the Thai forces around Udong throughout 1845 were fruitless by the end of the year, the Thai and Vietnamese opened negotiations for a cease-fire, the talks moved forward, for they were grounded in Thieu-Tri' willingness to abandon his military positions in Cambodia and by implication, his father's policies there, they moved slowly,however ,in a context of military stalemate, even though in political terms conditions were favorable to the Thai, in Prince Duang they had a seasoned, popular ruler loyal to Bangkok and able to work through a well established network of loyal officials in the Srok, but the Vietnamese still occupied a strong bargaining position, particularly as they retained Cambodia's regalia, without which Duang could not legitimately ascend the throne.
In a face-saving gesture they demanded that a tributary mission headed by a Cambodian official travel to Hue' in March 1846 and declare Cambodia 's pro form subservience to Vietnamese, when the embassy returned to Phnompenh in June 1847, the Vietnamese handed over the Cambodian regalia and released several members of royal family who had been in their custody, in some cases for many years, soon  afterward, they withdrew their force from Cambodia, for the first time since 1811, there were no Vietnamese official on Cambodia soil.
Over the next few months, in a series of ceremonial gestures, Duang reenacted the restoration of Thai sponsored  Kingship that had been eclipsed for so many years, it would be mistake to dismiss these ceremonial actions as mere protocol,because Duang ,like most Southeast Asian rulers at the time, did not disentangle what we would call the religious and political strands of his thinking, duties , and behavior and political actions were thought to enhance or diminish a monarch's fund of merit.
Many of these ceremonies had to do with the restoration of Theravada Buddhism as the state religion, one account relates that Duang :
Levelled the (Vietnamese) fortifications at Phnompenh, and hauled away the bricks to build and restore,, (seven) Buddhist monasteries near Udong, Broken Buddha-images were recast, and new ones were carved,Monks were encouraged to live in monasteries again, and people were encouraged to respect them.
To his subjects, Duang's return to Cambodia and the restoration of Buddhism , there were ex-post facto proofs of his Kindliness, legitimacy, and merit, an inscription from 1851 describes the electric effect of this restoration in the 1840s.
There was a mighty ruler whose name was Duang, he came from the Royal City 9Bangkok) to Cambodia, and lived in the fortified city of Udong with merit, skill and masterly intelligence, the King scattered his enemies in terror, and soon the three warring states were friends again.
On an auspicious day in April 1848. Duang was anointed by Thai and Cambodian Brahmans in Udong and ascended the Cambodian Throne, he was Fifty-two years old, and his Reign, which lasted twelve years ,can be seen as a Cambodian renaissance, for most of these years, the Kingdom was at peace, and although Thai political advisers and some Thai troops lingered at Udong, Duang was relatively free to make political decisions, such as those connected with awarding title to Oknha, The Chronicles of his Reign place much emphasis on its restoratives aspects, a wide range of institutions and relationships was involved, the Chronicle points to  linguistic reforms, public works, sumptuous laws, and new sets of royal titles, from other sources, we know that Duang was an accomplished poet and presided  over the promulgation of a new law code and the Compilation of new Chronicle histories.

លេខរជ្ជកាល	នាមសំរាប់នាមផ្ទាល់	កាលកំនត់រជ្ជកាល	រាជធានី	រាជវង្ស
		១៧៥៨-១៧៧៥
២	រាមរាជាអង្គនន់	១៧៧៥-១៧៧៩	ឧដុង្គ	ឧទាហរណ៍
៣	នារាយណ៍រាជាទី៣ អង្គអេង	១៧៧៩-១៧៩៦	ឧដុង	បុត្រព្រះឧទ័យរាជា
៤	ចៅហ្វ៊ាប៊ុក	១៧៩៦-១៨០៥	ឧដុង
៥	ឧទ័យរាជា អង្គចន្ទ	១៨០៦-១៨៣៤	ឧដុងភ្នំពេញ	បុត្រស្ដេច៣
៦	អង្គម៉ីក្សត្រី	អង្គម៉ីក្សត្រី	កោះស្លា កែត	បុត្រីស្តេច៥
៧	ហវិរក្សរាមាឥស្សរាធិបតី អង្គដួង	១៨៤០ ១៨៥៩	ឃ្លាំងស្បែក ឧដុង្គ	បុត្រស្តេច ៣
៨	នរោត្តម អង្គច្រឡឹង	១៨៥៩-១៩០៤	ឧដុង្គភ្នំពេញ	បុត្រស្តេច៧
៩	ស៊ីសុវត្តិ	១៩០៤ ១៩២៧	ភ្នំពេញ	បុត្រស្ដេច៧
១០	ស៊ីសុវត្តិ មុនីវង្ស	១៩២៧ ១៩៤១	ភ្នំពេញ	បុត្រស្តេច៩

Chroniclers in the 1880s and 1930s, looking back to those few years of Cambodian independence prior to French control, may have considered Duang's Reign to be kind of golden age, the King himself seems to have been cautious after so many years of se-micapivity in Bangkok, his relations with Rama III and Rama IV ( King Mongkut) were subservient, as his letters to these monarch show, he seems to have make no attempt to improve relations with Vietnamese in the hope of gaining some freedom of maneuver, perhaps because he was frightened by the precedent of the 1830s and because from the Vietnamese point of view any improvement in relations would only have intensified his dependency on them instead, in 1853 he appears to have somewhat clumsily sought French protection by sending gifts and offering his "Humble homage" to the emperor of French, Napoleon III, via the French consulate in Singapore, Duang was probably put up to this by French missionaries who were active near Udong, his gifts included four elephant tusks, two rhinoceros horns, and sizable quantities of sugar and while pepper, a French diplomatic mission to his court, bearing a draft treaty of friendship was not allowed to proceed to Udong by the Thai, who had swiftly brought their client monarch to heel.
Duang seems to have sought French help not so much to escape Thai protection, which would have been impossible to manage, as to defend himself against the Vietnamese, in letters to the French, he referred to them, as Pol-Pot was to do in the 1970s as Cambodia's "traditional enemies" Ironically , in the 1860s, France took over Vietnamese patronage of Cambodia, eliminated Vietnamese influence, and then proceeded to encourage Vietnamese immigration into Cambodia, after his tempt to make friends  with French had failed, Duang explained himself to a French missionary, saying" what would you have me do? I have two masters who always have an eye fixed on me, they are my neighbors, and France is far a way." Clearly, many conditions had to change before Cambodian could emerge from this dual dependency, which had lasted with brief interludes for more than fifty years.

The end of The Restoration Of Cambodia Independence.

The Vietnamization of Cambodia 1835-1840

When Chan returned to his battered, abandoned capital in early 1834,he found himself under more stringent Vietnamese control, Thai successes in their overland offensive had shown Minh Mang that he could not rely on the Khmer to provide a "Fence" for his southern and Western borders, and with the defeat of the rebellion, he now moved to intensify and consolidate his control, to head this civilizing mission,he named the general who had crushed the rebellion in Saigon,Truong Minh Giang
 Giang needed Chan and his officials to provide the Vietnamese with labor ,rice,and soldiers, Chan to have needed the Vietnamese somewhat less in material terms, but probably counted on them to protect him from assassination and revolt, like later outsiders operating in Cambodia, Giang probably expected too much from the King Oknha before 1834 was over, he had reported pessimistically  to Hue' that.
We have tried to punish and reward the Cambodian officials according to their merits and demerits, we have asked the King to help us, but he has hesitated to do so , after studying the situation, we have decided that Cambodian officials only know how to bribe and the bribed, offices are sold, nobody carries out orders, everyone works for his own account, when we tried to recruit soldiers ,the King was perfectly willing, but the officials concealed great numbers of people, when we wanted to compile a list of meritorious officials ( the officials were willing,but) the King was un-willing, because he was jealous, for the last four months, nothing has been accomplished.

Giang's impatience was understandable, for Cambodian politics at the time was characterized by a diffusion of power, a shortage of resources and a negotiability of position that effectively kept anyone from becoming powerful for very long, That Cambodians should hesitate to accomplish tasks for the Vietnamese struck Giang as insulting, even treacherous, but Minh-Mang urged him to do the best he could with the human materials at hand.
Bodin, in the meantime, had settle his force in the Northwest,as the 1830s,wore on,the Thai increased
their military presence in Battambong and Siam reap. placing Im and Duang in ambiguous administrative control, presumably to attract indigenous support against the Vietnamese, these program was matched to the south and East by an intensive program of Vietnamization, which affected many aspects of Cambodian life, the program was set in motion in 1834 and played itself out under the threat of Thai invasions for the rest of the 1830s the last years of Ming Mang's Reign.
An early victim of Vietnamization was Chan himself, toward the end of 1834 according to the Vietnamese annals, he came under the influence of ' magicians" who allegedly encouraged him to accept bribes and "let criminals out of jail. in a sense the magicians, were merely asking Chan to act like a traditional King, but their influence distressed Truong Minh Mang, who had them arrested and shot, for Chan himself, the end of his struggle to stay alive and provide for himself and his people a modicum of independence had arrived, in early 1835, after a month's illness, he died abroad his royal barge, moored opposite his ruined Palace in Phnompenh, he was forty-four years old, and he had Reigned, in one way or another, for nearly forty years.
Chan's death posed problems for the Vietnamese,for he had no sons and his eldest daughter, Princess Baen ,was suspected of being pro- Thai,soon after his death,the Oknha agreed to Vietnamese
suggestion that Chan's second daughter,
Princess Mei,be named as queen,to officiate at her investiture
Ming Mang sent a Vietnamese official from Saigon, and in a hall built specially for the purpose, Mei and her sisters faced North, toward the emperor's letter authorizing her to Reign, while the Vietnamese delegate and other officials faced South, as the emperor always did in his Palace in Hue'.

( picture) The Queen Mother of the Cambodia, 1895.

The ceremony bore no resemblance to a traditional Cambodian coronation, but from the Cambodian's point of view, the Queen's ability to grant tittle and bestoa official seals (as well as to officiate at royal ceremonies) meant that she was their Queen, to the Vietnamese, who treated her as the ceremonial leader of a protectorate, these aspects of the question were unimportant when compared to the administrative reforms that Truong Minh Mang ,at the emperor's request, was now ready to impose, whereas previously the Vietnamese fort at Phnompenh had been called Annam.. or pacified South, the City itself and the surrounding countryside were now renamed Tran -Tay, or Western commander, and Si-no Vietnamese names were given to all of Cambodia's Srok, Day to Day administrative decisions including personal postings salaries, military affairs, and the control of rice surpluses, were placed in Vietnamese hand, and some sixteen officials , seventeen clerks, and ten schoolmasters , were sent to Phnompenh to form the core of an infrastructure for the administration, until 1839-1840, however, the administration of the Srok-including the all-important matter of labor mobilization was left to the Oknha, who operated with royal seals even though their appointment were cleared through the Vietnamese.
Minh Mang's policy of Vietnamese Cambodia had several facets, he sought to mobilize and arm the Khmer, to colonize the region with Vietnamese, and to reform the habits of the people, he also tried to standardize patterns of measurement, mobilization, and food supply for military reasons, control that is, control of the adult male population and the formation of a standing army ,if possible, to resist the Thai was essential ingredient of all the Vietnamese programs , problems of recruitment arose because many of the Oknha were unwilling to relinquish control over their followers, the Vietnamese soon found, in fact, that Cham mercenaries were the only troops they could recruit.
Because ethnic Khmer caused so many problems, Minh Mang sought to colonize the region with Vietnamese, he justified this policy on the grounds that "Military convicts ordinary prisoners, if kept, in jail, would prove useless, therefor, it would be better for them to be sent to Cambodia and live among the people there, who would benefit from their teaching".
Ironically, Vietnamese policies toward Cambodia in the 1830s ,fore shadowed the French mission civilisatrice( Civilizing mission) that was, during the colonial era, to weaken and dismantle so many Vietnamese institutions, in a lengthy memorial to Truong Minh Giang, the emperor outlined his policy.

The barbarians (in Cambodia) have become my children now, and you should help them, and teach them our customs,, I have heard, for example, that the land is plentiful and fertile, and that were are plenty of oxen(for plowing),, but the people have no knowledge of( advanced) agriculture, using picks and hoes, rather than oxen, they grow enough rice for two meals a day, but they don't store any surplus,, daily necessities like cloth, silk, ducks and pork are very expensive,, now all these short comings term from the laziness of the Cambodians,, and my instructions to you are these, teach them to use oxen, teach them to grow more rice, teach them to raise mulberry trees, pigs and ducks,,as for language, the should be taught to speak Vietnamese, (our habits of)  dress and table manners must also be fallowed, if there is any out-dated or barbarous custom that can be simplified, or repressed, then do so."


The emperor closed by advising Giang to move cautiously in engineering social change, let the good ideas seep in, he wrote, turning the barbarians into civilized people, speed was not essential, as for winning the hearts of the people, and teaching them, we plan to do this rather slowly, in a subsequent memorial, the emperor recognized that even this slow process might never succeed , because , the customs of the barbarians are so different from our own that even if we were to capture all their territories, it would not be certain we could change them.
 There is no record of Vietnamese success in altering Cambodian agricultural technique , although the need to do so was a recurrent theme in their correspondence of the 1830s,likewise,Vietnamese efforts
to quantify and systematize landholdings ,tax payments, and irrigation works came to little. what impressed the Khmer about the Vietnamese, it seems, were their persistent demands for corvee' labor and their cultural reforms, which struck at the root of Khmer notions of their own identity, one of these was the order that Khmer put on trousers instead of skirts and wear their hair long rather than close-cropped, other "barbarous" Cambodian customs, according to a Vietnamese writer, included wearing robes without slits up the sides, using loincloths, eating with the fingers, and greeting from a kneeling position rather than from as upright one, the two peoples lived on different sides of a deep cultural divide, perhaps the most sharply defined  of those in effect in nineteenth century Southeast Asia, this divide was to be savagely exploited in the 1970s, first by Lon-Nol and latter by Pol-Pot.

Customs, people ,and agricultural produce, I was to know whether the people are prosperous, and whether or not the Cambodian militia has been trained( I also want to know) if the barbarian people have learned Vietnamese ways, and if they are happy.

In yet another memorial, Minh Mang outlined plans for replacing Cambodian Chaovay Srok with Vietnamese, beginning with Srok close to Phnompenh, in 1839, he was annoyed to hear that the Oknha continued to use Cambodian rather than Vietnamese official title.

At tran Tay ( the emperor said) Cambodian officials have all been given title from my court, however, I understand that in correspondence and conversation they still use Cambodian title,, The Cambodians should be told that it is an honor to have title bestowed on them by this court in conversation, therefore, they should use our titles rather than theirs.

Chan's brother Duang had been living in Battombang for several years, under Thai protection, and an obscure sequence of events in 1837 culminated in his arrest by the Thai and his return in chains to Bangkok. The sources suggest that Vietnamese emissaries from Phnompenh had tried to lure him down to the capital with promises that he could be given the throne, Duang's replies to them were so ambiguous as to convince both the Thai and the Vietnamese that he intended to betray them, using Oknha in the Capital region to gather supporters in an effort to regain Chan's somewhat dubious independence.
In the mean time , the growing apprehension of the Vietnamese about Thai mobilization, and the slow progess of their own reforms, led them to tighten their administrative machinery, anti- Vietnamese uprising in 1837-1839 were both a cause and an effect of these reforms ,according to the Vietnamese annals, there were four parts to their revised strategy, the most innovative one was to redraw the Srok and replace indigenous Chaovay troughout the country with Vietnamese, in making selections for these posts( never actually filled,it seems) the Vietnamese ministries were urged to find, about twenty, low- ranking officials , whose educational attainments were less important than their agricultural experience and their talent as military leaders, the second element of the policy was to open more plantations to train more indigenous soldiers and to store more rice in an attempt to free the Vietnamese and mercenary garrisons from dependence on Southern Vietnamese, third, the Cambodians were to be taught Vietnamese so as to improve communications" finally the Vietnamese
were to encourage further colonization of Cambodian by Chinese immigrants and Vietnamese convicts, even though Truong Minh Mang had pointed out the dangers of this policy at great length in memorial to Minh Mang early in the year.
These reforms led the Thai chronicles to refer to Minh Mang's naming in the Khmer"new Vietnamese"saw nothing harmful in this. any more than they did in changing Cambodian weights ,
measures, fashions and coiffures ,of the innovations, the one aimed at replacing the Chaovay Srok probably had the most to do with the rebellion that broke out against the Vietnamese in 1840 - 1841, it is significant that the Oknha, when attacked in this fashion, could easily rally followers to defend the statues quo rather than what might well have been a more equitable and forward-looking Vietnamese administration,there are interesting parallels here,moreover,with the opposition to the people's republic of Kampuchea (PRK) administration in the 1980s.

In the 1839, Prince Im, favored by the Thai since his brother's imprisonment, defected to Phnompenh with several thousand men, mistakenly convinced that Vietnamese intended to place him on the Cambodian throne, when he reached the capital, he was arrested by Truong Minh Mang and take off to Saigon and Hue', thus removing from the scene yet another contender for the Throne.
One Thai response to these events, when they heard of them in early1840, was to install a military garrison in Battambang, when Chaophraya -Bodin reached the City to investigate Im's defection, he found that of three hundred Cambodians with some sort of official standing in the Srok,nearly two hundred had fled, his plans for a full- scale invasion of Cambodia were temporarily postponed because he was uncertain of local support.
The rebellion against Vietnamese that broke out in September and October 1840 had reached the planning stage in May, intermittent uprising, in fact, had broken out every year since 1836, and deteriorating conditions in Cambodia, as we have seen, had led Minh Mang to tighten his administration, one of his steps was to improve the collection of taxes, traditionally, these had been collect through the Oknha, however, the amount of Tax, paid in rice and cloth, had never been sufficient to support the Vietnamese, in an 1840 decree, Minh Mang ordered that Cambodia's arable land be remeasured and that records be maintained concerning rainfall, granaries, and irrigation works, so that Vietnamese operations inn Cambodia could pay for themselves, he had been making similar demands for six years, he said, but little had been achieved.
By June 1840, Minh Mang's patience was exhausted, he demoted Mei and her two sisters,giving them low rank in the civil service, following the demotion, the six highest-ranking Oknha, including the Ta-La- Ha, were place under arrest and taken off to Saigon, accused of falsifying census records and 'hiding" some fifteen thousand people otherwise liable for militia duty and corvee', this was done in secret, and their followers assumed that they were dead, their disappearance was one of the most significant cause of the revolt ការជិនឆ្អន់.
Indeed, the failure of the Vietnamese to impose a workable pattern of administration in Cambodia was connected with their willingness, in the early years at least, to work through the Oknha, whose loyally to them was intermittent at best and whose operating styles based on such as things as fear, arrogance,patronage,local ties, and loyalties to relatives and other officials, were neither sympathetic nor conductive to a Vietnamese administration, most of the Oknha were happy enough, it seems to accept rewards occasionally from the Vietnamese, they showed no eagerness ការខ្នះខ្នែង to become Confucian civil servants,by working with them,Vietnamese accomplished few of their objectives but
as Vietnamese measures added up to a policy of laissez-faire, most of the Oknha had no reason to take arms against them.
When they took over the administration of the Srok themselves in 1840, however, the Vietnamese reached the point at which they could impose their will at the same time that their actions perhaps inevitably ignited a revolt, with a Thai invasion imminent, however, and failure of the Oknha to perceive that Vietnamese economic and military interests in Cambodia overlapped their own, the Vietnamese had little choice,unless they were to abandon Cambodia altogether, Minh Mang policy failed because he was unable to understand the intransigence  ភាពដាច់អហង្ការ or ingratitude
សេចក្កីអកតញ្ញូof the "barbarians"in the face of paternally administered social change in the decree to the Cambodian people in 1838, he had stressed the irrationality of this ingratitude.

Thanks to,, my generosity, imperial troops were dispatched to Cambodia, costing millions of coins, and brought you security by destroying the Thai, troops were stationed(among you) to bring peace, this action was like bringing the Cambodian people out of the mud onto a warm feather bed, and was well known by everyone,,anyone who can think for himself should be grateful to the court, why are there people who hate us and believe the rebels ?

The situation become worse in September 1840,when a wide ranging rebellion broke out, the uprising
which was centered in the eastern and southern Srok, is a rare example in pre-revolutionary Cambodia of sustained and coordinated political action, the only others that spring to mind are the anti-french rebellion of 1885-1886 and the so called 1916 affair smarting under Vietnamese mission civilisatrice; the Oknha had discussed the idea of rebellion for several months, in letters known today by their date, address, and general contents, the letters themselves do not seem to have survived, what set the rebellion in motion was as interlocking set of provocations by the Vietnamese together with Cambodian expectations of Thai invasion and Thai support, the uprising collapsed in the early months of 1841, when a new emperor in Vietnamese in the Thai invasion the insurgents had hoped for coincided with Vietnamese military successes and the rebels' shortage of supplies, the rest of the early 1840s, were filled with seesawing warfare and negotiations between the Thai and the Vietnamese and by gradual shift in the balance of power in Cambodia in favor of the Thai.
The immediate cause of the rebellion, from the point of view of the Oknha, was a sequence of Vietnamese actions that seemed to the Oknha to be aimed at extinguishing Kingship, Buddhism, and the official class in Cambodia, the sequence began with the demotion of the Princesses and the reshuffling of Vietnamese officials in Phnompenh, it continued in June 1840 when Minh Mang instituted a Vietnamese taxation system this made new demands on the Oknha by Taxing additional products, such as fruit and vegetables, and by calling for a new census, cad-astral surveys and reports on the water resources.
Another part of the Vietnamese program was to call in Cambodian seals of office in at least some of the Srok, replacing them with Vietnamese ones that carried no indication of rank, at least one rural official was dismissed at this time for corruption, and rumors spread among the Oknha that all officials would soon be arrested by the Vietnamese.
The climax came in August, when the Vietnamese arrested Mei and her Sister in Phnompenh two women were lured abroad a barge after their immediate entourage had been softened up with liquor and a performance of Vietnamese opera, at this point all of them,according to an eyewitness "laughed whenever they talked" the princesses were taken off to Vietnamese, and Cambodia's regalia,. which Mei had inherited from her father, accompanied them, at this point, the Oknha in Phnompenh and the Srok, with rumors and the Vietnamese record toward Cambodian to rely on, assumed that  Ta- La-Ha Lung, his associates and the four princesses had been killed, and they thought that they were next.
To many Cambodians , the disappearance of their monarch, however restricted her authority might have been, signified the disappearance of the state, the absence of regalia លក្ខណះសញ្ញាព្រះរាជា which to legitimize someone else made the situation worse,for the Oknha, the disappearance of their high ranking patrons at court, the reformed tax system, the devaluation of the seals of office, and the Vietnamese assault on their freedom of action were precipitants of revolt, Vietnamese"rational" actions, supposedly beneficial to the Khmer, struck at roots of the identity of the Oknha and at their concepts of Society as a whole,Vietnamese contempt for Buddhism and for Cambodia's language, culture,and institutions also hastened the decision of the Oknha to revolt.
The uprising was concentrated at first along the East bank of the Mekong but soon spread to Vietnamese settlements along the coast, like Ream and Kompot, to parts of Southern Vietnam inhabited by Khmer, and to fortified villages inland, the news of the princesses' disappearance seen to have triggered the revolt, and the rebels goal at stage was the restoration of the status , personified by Mei and the exiled officials , another objective, apparently, was the mere killing of Vietnamese, as one rebel wrote," We are happy Killing Vietnamese, We no longer fear them in all our battles we are mindful of the three jewels (of Buddhism) the Buddha, the law, and the monastic community.
The Vietnamese were surprised by the level of coordination among the Oknha and the blamed it on Thai influences, which Thai source fail to confirm, they were also baffled by the absence of single leader, their estimate of rebel strength ran to thirty thousand men operating throughout in Kingdom in "hundreds of" small bands and occasionally larger ones, usually in territory familiar to them and commanded by people they could trust, the formidable problems of counter guerrilla ពួកឧទ្ទាម warfare were summed up in one Vietnamese report in 1841:

The rebels have established posts along river banks at strategic points they appear and disappear at will, if our troops look to the east, the rebels escape to the west,,they concentrate their forces where the jungle is thick, and in swampy areas where our troops can not maneuver, other regions have tall grass at eye-level and are very hot and dusty, one can march all day without finding potable water, moreover, we have no intelligence about enemy, and no guides.

The Vietnamese also had problems moving troops and supplies against the river currents prevalent at the time of year, and the report adds that " not even one" rebel had surrendered, despite the 'tolerant' policies of the Vietnamese court and even though the record is full of references to the Khmer fleeing like 'Rat and mice" or attacking like swarms of mosquitoes" at the start of rebellion, Minh Mang ( who was to die following an accident at the beginning of 1841) thought that an adequate application of force, combined with rewards to loyal troops and local officials, would be enough to put down the rebellion, which angered him, he wrote, so much that his "hair stood on end",he ordered ta-la-ha-lung and others to write letters asking their relatives and clients in Cambodia to surrender, thus mis-
reading Cambodian loyally to un-available and devalued patrons, and he also approved sending'
monks and magicians,  into Phnompenh to undermine morale, in the last months of his Reign, he demanded weekly reports from the front and suggested that Cambodian crops and orchards be burned down as a preemptive measure,'The Cambodians are so stupid he declared" that we must frighten them, ordinary moral suasion has no effect.
It is impossible to say what Minh Mang would have done had he survived the next seven years, but it is clear that the rebellion had begun to lose momentum before his death and that his successor, Thieu Tri, was less committed than he had been to a victory in Cambodia, the new emperor began his Reign looking for a solution that would be acceptable to his court and to be Cambodians,of not necessarily to the Thai, at one stage, he brushed aside a suggestion that he negotiate directly with the Thai as being, Wrong and foolish" distance, distrust, and the momentum of the war, however as well as the ambiguity of Thieu Tri' objectives in Cambodia, kept the conflict going until 1847.
Despite Vietnamese reports to the contrary Cambodian troops were often poorly supplied, at the end 1840, a rebel Oknha complained to the Thai that" we are unable to continue fighting the Vietnamese, we lack the troops to do so, the rifles, the ammunition, and the supplies for weapons we have only knives, cross-bows,and clubs we can not continue to fight"

The end of The Vietnamization of Cambodia 1835-1840

Cambodia, the Crisis of the nineteenth century

The first sixty years of nineteenth century from the darkest portion of Cambodia's dark ages before the Armageddon of the 1970s, invaded and occupied again and again by Thai and Vietnamese forces, the Kingdom also endured dynastic crises and demographic dislocations ,for a time in 1840s, it ceased to exist as a recognizable state, just as Jayavarman VII's ideology can be compared in some ways to the ideology of Democratic Kampuchea, and first half of nineteenth century bears some resemblance to the 1970s, in terms of foreign intervention, chaos, and the sufferings of the Cambodian people.
Fortunately for historians, there is a while range of sources to consult in Thai,Cambodian , and
Vietnamese, the record that the sources reveal, however, is complete, for example, the ruler of Cambodia for much of this period, King Chan, is rarely quoted in surviving sources, and none of his own writings have survived, a crucial actor has no lines similarly, Thai language sources often thin out just when we might wish to have more information about the politics of Thai foreign policy in the period.
The period opens and closes with Thai- sponsored coronations , between these two events and particularly after 1810, invasions from Vietnam and Siam alternated with internal rebellions and court sponsored resistance to invaders while the court,especially under Chan, pursued a dangerous policy apparently aimed at preserving independence( or merely staying alive) by playing the Thai and the Vietnamese off against each other, although the political history of the period is reasonably clear, the politics leading up to the events , and people's motivations ,are often difficult to discern, the pattern that emerges is one in which Cambodia drifted first away from Thai control, then into the hands of the Vietnamese, and finally back to Thai protection, by the early 1840s, much of its territory , the capital region in particular ,was administered as a  component of Vietnam, three events in drift can be singled out for study, these are the Thai absorption of Northern Cambodia in exchange for putting Eng on the throne, the anti- Vietnamese millenarian rebellion that broke out in Southeastern Cambodia in 1820, and the succession crisis of 1835 following a disastrous Thai military expedition, each of these events marked a stage in the process of Cambodia's diminishing ability to control its own affairs.

The Imposition of Vietnamese Control
Eng's restoration in 1794 is treated in the Cambodian chronicles as an event of miraculous significance when he left Bangkok, they assert," the sky did not grow dark,  nor did rain fall. but
thunder boomed in the noon sky, marking a noise like a mighty storm. the restoration was indeed dramatic, for in the preceding fifteen years Cambodia had not been governed at all, a former official name Baen had been installed in Udong by the Thai, had been given the title of Ta-La-Ha, or first minister, and had busied himself with recruiting troops to fight the Tay-Son inside Cambodia and in Vietnam, in 1794, after so many years of service, Rama I seems to have felt obliged to reward him in some way.
The reward he chose to bestow, however, was hardly his ti give ,as  it consisted of the large and prosperous Srok of Battambong and Mahanokor (or Great City" containing the ruins of Angkor") Baen had held power in this region for part of the 1780s and probably retained a personal following there, but in awarding the two Srok to him, Rama, I removed them from Eng's jurisdiction without absorbing them into Siam, in the 1790s and for most of the nineteenth century, Thai suzerainty seems to have meant only that Baen and his successors were not obligated to provide labours for Eng and had to transmit gifts- generally wild cardamom- to Bangkok from time to time.
Detail about the transfer are impossible to uncover, and perhaps documents were never drawn up, in the 1860s, in fact, a French official in Cambodia seeking information about the Thai claims, recorded to his superiors that (Siam) is unable to present any documentation about the cession, the present King of Cambodia ( Eng's grandson Norodom) his officials old men who have been consulted, and Eng's widow, who is still alive, are all of the opinion that none exists.
In the twentieth century , however, the the loss, of the two Srok poisoned Thai-Cambodian relations

Siam gave them up under pressure from France in 1907 but resumed control over most of their territory from 1941 to 1946, in the context of 1790s, however, it is unlikely that Rama I was pursuing a long-rang plan, and his Grandson, Rama IV, put the matter succinctly when he wrote that, the Thai Kingdom was able to enlarge itself(at this time) because it had the greater power.
After building him-selves a Palace in Udong and visiting Bangkok with a tributary mission in 1796 Eng died at the beginning of 1797, his Reign had been uneventful, and his contributions to Cambodian history were almost inadvertent, by returning to Udong, which had been without a King for so long, he brought Cambodia back to life, by fathering four sons, he founded a dynasty that was to Reign in Udong and Phnompenh until 1970, these two contributions rather than specific actions on his part, probably account for the reverence with which he is treated in Cambodian chronicles compiled for his descendants.
The next ten years, until his son Chan's coronation in 1806, are poorly documented, but for reasons that remain unclear, the young prince became alienated from the Thai court at some point and seems to have begun to formulate a pro- Vietnamese foreign policy, what ever its causes Thai sources hint at a feud between the young prince and Rama , I- Chan anti- Thai orientation is a present theme of his long Reign.
As soon as he had been Crowned, for example, he hastened to strengthen Cambodia's tributary connections with Vietnam while maintaining his subservience to Bangkok, becoming, in the words of the Vietnamese emperor, an independent country that is the slave of two. the process was even more complicated for Chan's  increasing animosity toward the Thai alienated some of his own Chaovay-Srok especially in the northwest,and his personal insecurity is indicated by his request to the Vietnam
emperor at about his time that he be allowed to recruit Vietnamese residents of Cambodia to from his personal bodyguard, the pace of his alienation from Bangkok accelerated after Rama. I' death in 1809, Chan refused to attend the ceremony showed signs of being pro-Thai, Chan had them executed without trail.
 in 1811 to 1812 conflict broke out inside Cambodia between Thai and Vietnamese, expeditionary forces, the Thai supported one of Chan's dissident brothers. the Vietnamese responded to Chan's request for help all three of Chan's brothers fled to Bangkok at this time, leaving him free for the rest of his Reign to pursue a pro Vietnamese policy, even though the campaigns of 1811- 1812, were indecisive, their net effect was to reduce Chan's freedom of action, as his growing dependence on the Vietnamese was greater than his former allegiance, so reluctantly given, to Bangkok. twice a month, wearing Vietnamese bureaucratic costumes supplied by Hue', the King and his entourage had to visit a moved in 1812- and bow before a tablet bearing the Vietnamese emperor's name over the next twenty years, Chan fought with decreasing success to achieve a modicum of independence.
Three events stand out from these early years of relatively loose Vietnamese control, these are the unsuccessful Cambodian attack on the Northwestern Srok in 1816, the excavation of the Vinh Tre Canal in Southern Vietnam,using Cambodian labor, around 1820, and the anti-Vietnamese uprising that broke out soon afterward in Southeastern Cambodia and in Khmer-populated portions of Vietnam.
The military expedition of 1816 was the last attempt before the 1960s, by normally constitution Cambodian army to take the offensive against foreign troops, and it was a failure, perhaps to placate the Thai, or merely because the campaign had failed, Vietnamese authorities in Phnompenh asked Chan to discipline the Oknha  who had led the expedition,taken to Saigon afterward, the official was reprimanded and fined, the sequence of events, although not significant in itself, epitomized Chan's helplessness in face of Vietnamese pressure.
The Vinh Tre Canal. in turn, became a symbol of Vietnamese mis-treatment of the Khmer, and the re billion that followed its excavation revealed the depth of anti-Vietnamese feeling in the Srok, the persistence of millenarianism , and perhaps the ambiguities in Chan's subservience to the Vietnamese in 1817, Vietnamese officials in Saigon recruited several thousand Vietnamese and a thousand Cambodian workers to excavate- or perhaps merely to restore- the Ving Tre Canal ,running between the Gulf of Siam and the fortified citadel of Chau-Doc, a distance of perhaps 40 Km(25 mile) according to a Cambodian chronicle, work on the canal was arduous in the extreme, worker were divided in to groups one Vietnamese marched at the head of each group, another at the back, and a third in the middle,. the Vietnamese would beat the Cambodians on the back, to make them hurry
...everyone was exhausted ,and covered with mud.
This account of the excavations is fellowed immediately by an account of an anti-Vietnamese rebellion, place by other source in 1820-1821 this suggests a causal relationship between the two events, which is reinforced by the fact that revolt broke out fairly close to the site of the canal, this site was Ba-phnom, a small mountain in Southeastern Cambodia that Codes identified with "Funan" and also with" Jayavarman II's arrival in Cambodia from Java". in the nineteenth century it was an important population center and also a religious site, the Ba-Phnom revolt was led by Khmer Monk name Kai. who claimed to be a holy-man capable of marking predictions, as he gathered allegedly invulnerable supporters a round him, he forged a political movement, moving North and West from the vicinity of Ba-Phnom, his followers attacked Vietnamese military posts, a mixed Khmer- Vietnamese force sent against him by Chan Failed, one source asserts , because the Oknha in charge of it deserted with their troops and turned on Vietnamese, a purely Vietnamese force sent from Saigon, however, eventually defeated the rebels near Kom-Ponh-Cham, the leaders were executed in Saigon, and some of their followers were beheaded in Phnom-Penh.
The differences between Cambodia and the Vietnamese accounts of the rebellions pose interesting historiographical problems, such as where Chan's loyalties lay. Chan may known Kai as a monk in Phnompenh, and any case the King,whom the Vietnamese were to find "extremely superstitious"
toward the end of his Reign would probably not have moved vigorously against Khmer believed to have supernatural powers , what ever Chan's views might have been, his response to the rebellion had to be restricted and discreet, there are parallels here with the situation that faced his nephew, King Norodom, in 1884, when an anti-French rebellion led by Oknha broke out in the countryside while Norodom was under French protection in Phnompenh, similar problems also confronted his great grandson, Norodom Sihanouk, in turn, in the 1950s, and again in 1970-1975.
It is unclear how large the rebellion was o how much of threat it posed in military and territorial terms. we know a little about its goals beyond the assassination of Vietnamese, Vietnamese records understandably play down its importance, the locally oriented Bangsavada (ពង្សាវត្តា) probably exaggerates its extent, momentum, and success all source agree, however, that it was directed against the Vietnamese rather than against Chan and his Oknha and that monks, former monks, and local officials were active in its ranks.
The chronicle version composed in 1850s tended to confirm its audience's idea about themselves , the Vietnamese, and history, all Vietnamese were Cruel, "People of Merit" Nak Sell were powerful, and Khmer could not(or at least should not) be make to fight against Khmer,the Buddhist orientation of the text can be seen when we learn that the Nak-Sel followers were rendered invincible by prayers and amulets but lost this invincibility when they acted contrary to Buddhist law by Killing people themselves , without the special powers connected with nonviolence, the rebels-including former monks were all slaughtered and when they died," Rain fell for seven days, It fell without stopping, night and day, the unimportant and the mighty were force to run for shelter, in the cold air, everybody shook , they was no way of knowing when the sun set or when it rose the nation was unhappy"
It would be difficult to over tress the atmosphere of threat, physical danger, and random violence that pervades primary sources like this one and perhaps much of everyday life in nineteenth century Cambodia, the sources are filled with references to torture, executions, ambushes,massacres, village burning, and the forced movement of populations, the wars of the time were localized rather than national in Scopes,and expeditionary forces, which usually numbered only a few thousand men, were small by twentieth century standards ,at the same time invaders and defenders destroyed the villages they came to Killed or uprooted anyone they met, and ruined the landscape they moved across, very few prisoners of war taken or kept alive, a seventeenth century Cambodian law, translated by Adhe'mard lere' stated that an expeditionary force needed only three days' supply of food, because unfriendly populations that could be robbed were through to be never more than three days, march a way, parallels to the civil war that devastated Cambodia in the 1970s, and the behavior of both sides are obvious.
One enigma ពាក្យសួរ of this period is Chan himself, we know very little about him except that he was timid ,a Vietnamese text from 1822 states that he was ill much of the time and kept inside his Palace, the Vietnamese emperor wrote of him in 1834, just before his death, that a "fresh wind or the cry of a bird could make flee",at the same time ,Chan retained considerable freedom of maneuver, all through the 1820s he kept his lines of communication with Bangkok open, tributary missions went to Bangkok every year, and Chan May have used them to provide intelligence to Thai officials, to sound out Thai policies ,and to remain in contact with his brothers.
Relations between the two Kingdoms broke down in late 1820s as a result of Vietnamese support for ant- Thai rebellion that erupted in 1824-1825 around Vientiane. the breakdown also sprang from the fact that rulers in Hue' and Bangkok in the 1830s, Rama III and Minh Mang, unlike their fathers. owed nothing to each other and were free to pursue vigorous foreign policies, one of which was to increase influence, and suspicious of the Vietnamese viceroy in Cambodia, Le Van Dyuet, whom who believed- correctly, as things turned out to be as sociated with breakaway sentiment in Southern Vietnam.
The Thai make some tentative military probes into Western Cambodia in 1830-1831, but Rama III saw no chance of success until Dyuet' death in 1820, when Minh Mang attempted to replace the viceroy's ឧបរាជ្យ entourage with officials loyal to Hue', his move ignited a full scale rebellion that was centered around Saigon and led by Dyuet's adopted son.
News of the revolt quickly reached Rama II ,who decided to assemble an expeditionary force, he saw several advantages in doing so, first, he could humiliate Minh Mang, whose forces had been tangentially involved Vientiane rebellion and elsewhere in the Thai tributary states of Lao, by seeking to establish a new tributary state in Southern Vietnam, moreover, Rama III may have planning to extend Thai and Sino-Thai, commercial interests and to profit directly from the trade between Saigon (Cho-Lon) and Southern China, for Chinese merchants in Vietnam had supported the rebellion ឧទ្ទាមកម្ម and had informed their counterparts in Bangkok. Finally, the Thai King may have been impressed by reports reaching him from Cambodia that many Oknha would now welcome the return of Chan's two brothers , Im and Duang ( The third had died in Bangkok in 1825), the time was ripe, in Rama III's own words, to restore the Kingdom of Cambodia and to punish the insolenceការព្រហើន of Vietnam.
 In the short run, the campaign was a success, the Vietnamese quickly abandoned Phnompenh and took Chan into exile in Vietnam, the Thai Commander, Chaophraya (roughly,Lord) Bodin ,then occupied the capital, but soon, poor communications with the naval forces attached to the expedition, which were supposed to attack the Vietnamese coast, combined with Vietnamese attacks forced him to withdraw in early 1834.
The Thai political strategy of placing Imand Duang in power also failed, because the two unable to attract support, one chronicle,in fact, describes people's confusion early in the war, as Bodin's forces entered the Kingdom:

 The people were surprised to see such a large army, and they shook with fear, the head of the army shouted them, don't be afraid! his royal highness the King(sic) has arrived to rule over you, the people murmured about this, and sent messengers off to inform the King (ie Chan) in Phompenh.

In Bodin's retreat from Phnompenh approximately four thousand local people were carried off, of these, perhaps a thousand managed to escape as the overburdened Thai column reached Udong, these people then" Wandered trembling and afraid in deep woods as the Thai columns moved North and West, they disintegrated, and at about this time, the rebellion in Saigon was finally suppressed"

The end of Cambodia, the Crisis of the nineteenth century

Cambodia's Relations with Vietnam and Siam

As we have seen, the two most important characteristics of post-Angkorean Cambodia were the shift in the country's center of gravity from Angkor to Phnompenh, with the commercial and demographic ramification that the move implied, and the roles played by the Thai and Vietnam, nineteenth century Cambodia, therefore, must be seen in part against the back ground if its foreign relations.
These relations were carried out with two countries, Vietnam and Siam ,and occurred within a framework of rivalry between the two larger Kingdom, rivalry sprang from the unwillingness of either court, to accept the other as equal or superior, this unwillingness, in turn ,can be traced in part to the traditional language of tributary diplomacy, which stressed the  inequality between the sender and recipient of tribute.
A major objective of Southeast Asian diplomacy in the nineteenth century, in deed, was the ritualized expression of differential status through the ceremonial exchange of gifts, the rules for these tributary exchanges grew out of the particular system in which they occurred, the Thai and the Vietnamese, for example, had separate ones, which overlapped inside Cambodia.
Both system owed a good deal to their counterpart in China, which had been in effect since the third century Bc and was still operation in the 1800s, from a Cambodian point of view , the Thai variant was looser and more idiosyncratic, for the Thai made allowance for local customs and local products, the Vietnamese did not, the latter were rigid in copying the Chinese model, in 1806, for example, Vietnamese emperor Gia-long, in choosing gifts to send to the Cambodian King, transmitted facsimiles of ones he had received, at the beginning of his own Reign, from the Chinese emperor. some of these, like "Golden Dragon paper for imperial decrees" and Chinese bureaucratic costumes were meaningless to the Khmer, the seals of investiture sent from Hue'  to Udong were irrelevant to Cambodians because they had camels carved on them. like the seals that the Chinese court sent to tributary states in central Asia and, incidentally, to Vietnam, one puzzled Cambodian chronicler referred to animal as a "Chinese-Lion".
From Vietnam's point of view , Vietnam was ":Above" Cambodian , just as China was "above" Vietnam, at the same time, of course , Cambodia was below, Vietnam and Vietnam was below China, in other words, Vietnam was the master in one relationship and the servant in the other, as a by product of this duality, the Civilized" goods sent from Hue' to Udong were facsimiles of those sent from Beijing to Hue' while" Barbarian, goods transmitted from Udong were the same sorts of products that Vietnam transmitted to China.
In the matter of tributary gifts , the Thai were more flexible than the Vietnamese, the Chakrai Kings sent gifts to nineteenth century Cambodian Kings that the recipients could recognized and use, in exchange, the Thai seem to have settled for whatever products they could get, sometimes Cambodia sent pepper ,at other times,lacquer and Kravanh Cardamom, there is no evidence, however, that the Cambodian ever transmitted the Gold and Silver ornamental trees (Banga-mas) that were a feature or tribute to Bangkok from other dependent states.
Similarly, the embassies that King Chan's (r 1797- 1835) sent to Bangkok and Hue' obeyed different sets of rules ,as embassies to Bangkok were larger, more frequent, and more informal, the differences between the two diplomatic system paralleled differences in Thai and Vietnamese official attitudes toward themselves, each other, and the Khmer, these differences became crucial and painful for the Khmer in 1830s, when the Vietnamese emperor sought to administer Cambodia directly, in a Vietnamese way, from a Cambodian point of view, however, what mattered about the Thai and Vietnamese tributary system and attitudes toward Cambodia was ,not that they were different and made different sorts of demands, but that they were condescending, overlapping, and expensive.
Thai and Vietnamese official relation with each other, until they soured in 1820s, were marked by considerable informality, this arose in part from a mutual unwillingness on the part of the Thai and the Vietnamese to accept or impose authority, because they enjoyed roughly similar power and prestige, the problem of hegemony did not yet arise in their relations with the Khmer, and notions about the roles both states should play in Cambodia were quite consistent, the barbarity of the Cambodian people and the subservience of their King, for example,were taken for granted, and the corollary that each superior state had a sort of civilizing mission to carry out inside Cambodia, the rulers saw themselves, in their official correspondence, as destined to supervise the Khmer. as one Thai diplomatic letter put it, it is fitting for large countries to take care of smaller ones, others referred to Chan as an "Unruly-Child" and the confluence of Thai and Vietnamese policies in Cambodia as "Fruit and seeds forming a single unit".
Some of these language was mask for realpolitik, but these images are nonetheless suggestive, the language of diplomatic correspondence, like the languages in everyday use in Southeast Asia, used pronouns that were hierarchical and family-oriented, and relationship between states were often described by using images of child-rearing, in these the Thai and the Vietnamese became the Father, and the Mother of the Khmer, whose King was referred to as their Child or their servant in 1860s, a French official mused perceptively that Siam was Cambodia's Father became it's King gave names to the monarch, whereas Vietnam was seen to be the mother because its rulers provided the Khmer with seals of office whatever the reasons Thai and Vietnamese statements, like those made later by the French, amounted to unilateral declarations of dependence, the family-oriented images were unjustified and far- fetched, but they give us a useful way of looking at the period- that is. as the continuing struggle between increasingly incompatible parents for the custody of a weak but disobedient child.
Although Thai official ideas were often couched in Buddhist terminology and Vietnamese ones in terms of a sino-Vietnamese Confucian tradition, Thai and Vietnamese objectives in Cambodia, seldom voiced explicitly, were similar. like the Nguyen, they were eager to extend their prestige along their frontiers and to amplify their self-images as universally accepted Kings, the Thai rulers also wanted to link themselves as patrons of Buddhism to the Chakravatin. or wheel-turning monarch
, who had Reigned for so many centuries at Ayudhya , these ambitions led the rulers of both states to expand the land and the people under their control.
After 1810. King Chan and his advisers were swept up into a game of power politics that they had a little chance to change and no opportunity to win, they had no choice, in Vietnamese terms ,Cambodia was a Fence, a buffer state and a dumping-ground for colonist, to the Thai, the Cambodians were fellow- Buddhist" Children" basking in a fund of Chakrey-merit. who could provide cardamom for the court and manpower for Chakrey wars, the Thai wanted the Cambodians to be loyal,the Vietnamese wanted Cambodia's land and, incidentally, its recognition of their superiority
the Thai demanded service and friendship,but they were usually unable-given  the way they organizedtheir armies and the distance between Bangkok and Phnompenh,to provide protection.
the Vietnamese , on the other hand, provided protection of a sort ,but their actions led to the disappearance of Cambodia as an independent state, by different routes, then, the Thai and the Vietnamese often came to do the same things, taking over certain Srok making hostages of the ruler and his relations, and curtailing the independence of the Oknha.
To Chan and his advisers, the outcome of this game was probably not obvious at first, in the early part of his Reign,his alliance with Vietnam was probably meant only to deflect some of the pressures on him from the Thai, letters took so long between Bangkok, Udong, and Hue' that Chan was able to buy time on several occasions by saying one thing to the Thai and another to the Vietnamese, moreover, for most of his Reign, he kept his communications open with both capitals by means of the embassies he sent them, in fact  Chan may well have been under the impression that the equilibrium that prevailed in the early years of his Reign was his own creation and that he had more bargaining power with his patrons than he really did, even if the balance of forces and the inactivity of the Thai and the Vietnamese reflected Thai ans Vietnamese choice dictated by their own perceptions of national  interest and even if Cambodia's independence reflected what were for the moment limited Thai and Vietnamese ambitions rather than Cambodian skill, there were still advantages to Chan in blurring the lines of his allegiance, one of the chronicle, allegedly quoting Emperor Gia-Long, makes this point quite clear.

"Cambodia is a small country" the Emperor said" and we should maintain it as a child, we will be its mother its father will be Siam, when a child has trouble with its father, it can get rid of suffering by embracing its mother,when the child is unhappy with its mother, it can run to its father for support

Chan was not alone in playing this game, he was joined by his rivals in the Cambodian Royal family, whose alternating loyalties led King Rama III of Siam, writing in the early 1840s, to say

 "the Cambodians always fight among themselves in the matter of succession, the losers in these fight go off to ask for help from a neighboring state, the winner must then ask for forces from the other ".

 Chan's freedom of action was illusory, he survived as King only so long as one of his patrons and all of his rivals were inactive and so long as the relatively active patron provided him with military help when either patron turned his attentions fully to Cambodia, there was nothing Chan could do to deflect the destruction that ensued, like Prince Sihanouk in the 1960s, or Pol-Pot a decade later, Chan remained Neutral" as long as stronger power allowed him to do so , Chan suffered an additional disadvantage in having no world leader or world forums turn to- no Mao Zedong, no association of Southeast Asian Nations, and no United Nation.

 the End of Cambodia's relations with Vietnam and Thai,.