A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE SIAMESE KINGDOM
The state of the army in the 30's and it's importance to understand the subsequent developments
The Royal Guard, readying a ceremonial gun for drillment
In the following years, a small chamber of officers, almost all of them part of the group that had educated itself out of the country, began to really worry about the state of the military. As it has been previously stated, the army had been a priority target for budget reduction, and now it beared very capable and competent officers, who founf themshelves without the means of capitalize their skill and patriotism. They were not few, those who dreamed about reconquering from the western powers the territories that had bought the country's independence. But to say such objective was a long shot was to be quite optimistic:
According to several high and mid standards, the overall army capabilities were not better than they were in 1885. Although the average infantryman issue weapon was a bolt action rifle, it was almost universally equipped with globally un-satisfactory designs, not standarized at all: the Type 45 Siamese Mauser, manufactured in japan by Koishikawa was being pulled off service for the slightly re-chambered Type 66, but as the demand was being quite slow in it's fullfillment, Japanese Arisaka rifles were being considered to enter service for 1934. Some american Springfields were also in the armouries alongside the much older austro-hungarian Malinchers. Needless to say, ammunition logistics had started to be more a matter of depleting the existing stocks, rather than raw supply efficiency. The officers had to buy their handguns, and the poorest of them had to do with Nambu pistols. A mistake none of them would willingly repeat once they had come through a proper firing test under jungle conditions.
Aside from that, SMG's were non-existant. LMG's were limited to a few local copies of the danish Madsen and original American water-cooled M.1917 HMG's, almost all of them (both LMG's and HMG's) grouped in company-level MG squads, as did mortars. This resulted in all the most powerful guns in the company being under direct command of the captain and not in ready use for the platoon and squad commanders. Which was an obvious flaw in an army that had to fight in tropical enviroments and without proper radio communications. Although the Madsen was a proper choice due to its reliability and small size, this alone couldn't pay for all the other drawbacks in the infantry weaponry.
The situation of Artillery was even worse: the siamese Type 63 was by no means up to modern standards, and the main big guns in terms of quality were ex-german empire krupp guns whose main role was to provide security to the vulnerable port and capital of Bangkok. Plans for acquring AA guns for 1934 were also somewhere on the desk, while the bulk of the infantry's mortars were good but few french brand models. An Air force was no-where to be seen, and the whole armoured park was reduced to a few Carden-Lloyd tankettes armed with 1917 MG's. While arguably more modern than, for example, FT-17's, the british tankettes were far less powerful.
As it has been noted, even the navy, that was considered the most priorized branch of the military was in a poor state by this time. So it wasn't needed a West-Point degree to realize that not just any re-conquest campaign was imposible in the short, mid or long term. But the country's defence itself was compromised if the goverment had to prevent any foreign intrusion from almost any of his neighbours.
So, frustration was what the army was feeling. A frustration that had only one deterrant: the blind loyalty to the king of an important sector, whose feeling was that the Supreme Council was more an obstacle than an effective tool for the king's will and the Siamese people. Of course not every officer who felt frustrated at the situation was blindly loyal to King Rama: some would see him dead rather than supporting the Supreme Council any longer, while others would like to do all the work in one day and look for a nationalist Republic. Eventually, a consensus had to be achieved. The consequences of such consensus -fair is to remember it- were not as obvious to its protagonists as it is for us today, as it can be said they grew increasingly anxious as they saw themselves un-prepared in an increasingly armed world. The Economic crash was the final red line for several of the most important supporters of what one day would became the Khana Ratsadom.
