#khmerité

[autodidact-adventures]

Cambodian History (Part 31): WW2 and the Vichy Regime

In June 1940, France fell to the Nazis.  Germany partitioned the country into two parts - Vichy France in the south [Vichy being the overall capital], and the occupied northern zone.  While General Charles de Gaulle encouraged overseas colonies to keep resisting, many declared themselves loyal to the Vichy Regime, including the Indochina authorities.

The Governor-General of the time was Admiral Jean Decoux, and it was a pragmatic decision considering the situation.  The Japanese army had fought their way south through China, and were on the northern border of Tonkin.  Decoux’s European troops were mediocre, and his native troops were “untrustworthy”.  Japan was nominally Vichy’s ally.

Decoux would later claim that he “went through the motions” to placate Japan.  But the extent to which he & the regime switched to fascism makes that doubtful.  Pétain’s version of the racist Nuremberg laws were enforced; concentration camps set up; and other symbols of European fascism were introduced - as the goose-step, fascist salute, and ritualised chanting of Pétain’s name.  The French-language Indochina press changed suddenly from pro-Allied propaganda, to antisemitism and cheering Allied failures.

Japan wanted to strike southwards into SE-Asia, to take over control of the oil, tin & other tropical products that they needed for the Home Islands and for the war.  The French government readily agreed, allowing them to station troops throughout Indochina, and to provide them with rubber, coal and other products.  Japan left the day-to-day administration of Indochina to the Europeans, focusing on their war activities.  This “marriage of convenience” would last until near the end of the war.

The situation was dreadful for French colonial morale.  It probably worried the Francophile Khmer elite a lot.  But worse was to come, with the Franco-Thai War of 1940-41.  [Siam had been renamed Thailand in 1939.]

The war broke out in late 1940.  The land war was inconclusive, but the French navy soundly defeated the Thai navy at the Battle of Koh Chang in the Gulf of Siam.  They might have hoped for more favourable terms, but Thailand took advantage of French weakness to demand the return of Cambodia’s western provinces, which they’d given back in 1908.  Japan brokered the peace agreement, and gave Thailand almost all the land they wanted - the only exception was the Angkor ruins, which France argued strongly for.

This was a terrible blow for Khmer faith in the French.  They’d tolerated the French - even welcomed them - so long as they’d protected them.  But now the old enemy was back.  France had failed them.  Disillusionment and depression set in, but also the growth of nationalism, and a new confidence that the Asians could defeat the Europeans.

King Monivong had ascended the throne in 1927.  A stout Francophile, he spoke fluent French and had taken on many western customs, but never lost his Khmer identity.  During WW1, he had attained the rank of brigadier.  He was mostly a figurehead and had little to do with government affairs.  He was incredibly loyal to France.

But when the news came of the loss of the Battambang & Siem Reap provinces, he fell into deep gloom, and retired to his Bokor estates.  He refused to meet with French officials, and “forgot” the language.  On April 24th (1941), he died in the company of his favourite concubine, Saloth Roeung - the sister of Saloth Sar, later Pol Pot.

France’s humiliation & defeat had spurred on the Cambodian intellectuals associated with Nagaravatta.  Nationalistic sentiments swept through some circles of the Buddhist sangha (monastic order).  Nagaravatta actually openly criticized the French, and the French responded with heavy censorship, eventually banning it completely in 1942.

The next Khmer king was Norodom Sihanouk, 19 years old, and from the Norodom wing of the family.  At this time, he made little impression on politics.  He would later claim otherwise, but it is unlikely he held any subversive or anti-French thoughts at the time.  He was more interested in chasing girls and watching films, than nationalistic politics or affairs of state.  To the French, his docility was even more than they’d hoped.

The face of Cambodian nationalism at this stage was Son Ngoc Thanh, a Khmer Krom from the lower Mekong delta, and a member of the Nagaravatta circle.

The Indochina Vichy regime was extremely repressive.  The police rounded up 1000′s of opponents (real and imagined), and sent them to prisons and concentration camps.  One was the Pich Nil camp south of Phnom Penh, in the  coastal mountains.  In addition, austerity grew more & more, with widespread shortages of food & clothing.  Taxes grew higher.  The Allied navies cut Indochina’s overseas routes, and Japan requisitioned much of Cambodia’s food & plantation products.  The Khmers held the French responsible for these shortages, and resentment steadily grew.

Yet at the same time, the French encouraged Khmerité (Khmer cultural identity) - though of course it was for their own benefit.  They were worried about their vulnerability to the Japanese, who had thrown out the British & Dutch colonial authorities in Malaya & the East Indies, and who were extremely anti-European.  The French would have been worried about Japan’s long-term intentions regarding them.  Their position with the Khmers was also uncertain, for the reasons given above.

They tried to mobilise the Khmers behind their regime.  Khmerité was meant to bolster French power, and was cultural, not political - but its consequences were unintended to the French.

Indochina was visually fascist, with huge Pétain portraits on building façades, exhorting "Work, Family and Fatherland“.  Khmer boys were encouraged to join the Scouts, and the Yuvan (a mass youth militia).  This was meant to get the youth behind the Vichy regime.  But it brought young Khmers out of their families & villages, and showed them their potential collective strength, which would in the end be turned against the French.