Günter Dinhobl (Hrsg.): Sonderband 7. Eisenbahn/Kultur – Railway/Culture (2004)
II. Die Wahrnehmungen von Raum / The perceptions of space - Robert Lee: Railways, space and imperialism
Robert Lee delayed or imposed impossible conditions on British requests for railway concessions which would link Siamese territory with ports in neighbouring British colonies such as Moulmein (in Burma) or Prai (in Malaysia opposite Penang).12 More positively, they encouraged non-French interest, which meant in effect British or German interest, in railways terminating in Bangkok. This subtle policy aimed at giving both Britain and Germany sufficient real economic interests in Siam for them to resist any serious French encroachment, while ensuring that the pattern of railway development enhanced rather than threatened Siam’s territorial and economic integrity. In addition, the determination to encourage both German and British interest would prevent either from becoming too dominant. The end result was the construction of Siam’s first significant railway from Bangkok to Khorat, gateway to the Mekong, by German engineers between 1892 and 1990. It helped unify the kingdom administratively and economically, and was entirely funded from the Siamese state’s revenues. The Khorat railway played an important role in preventing French domination of the entire Mekong basin. The railway did not prevent the French annexation of Laos in 1893, but Siamese retention of Esam (also culturally Lao and stretching from Khorat to the Mekong) was largely dependent on the increasingly tight administration of these regions that the railways made possible. The French were aware of it too, and as early as 1894 Prince Henri d’Orléans advised his compatriots to build a railway from Tourane (modem Danang on the central Vietnamese coast) into Laos to counter this Siamese attempt to more tightly control the Mekong basin.1’ Moreover, the railways certainly ensured the economic as well as the political integration of the Kingdom, as is seen in the replacement of the Indian rupee with the Siamese baht in the Chiang Mai area after the northern line to this city opened in 1920. All this was achieved without seriously compromising sovereignty: foreigners’ roles were 12 The Hallett-Colquhoun scheme for a Moulmein-Chiang Mai-Simao railway discussed above was the main example of the tonner. This threat was much weakened after 1885, but the Siamese continued to ensure that all proposals for railways from Bangkok to Chiang Mai would take an eastern route through Phitsanoloke rather than an eastern route through Raheng, which might tempt its promoters to build a subsequent branch to Moulmein. The most important example of the southern threat was the 1889 Dunlop concession for a line from near Prai to Songkhla. Bangkok bent to British pressure and actually granted the concession, although on terms that ensured it would not be taken up. See Holm, David F.: The Role of the State Railways in Thai History, 1892 1932. Unpublished Ph D. thesis, Yale University 1977, p. 46-47. ” D'Orléans, Henri: Around Tonkin and Siam. Bangkok 1999 (first published in 1894), p 312 f 102
