Page 64 - They Also Served

25
King Rama VI 1898.
Prince Vajiravudh was born in Siam (modern day Thailand) on New Year’s Day, 1880. Educated in both Siamese and English, he became crown prince when his brother died of typhoid in 1895. The prince’s education continued in England, where he trained at Sandhurst in 1898 before undertaking a short attachment to the Durham Light Infantry. Going up to Oxford to study law and history, he was a member of the notorious Bullingdon Club.
In 1910, upon the death of his father
from lung cancer, he became King
Rama VI of Siam. Amongst his early
reforms was a complete reorganisation
of the armed forces, the establishment
of military colleges along the lines
of Dartmouth and Sandhurst, and a
boarding school similar to Eton. The
latter was a radical reform as, previously
schools were organised along monastic
lines. The king declared that he wanted the next generation of boys to ‘look forward to take up whatever burden the future may lay upon them’. Further radical reforms saw the modernisation of civil servant training, an overhaul of the healthcare system, and the establishment of public hospitals. However, not all of the young king’s reforms were popular, and his establishment of the Wild Tiger Corps, a paramilitary palace guard outside the army, which soon grew to over 4,000, was seen as a threat to the primacy of the military.
The Palace Revolt of 1912 had its roots in an incident before Vajiravudh became king when he ordered the caning of a cadet at the military academy for insulting a royal page. The coup leaders were all junior officers who also resented that punishment as well as the creation of the Wild Tiger Corps. However, the officer selected by
58