Laos in World War II

The Kingdom of Laos was in a very unique position during the Second World War. The reasons behind this are due mostly to the position Laos had in the French colonial empire. For most of their history, the people of Laos had been divided into a number of small and shifting kingdoms or what were effectively city-states, traditionally dominated much of the time by the Kingdom of Thailand. There were also periods of Burmese invasions and extended raids by the Chinese and some Lao rulers occasionally had to pay court to the Vietnamese but the region remained essentially divided into at least three city-states. Then, one fateful day, the French arrived. When the King of Luang Prabang was driven out by Chinese renegades, the French (who were already established in Vietnam) came to his rescue and established a protectorate over the region. In quick order the states of Champasak and Vientiane became protectorates as well as the French united them all into the Kingdom of Laos under the ruler of Luang Prabang, King Sisavang Vong. This was a man who showed great integrity and never forgot that, when he was at his lowest point, had lost his kingdom and been driven from his throne, that it was the French who helped him get it all back and more.

King Sisavang Vong with French officials

Within French Indochina, Laos was treated with relatively benign neglect. There were, of course, occasions of resistance to the French presence but, on the whole, the French treated the Lao people more like charming simpletons who had to be cared for rather than property to be exploited (that was done elsewhere). The French also seemed unassailable; they had taken control of the whole of Vietnam, rested Cambodia from Thailand and suppressed every challenge to their authority. All of that changed with the outbreak of World War II, the conquest of France by Germany and the subsequent attack on French Indochina by the Kingdom of Thailand. The Royal Thai Army overran most of Laos in quick order and though the subsequent treaty, brokered by Japan, saw French authority restored, Laos did lose several provinces in the south to Thailand and all of French Indochina was occupied by the Imperial Japanese Army. What was very worrisome to Laos was that the dictator of Thailand, who was soon to become an official ally of Japan, Marshal Phibun, had declared his intention to re-unite all Thai peoples under his rule and by “all Thai peoples” he meant the people of Laos as well.

Since Laos was not considered very strategically important, the Japanese garrison was rather small and while the Japanese allowed the French colonial regime to remain in power, there was no love lost between the two sides. The Japanese leadership had stressed that this was a racial war, a pan-Asian movement to eradicate the ‘white skinned devils’ and the French never expected the peace to be indefinite. In those parts of Indochina where French colonial rule was most unpopular, this was a significant threat. The Japanese enjoyed forcing the French to bow and scrape to them and, in Vietnam for example, the locals liked seeing it as well and many Vietnamese began peppering their speech with Japanese phrases, a clear sign of who was really in charge. The French Governor-General of Indochina, Admiral Jean Decoux was not willing to do nothing while this was happening and to do what he could to strengthen the French position in areas where resistance had been the least active. French attitudes themselves had also changed with the establishment of the Vichy regime and this played a part as well.

Prince Phetsarath

Admiral Decoux gave his support to the cause of Lao nationalism, backing the “Movement for National Renovation” which advocated Lao unity, cooperation with France and a not-so-subtle opposition to Japan. There was also an anti-French resistance movement but, during most of the war years, it gained little traction. This situation prevailed throughout most of the war, no outright confrontations but with considerable tension between the French and the Japanese. The centerpiece for Japanese efforts to win public support was the pan-Asian movement of the “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” but this did not gain widespread acceptance in Laos. There were those who sympathized of course but there were also those who looked at the basic fact that it was the French who had made Laos a united country whereas it was the Japanese who had backed Thailand in taking territory from them. For King Sisavang Vong there was no doubt that his loyalties remained with the French. They had aided him in his hour of need and he was not about to abandon them. Yet, as respected as the King was, the Japanese had a powerful potential ally in one of the most dynamic royal figures of that time and place. That figure was Prince Phetsarath Rattanavongsa.

The Prince was a nationalist and opposed to the French colonial regime. He argued that by giving up territory to Thailand, the French had failed to protect Laos which meant that the protectorate treaty was invalidated and that Laos should align itself with Japan and oppose France. King Sisavang Vong, however, argued in turn that it hardly made sense to hold France responsible for this loss while allying with those that had actually taken Lao territory. The French had, he reasoned, at least tried to defend Laos whereas Japan had backed Thailand which had attacked them. This difference of opinion reached the boiling point in 1945 when, clearly losing the war, Japan launched a surprise attack on the French, seizing control of Indochina and then urging the leaders of Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam to declare independence and join the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere in solidarity with Japan. In Cambodia, King Norodom Sihanouk did so, proclaiming the independence of the Kingdom of Kampuchea and, likewise, in Annam the Emperor Bao Dai declared the independence of the Empire of Vietnam in cooperation with Japan. The Kingdom of Laos, however, was to be a different story. Despite the fact that, for the moment, the Japanese still held the upper hand, King Sisavang Vong refused to cooperate and plainly asserted that this era of Japanese dominance was a temporary anomaly and that he supported keeping faith with France and having Laos resume its place in the French colonial union when the war was over.

Prince Phetsarath

Japan had taken this action when the Allies had pushed the Germans out of France, doing away with the Vichy regime which allowed the pro-Allied “Free French” resistance to claim power. Since the Japanese presence in Laos was minimal, all sides had greater freedom to fight for their vision of the future for Laos. In October, the King was sidelined and Japan backed Prince Phetsarath as the real power in the country with his own Lao resistance movement called the “Lao Issara” or ‘Free Laos’. They took control of the local government and while their flag was later adopted by the communist Pathet Lao (and is the national flag of Laos today) these were anti-communist nationalists who had rallied around Prince Phetsarath to oppose the French and cooperate with Japan. However, the Japanese had little strength in the area and the Lao Issara were woefully short of funds, weapons, training and supplies of every kind.

Meanwhile, at the time of the Japanese takeover, the French in Laos had fled to the jungles and mountains to form a pro-Allied, anti-Japanese resistance. King Sisavang Vong supported this group and his son and heir, Crown Prince Savang Vatthana was the leader of the Lao insurgents who fought against the Japanese occupation, with the Free French, on the Allied side. These Franco-Lao forces were, like the faction of Prince Phetsarath, short of heavy weapons but they did receive some support from the Allies and were able to take control of several rural areas and hold them. French and British special forces infiltrated the region to aid in the fight but they still lacked the firepower for major offensive operations. Nonetheless, they were able to be a considerable problem for the Japanese whose authority was mostly confined to the urban areas where Lao Issara under Prince Phetsarath was struggling to run an effective government with nothing to work with. Eventually, they began to cooperate with the anti-French and anti-Japanese forces of the VietMinh, which posed as a nationalist group but was really led by the communists under the Vietnamese revolutionary Ho Chi Minh. This was also an example of how the Allies had very different agendas. The French and the British, anxious to maintain their empires, backed the pro-French forces of Crown Prince Savang Vatthana while the United States, which opposed the reestablishment of colonial empires, gave support to the VietMinh which opposed the French as well as the Japanese. It would take quite a few years but this American policy would ultimately prove detrimental to all and most costly to the United States itself.

King Sisavang Vong

As far as all of these different factions went, the one led by Prince Phetsarath probably had the edge in terms of public sympathy. He was a zealous patriot, close to the people and much beloved. However, his cause depended on that of Japan and by the time the Japanese allowed for his cause to have a chance, their own was already lost and it was only a matter of months before Japan was forced to surrender. When that time came, the Lao Issara had nothing to do but simply wait for the inevitable French return. France had prepared a special force to participate in the war against Japan, the French East Asian Expeditionary Corps, but Japan surrendered before they arrived. Instead, they would be used in the reestablishment of French colonial authority, the suppression of dissident elements and later in the First Indochina War against the communist North Vietnamese. In 1946 the French formally returned to Vientiane and King Sisavang Vong was restored to his throne. The leadership of Lao Issara was forced to flee into exile in Thailand, including Prince Phetsarath. He would return later when Laos was starting to fall victim to communist subversion and almost certainly would have been the ideal man to defeat them, having patched things up with the King and still being extremely popular, but he died of a brain hemorrhage in 1959. He is still revered in Laos to this day, considered by some to be of almost godlike status.

King Sisavang Vong still ended up presiding over the independence of the Kingdom of Laos. The French were quick to grant Laos complete autonomy within the French union in recognition of the King’s loyalty but later they agreed to complete independence in the hope that this would save Laos from the communist contagion that was infecting Vietnam. Like his one-time prime minister Prince Phetsarath, King Sisavang Vong died in 1959, perhaps not so beloved but certainly respected by his people who had greater affection for him as time went on and so many of his predictions were proven correct. He was succeeded by his son King Savang Vatthana who would preside over a civil war in his country fought by three factions, a conflict that spilled over from the communist struggle to dominate Vietnam. When the United States pulled out of the region the communists quickly took power across Indochina and in Laos the King was deposed, replaced by a socialist dictatorship subservient to Hanoi and would die years later in a communist concentration camp.

The Kingdom of Laos emerged from World War II more unscathed than others. They came away as an independent monarchy still on very friendly terms with the former colonial power and enjoying a, sadly temporary, period of unity and peace. The two dominant royal figures of the period, the King and Prince Phetsarath, though for a time on opposite sides, were both good men who wanted the best for their country and they were ultimately reconciled. Laos was unique in that they had gained more than others from the colonial period and so looked at the war in a different way than, for example, many of their neighbors in Vietnam. Unlike Laos, Vietnam had been a united and well established independent country before the French arrived and so while the outbreak of war caused many Vietnamese to see it in terms of what they could gain, many in Laos, and certainly the King, saw it in terms of what they could lose. The misfortune of Laos was that they were at the mercy of powers far removed and beyond their control. The King was correct in judging the period of Japanese power to be only temporary but ultimately the fate of Laos would depend on the fate of the anti-communist forces fighting in Vietnam, first the French and later the Americans. They came away from World War II as a united, independent kingdom and that kingdom, while today only a memory, remains the precious dream of the Lao exile community and all those opposed to the existing communist dictatorship.

The Monarchist Vietnam War

Thai military unit given honors by US forces

The war against communism in Vietnam, and more broadly across Indochina, is almost universally considered an “American war”. This is not due to America shouldering the largest burden in the fight against communism in Indochina but more because of a sort of obsession with the United States by the hyper-patriot “Yankee Doodle” types on one hand and the anti-American hysterics on the other, both of whom see the United States as the center of the world and the driving force behind everything that happens in it. However, it may surprise some to know that the United States was not the only country involved in fighting the expansion of communism in Southeast Asia and, more to our point, of the coalition of countries that were involved fully half of them were monarchies. It is rather unfortunate that their contribution and their sacrifices are often forgotten (though some seem to prefer it that way) because, while their contribution in numbers was not immense, they played a critical part in several key areas of the conflict. If one were to look at the war more broadly, in the larger sense of the struggle against the communist domination of Southeast Asia, monarchies played a still larger part.

British SAS in the Malaya Emergency

As in Europe, the roots of the Cold War go back to World War II with foreign invasions upsetting the political status quo and giving rise to the first internal conflicts between pro- and anti-communist forces. This was seen in Malaysia where largely communist dominated Chinese guerilla groups formed to fight the Japanese occupation. Likewise, in Vietnam, the communist revolutionary Ho Chi Minh organized the Vietminh to oppose the Japanese and the short-lived Japanese-sponsored Empire of Vietnam as well as the return of French colonial rule. The Allies, because of the war situation, gave support to such groups but they became extremely problematic as soon as the war was over. From 1948 to 1960 an all-monarchist war against communism raged in Malaysia between the forces of the British Empire and Commonwealth Realms against a communist insurgency backed by China, Indonesia and the Soviet Union. It was a much more small-scale conflict than that in Indochina, but no less intense and ultimately it was the monarchist side that prevailed which is why the monarchial federation of Malaysia exists today as a prosperous, independent Commonwealth country. If things had gone the other way, if the communists had prevailed, all the Malaysian monarchies would have been lost.

In Indochina, it was thanks to the forces of the British Empire that the communists did not seize control of the whole of Vietnam in the August Revolution of 1945. They took power in the north and central thirds of the country but in the south the British refused to allow this and even re-armed the surrendered Japanese forces to prevent a communist takeover before the French authorities could resume control. This was all the more controversial considering that, in other parts of the country, some Japanese had joined with the Vietnamese communists, perhaps out of shared support for communism or, as is more likely, simply out of a racist desire to fight non-Asians no matter what the underlying political cause. It was also controversial as the United States, under President Roosevelt, had made no secret of the fact that it opposed the restoration of French colonial rule in Indochina. That attitude, however, changed with the communist victory in China and the oncoming tidal wave of communist aggression from Korea to Malaysia. It is also worth noting that the areas of Indochina where the communists were the least successful were those areas where monarchist sentiment was strongest such as in Laos and Cambodia.

Emp. Bao Dai with French General de Lattre

The First Indochina War, seen by most as simply a clash between the French Republic on one side and the Vietnamese communists on the other, was actually a monarchist war as well. The non-communist Vietnamese were organized into the State of Vietnam which was not officially a republic but not a traditional monarchy either. It was rather like Francoist Spain prior to 1947 or Manchukuo from 1932-1934. Officially it was simply a “State” but the Chief of State was the legitimate monarch and it was effectively a monarchy. We know from history that the French defeat doomed the Vietnamese former-Emperor turned “Chief of State” Bao Dai but what is less well known is that it would have doomed the monarchies of Laos and Cambodia as well had not other factors intervened. Both countries had communist revolutionary movements and both had originally been established under the guidance of the Vietnamese communist leaders. In fact, when the United States first began to take the situation in Indochina seriously, the greatest concern was not South Vietnam where President Ngo Dinh Diem seemed to be holding his own but rather the Kingdom of Laos which was more fractured and seemed less stable and in greater peril than any other country in the region.

On the Lao front there were basically two warring factions and one faction which tried to remain above the fray. The Royal Lao Army of King Sisavang Vatthana, wanted more than anything to keep the Cold War from spreading to Laos, then there were the communists who fought a vicious guerilla war to gain power for themselves and the anti-communist forces that opposed them which consisted to a large extent of Hmong warriors backed, not-so-secretly, by the United States. The Kingdom of Thailand also played a critical part in the war in Laos as many Thai mercenaries fought on behalf of the anti-communist forces with the, again, not-so-secret blessing of the Thai royal government. The United States sent considerable military assistance to the Kingdom of Laos to aid in combating the communist Pathet-Lao and, at the time, the Kingdom of Laos received more U.S. foreign aid than any other country. Fellow monarchies such as Japan, Thailand and Australia also provided valuable assistance to the struggling royalists of Laos. The Pathet Lao had mostly Vietnamese advisors along with a few Soviet and a number of Chinese who were hoping that Laos could be secured, its monarchy abolished and made into a puppet-state through which China would have an open road to attack the Kingdom of Thailand.

King Savang Vatthana of Laos

For more than a decade the hard fighting Hmong, Thai and Lao royalists backed up by American air support fought a grueling and heroic struggle against communist domination for the preservation of the Kingdom of Laos. American President Kennedy landed a force of US Marines in Thailand to stand ready to intervene in Laos if the communists gained the upper hand. However, he quickly agreed to a proposal by the Soviets to withdraw forces and keep Laos neutral. Despite having ignored a similar, previous agreement, Kennedy went along and pulled the Marines out of Thailand and ordered the US ambassador to back the neutral faction. Meanwhile, the Soviets had no intention of doing the same and merely channeled their support through North Vietnam so that large sections of Laos effectively came under the control of the communist Vietnamese. The war in Laos went on but cooled from a boil to a simmer as both sides seemed to realize that all would depend on the fate of Vietnam.

In the war in Vietnam, while the South Vietnamese and United States obviously supplied the vast majority of the fighting forces, monarchist participants on the side of South Vietnam included Australia, New Zealand, Thailand and Laos. Monarchies not directly involved but which were supportive of the South Vietnamese struggle included Canada, Spain, the United Kingdom and the Empire of Iran. During the course of the war more than 60,000 Australians served in the war in Vietnam losing 521 killed and over 3,000 wounded. They gave heroic service in numerous operations, one of the most famous being the Battle of Long Tan in Phuoc Tuy where 108 Australians defeated about 2,000 North Vietnamese regular army troops. Likewise, 3,500 New Zealanders served in the Vietnam War with losses of 37 killed and 187 wounded. The Kingdom of Thailand, as well as supplying troops to the war for Laos, dispatched the “Queen’s Cobra” battalion to South Vietnam where it served from 1965 to 1971. Thailand also supplied bases for American air forces and support centers for American and other allied personnel. The Australians had a particularly good combat record and more than a few have commented since that the American high command could have profited by adopted Australian methods of counter-insurgency operations.

Troops of the Royal Australian Regiment in Vietnam

For the monarchist cause in each of the Indochinese countries each had a unique set of circumstances and must be dealt with separately. Starting with Vietnam, it had the disadvantage of losing its monarchy first when the August Revolution brought down the Japanese-backed Empire of Vietnam in 1945. That was really the end of the traditional Vietnamese monarchy. However, with the creation of the French-backed State of Vietnam (also recognized by the US, UK & others as the legitimate Vietnamese government) there was hope that a more modern sort of monarchy could survive. That it did not was due to the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu after which France washed its hands of Vietnam and left the anti-communist cause in Indochina in the hands of the United States. The biggest blow to the monarchy-in-all-but-name State of Vietnam, at least as far as the monarchy was concerned, came after the appointment of the American-backed Catholic nationalist Ngo Dinh Diem as Prime Minister. He set about breaking up the system of patronage that the former Emperor Bao Dai ruled through and so aroused the opposition of many.

The best chance for removing Diem was probably the attempted coup launched by General Nguyen Van Hinh, a Bao Dai loyalist, but Diem stood firm and Bao Dai blinked, recalling General Hinh who left for France and never saw Vietnam again. When Bao Dai finally summoned Diem to France to dismiss him it was too late and Diem organized a referendum in 1955 that saw the State of Vietnam become the Republic of Vietnam with Diem as president. Most regard that as the effective end of all monarchist hopes in Vietnam, however, that may not be the case. Ngo Dinh Diem had, as a young mandarin, been hand-picked by Emperor Bao Dai and promoted rapidly in government. He was known as a monarchist as well as a nationalist and came from a Catholic family that was close to the imperial court. His father, Nguyen Van Kha, had been a high-ranking official under Emperor Thanh Thai and had left public service in protest when the French deposed Thanh Thai. Diem had been aided in his career and had family ties with the staunch monarchist Nguyen Huu Bai, probably the most prominent Catholic in the imperial government at the time. His famous sister-in-law, best known as Madame Nhu, was a great-granddaughter of Emperor Dong Khanh, grandfather of the last Emperor Bao Dai. So the ties between Ngo Dinh Diem and the monarchy were numerous and far reaching.

President Ngo Dinh Diem

As such, and considering that Diem acted against the former Emperor only when his own position was under threat, it may have been possible to have effected a restoration of the monarchy under Diem. When the administration of President Kennedy turned against Diem, if they had been more realistic and far-sighted, they could have arranged a sort of compromise that, under the circumstances, Diem may well have accepted. The proposal could have been for a restoration of the Emperor or perhaps even the elevation of the Prince Imperiale Bao Long for a fresh start, with Diem reverting back to a more limited role as prime minister or perhaps stepping down completely on the understanding that he could come back at some point when the situation had changed. It is speculative but given the personal history of Diem and his family, I cannot help but think that there was some glimmer of hope for a monarchist revival up until Diem was assassinated in 1963. There were still many members of the Imperial Family in the country, the Emperor’s mother still lived in the Forbidden City in fact but after the death of Diem there would never be anyone in power in Saigon with such a monarchist past or so many connections again.

In Laos, it is strange considering how widely criticized Vietnamese Emperor Bao Dai was for his cooperation with the French, that the leaders of the royal house did not face the same situation despite being even more pro-French than Bao Dai was. During World War II both King Sisavang Vong and the Crown Prince refused to collaborate with the Japanese and remained supportive of France. Prince Phetsarath led the Japanese-allied pro-independence forces and gained widespread public adoration but that never put him at odds with the rest of the family and the King was eventually reconciled with him. If there was one man who probably could have saved Laos from all of the troubles it was to endure in the course of the Second Indochina War it was Prince Phetsarath. Even decades of communist oppression has not managed to destroy his popularity amongst the Lao people. Unfortunately, Prince Phetsarath died in 1959 of a brain hemorrhage and the country soon began to fracture as discussed above.

Prince Sihanouk at Khmer Rouge rally

The Kingdom of Cambodia easily represents the most difficult case and it will always be one that few, if any, monarchists can look at without being troubled. Unlike Vietnam and Laos, Cambodia entered the era of the Vietnam War in probably better shape than any other Indochinese country. King Norodom Sihanouk had successfully navigated the French and the Japanese, cooperating with both, turning on both and escaping with his throne intact and independence for his country. An especially bountiful crop at the right time caused his popularity to soar to near godlike status and Cambodia under King Sihanouk seemed more united, prosperous and happy than any other country in the region. Unfortunately, the cancer that was the communist Khmer Rouge was in place, waiting for an opportunity to exploit.

King Sihanouk proclaimed neutrality in the Cold War but seemed to enjoy ‘dancing along the Demilitarized Zone’ as it were. He looked the other way as the communist terrorist group, the Viet Cong, established bases in Cambodia from which to attack South Vietnam, refusing offers of American support to remove them. The anti-communist forces became increasingly frustrated with Sihanouk and when he left on a friendship tour to Communist China, North Korea and the Soviet Union it was taken by everyone as a clear indication of where he stood (though in all probability it was likely an effort at playing both sides of the fence, hedging his bets as it were). While he was out of the country, in 1970 there was a military coup led by General Lon Nol, a man known as a right-wing monarchist but also a staunch anti-communist who was eager to take action against the Vietnamese presence in Cambodia. Lon Nol declared Prince Sihanouk deposed and himself President of the new Khmer Republic. Today, the most widely repeated story is that the coup was backed by the American CIA to get rid of King Sihanouk with Lon Nol as the willing traitor. However, though widely assumed, there has never been any actual evidence of CIA involvement and Lon Nol was actually extremely reluctant to remove Sihanouk as Head of State. In fact, he finally did so only at actual gunpoint.

President Lon Nol

However, big plans to drive out the Vietnamese communists and wipe out the native red elements proved unsuccessful. Lon Nol suffered a stroke the following year and while the Americans and South Vietnamese took care of the Vietnamese communist strongholds in the border areas, the deposed Sihanouk threw his considerable prestige behind the Khmer Rouge, urging people to flee to the jungle and join the guerillas. So Cambodia presented the world with an odd picture: a republic led by a monarchist which was struggling for survival against a communist insurgency that was notoriously anti-monarchist being backed by the former monarch. Even when acting under duress, Lon Nol felt so terrible about what he done to Prince Sihanouk that he bowed down in tears before the Queen Mother Kossamak to beg her forgiveness. For his part, Sihanouk lived in a palace in North Korea until the end of the Vietnam War when American support for the Khmer Republic was cut off and the Khmer Rouge seized power. He returned to Cambodia but was held prisoner by the fanatical communist regime and was only allowed to leave in order to argue the case of Democratic Kampuchea against Vietnam after which, rather than return, he relocated to China and North Korea until the eventual UN referendum saw him restored in a more limited constitutional monarchy.

That was a phenomenon that was unique and has never been repeated. For monarchists in Cambodia, there simply were no ideal options after 1970. Those who followed the King into the future dominated by Pol Pot came to regret it as the Khmer Rouge not only tossed aside the King after coming to power but went on to massacre about a third of the entire population in their drive to create a “pure” communist state. So, odd as it may seem, the best thing to do would have been to support Lon Nol and his republic. Given the depth of his attachment to the monarchy, I have no doubt that King Sihanouk could have easily returned to the throne, especially after Lon Nol was able to rid himself of the arch-republican Son Ngoc Thanh in 1972. There may have even been a restoration of the monarchy without Sihanouk if the republic had survived as the other major backer of the regime was Prince Sisowath Sirik Matak (a cousin of Sihanouk though opposed to him) who reportedly harbored hopes of his son becoming King of Cambodia. As it turned out, after the Khmer Rouge takeover in 1975 Lon Nol fled the country and Sirik Matak was executed.

Last of the King & Queen of Laos

So, all in all, a great deal hung in the balance for monarchists in the Vietnam War. The fate of the Kingdom of Laos was decided by the conflict, in almost any other case that of Cambodia would have been and even in Vietnam itself there remained at least room for hope prior to the communist takeover in 1975. The elderly Phan Khac Suu was briefly President of South Vietnam in 1964-65 (during the chaotic years after the assassination of Diem and before the administration of Nguyen Van Thieu) and he had, in the past, been known as a supporter of Emperor Bao Dai and was a member of the strange Cao Dai sect which had been supportive of the monarchy. If he had gained a greater following there may have been some chance for a restoration with the former Emperor still in France, ready to be restored if asked (and if he wished). What is important to remember is that the cause that those monarchists in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam who fought against the communist takeover and those of Australia, New Zealand and Thailand who helped them in that struggle, was a noble one and one worth fighting for. It is unfortunate that it has come to be seen solely as an “American war” and thus something to oppose and condemn by those who follow the fashionable chattering class in being against absolutely anything the United States is for. It does a disservice to all those brave military forces of the Queen of Australia and New Zealand, the King of Thailand and the local monarchs who sacrificed a great deal to stand against the tide of communist expansion in Southeast Asia.

Royal Profile: Prince Phetsarath of Laos

In the history of the Kingdom of Laos, just prior to its tragic demise, few royals had such a diverse and colorful career as Prince Phetsarath. Holding such positions as prime minister and vice-king and various times in his life, his reputation endured even after his death with the Prince achieving and almost semi-divine status that lingers somewhat even to the present. His Highness Prince Chao Maha Ouphat Phetsarath Rattanavongsa was born in Luang Prabang on January 19, 1890 to Prince Bounkhong (son of Prince Souvanna Phomma) the uparaja of Luang Prabang and his second wife Princess Thongsy. The second son, Prince Phetsarath was the older brother of Prince Souvanna Phouma who would lead the pro-neutrality royalist faction in the later Laotian Civil War. He was also an older half brother of Prince Souphanouvong who would lead the communist faction and become the first President of Laos (Prince Souphanouvong being the son of Prince Bounkhong by his eleventh wife who was a commoner). Coming from such an illustrious family line, Prince Phetsarath was given the best education possible in colonial French Indochina.

After preliminary instruction in the traditional fashion, he was sent to the Lycee Chasseloup Laubat in Saigon (at that time in the French colony of Cochinchine) the “Paris of the Orient” and “Pearl of the Far East”. In 1905 he left Indochina to study in Paris, France at the Lycee Montaigne and later the Ecole coloniale. After finishing his education he returned to Laos in 1912 and the following year married Princess Nhin Kham Venne, his first of three wives. After about a year of working for his father as an interpreter he got a job clerking at the French governor’s office in Vientiane. The Prince proved himself quite adept and within two years was promoted to secretary to the colonial governor. This was during World War I which added new difficulties as the French organized military battalions from Indochina to serve in Europe, sometimes in combat roles but more often in labor battalions, digging trenches and moving men and supplies. In 1919 Prince Phetsarath was honored with the title of Somdeth Chao Ratsaphakhinay, one of the highest in the land, from the King. His father had previously held the same position. He was also appointed Director of Indigenous Affairs of Laos by the French governor.

The next year, on July 26, 1920, Prince Bounkhong died and Prince Phetsarath succeeded his father as the uparaja or ouphat, effectively the Vice-King of Laos, also sometimes westernized to “Viceroy”. In that capacity he worked tirelessly for the development of the country. He reformed or, indeed, instituted in the first place, the Lao Consultative Assembly, streamlined the advisory council of the King, made the civil service more fair and results-driven by establishing a clear system of ranks and requirements for promotion that ended a great deal of corruption. In Laos, “Church and State” went hand-in-hand and Prince Phetsarath also reformed the administrative system of the Buddhist temples and set down new guidelines for the education of Buddhist priests. The first modern legal code in the Kingdom of Laos was the invention of Prince Phetsarath and he founded the Institute of Law and Administration to train competent civil servants who would not owe their position to the granting of special favors. Not only did all of this greatly improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the Lao government, but it also displayed to the people of Laos that they themselves were capable of holding positions and making improvements which were previously the domain of the colonial authorities alone. As such, even many who were not ill-disposed toward the French began to see them as being rather unnecessary.

Prince Phetsarath was quickly gaining a golden reputation in Laos among the ordinary people and that grew all the more with the coming of World War II in French Indochina. When France fell to Nazi Germany, and word reached Southeast Asia, people in Laos were shocked. What would happen to them if their “protector” had been conquered? The answer was that the military government in Thailand, supported by Imperial Japan, moved to regain border territories they had lost to Cambodia and Laos after the Franco-Siamese War. This outraged the Lao people and caused a great deal of anger against France as their position in the colonial union of French Indochina was based on the promise of protection which was no longer being delivered. Tensions rose further when the French government (Vichy) allowed Imperial Japanese forces to make use of bases in Vietnam for their campaigns against Malaysia and the Dutch East Indies.

In January of 1941, in reaction to all of this, Prince Phetsarath formed the “Movement for National Renovation” to stand up for Lao territorial integrity. It was not an anti-French organization and some French officials in Laos supported it but these were generally those more in line with the “Free French” loyal to General Charles DeGaulle in London. The French colonial leadership in Hanoi which was loyal to the Vichy government opposed the organization. At one point, in 1944, Prince Phetsarath sent Lao troops to attack Thailand and regain the lost territory but nothing came of the attempted campaign. Laos remained in almost a state of limbo in terms of the wider world war until the liberation of France by the Allies in 1944. With France shifting back to the Allied camp, the Japanese reacted by taking control of Indochina themselves, starting with Vietnam. Some French officials fled to Laos and the Japanese moved in to pursue them and to detain King Sisavang Vong in the hope that he would declare independence from France and join the Japanese-sponsored “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” as the Emperor of Vietnam and King of Cambodia had done or would do. The King and Crown Prince refused to turn against France but Prince Phetsarath took a different view. As he saw it, their relationship with France had been based on the French pledge to protect Laos and as they had failed to do so, Laos should declare independence and if this could only be done with the support of Japan, so be it.

With the King refusing to deal with them, the Japanese naturally moved closer to Prince Phetsarath who was widely revered throughout the country and a determined patriot devoted to the cause of independence. During their occupation they named him Prime Minister of Luang Prabang and Prince Phetsarath formed and led the group called Lao Issara or “Free Laos”. When the King remained obstinate, Prince Phetsarath issued his own declaration of independence, backed up by Japan who were rushing to try to erect friendly Asian governments as an Allied victory loomed on the horizon, and the Prince tried to regain lost ground since the start of the war. Because of his activities during this time, Prince Phetsarath became known as the “Father of Lao Independence” even though the time of this independence was of short duration. After the atomic bomb was dropped on Japan those governments allied with Japan and occupied by Japanese forces began to come apart. Indochina was no different. In August of 1945 the last Emperor of Vietnam abdicated and a “Democratic People’s Republic” was declared in Hanoi. In Laos, Prince Phetsarath tried to convince the King to declare the unity and independence of Laos at that time, without French or Japanese influences, but the King was convinced that France would be returning and the risk of unrest was too great.

Within days the French were reasserting control over Indochina and Prince Phetsarath was a marked man for his cooperation with the Japanese. Still at the head of his “Free Laos” government, he had no choice but to escape across the border into Thailand in 1946. He was gone but not forgotten and during the more than ten years Prince Phetsarath spent in exile, his reputation grew and grew in Laos until he attained godlike status. People had come to believe that the Prince possessed supernatural powers and would often call on him to bless their villages and drive out evil spirits. After the return of French forces, his reputation as “Father of Independence” took on a new importance among the populace. People said that he could fly and had turned himself into various animals to speed his work in struggling for their freedom. Part of the origins for these beliefs were also the seemingly miraculous way the Prince had survived numerous accidents in his life, and tales of this eventually reached the point where he was considered invincible, a khon kong or half-god, half-royal.

The French, needless to say, were not happy with Prince Phetsarath or his ever-growing legend, but how could they fight a demigod? In 1957 he was finally allowed to return to Laos where he received a huge, rapturous welcome from the ordinary people. He visited King Sisavang Vong who restored all of his old titles to him and by the prestige of his personality brought about a moment of unity amongst the political factions in Laos. Unfortunately, it was not long after that Prince Phetsarath died of a brain hemorrhage on October 14, 1959 in Luang Prabang. His funeral was a massive affair, and rightly so, for his death was a tragedy for the entire country. Had he lived longer, the terrible civil war might never have happened. Yet, even after the civil war, the fall of the Kingdom of Laos and the communist takeover, the memory of Prince Phetsarath has never died. His portrait adorns the walls of shops, homes and restaurants and family altars where people burn incense in his honor and pray for his spirit to watch over them. Even in recent years, people in Laos, young and old, could be found wearing miniature portraits of the Prince as talismans to protect them from harm. In spite of all the years of communist controlled education painting the Royal Family with the worst possible reputation, the faith of the people in their beloved prince remains strong.

Story of Monarchy: The Tragedy of Laos

The origins of Laos, like most countries in Asia, are ancient and at one time the “Land of the Million Elephants” was a major regional power. However, following a succession dispute after 1695 the country fragmented into three different and competing monarchies; the old Kingdom of Lan Xang (Luang Prabang), the Kingdom of Vientiane and the Kingdom of Champasak. This, of course, meant each was considerably weaker than the nation had been before and while the three warred with each other, more powerful neighbors were able to take advantage. Burmese troops conquered the north for a time, Thailand dominated all three for some time and the growing power of Vietnam lastly made claims on the area. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries all of this began to change with the arrival of the French. After establishing protectorates or colonies over Cambodia and the three states which had formerly been Vietnam, France wrested the dominate position in Laos away from Thailand and the area soon became part of French Indochina.

King Oun Kham and his court

The French protectorate was established during the reign of King Oun Kham of Luang Prabang. This made complete sense as the Chinese had invaded, sacked Luang Prabang and forced King Oun Kham (who was quite elderly at the time) to flee to Bangkok, barely escaping with his life. His escape was facilitated by the French civil servant Auguste Pavie who then helped negotiate the peace. He was then posted to Bangkok where he was a pivotal figure in the Franco-Siamese War that resulted in France replacing Thailand as the protecting power over Laos. Pavie then became the first Commissioner-General for France in Laos. Luang Prabang continued as an autonomous protectorate while Vientiane and Champasak were brought under the direct control of French colonial officials. In time the three Lao kingdoms were brought back together and reunited into a single Kingdom of Laos. The protectorate over Luang Prabang was first accepted by King Zakarine, the son of King Oun Kham who had been made regent for his ailing father by the King of Thailand. He was an accomplished prince who had led Lao forces in repelling an invasion by the Chinese forces of the Taiping rebellion.

It was the son of King Zakarine, Prince Sisavang Phoulivong, who presided over the reunification of the country and became King Sisavang Vong of Laos in 1904. The modern history of the country truly began with his reign. He had been educated in Saigon and Paris and his kingship was to be the beginning of a new era of Lao development and Franco-Lao cooperation; something he was totally committed to. The French built the new Royal Palace in Luang Prabang short after he came to the throne, a symbol of the start of a new period of unity and progress. King Sisavang Vong provided steady and moderate leadership, becoming over his many years on the throne one of the most beloved and respected monarchs in Southeast Asia. He was also more fortunate than some other monarchs in Indochina alone as he was left mostly to govern as he wished, at least in the area of Luang Prabang and whereas French colonialism had brought the division of Vietnam into three pieces, it had brought unity to Laos, restoring the one kingdom out of three. King Sisavang Vong saw the lives of his people improve and was genuinely friendly toward France. This friendship was put to the test with the outbreak of World War II.

King Sisavang Vong

After the German conquest of France the Japanese were able to assist their ally Thailand in recovering territory previously ceded to Laos after the Franco-Siamese War. This had an impact on King Sisavang Vong and made him all the more skeptical when Lao nationalists tried to enlist his cooperation in allying with the Japanese against the French. Despite the fact that Japanese forces dominated all of Southeast Asia, King Sisavang Vong refused to betray France and refused to cooperate with the Japanese. As a result, he was, in effect, deposed and replaced by a nationalist pro-Japanese faction that proclaimed the Kingdom of Laos independent of France. They seemed to have backed the winning side but, of course, they had not and following the atomic-bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan surrendered and withdrew from Southeast Asia. French forces returned and King Sisavang Vong was restored as King of Laos, of the entire country, in fact as well as in name, in 1946.

While revolution gripped neighboring Vietnam, the Kingdom of Laos remained peacefully isolated from such chaos and both Laos and Cambodia experienced a period of great prosperity after the end of World War II. King Sisavang Vong was more revered than ever and celebrated his Golden Jubilee in 1954. A few years later his poor health forced him to hand official responsibilities over to his son as regent and he died in 1959, disliked by the xenophobes for his friendship with France but beloved by most people for his thoughtful leadership and establishment of the first constitution in Lao history. He was succeeded by his son, King Savang Vatthana, who was destined to be the last King of Laos. Despite the outward signs of peace and prosperity, there was a cancer growing in the heart of the country which was the Pathet Lao; a communist, revolutionary group born out of the Vietnamese communist movement of Ho Chi Minh. He had first established the Indochinese Communist Party and spread subversive groups into Laos and Cambodia as he intended for the Vietnamese Communist Party to eventually rule all of what was then French Indochina.

King Savang Vatthana in coronation regalia

By the time King Savang Vatthana came to the throne the Kingdom of Laos was a fully united, independent monarchy within the worldwide French Union. Also by that time the Vietnamese monarchy had been destroyed and the country divided into a communist north (supported by the Soviet Union) and a non-communist south (supported by the United States). The King was most concerned with keeping Laos out of the increasingly bloody, fratricidal war in Vietnam but this proved increasingly impossible. The Pathet Lao were fully dependent on the Vietnamese communists and were working to subvert royal authority in Laos as well as to support the war effort of their communist masters in Vietnam. Soon, the United States was intervening in Laos as well (unofficially) to counter the Vietnamese and their allies in the country. So it was that there emerged a three-front civil war in the little, mountainous Kingdom of Laos. On one side were the communist and pro-North Vietnamese Pathet Lao, on the other side were the Hmong warriors, Thai mercenaries and other anti-communist pro-American forces and in the middle was King Savang Vatthana and the official Royal Lao Army which was trying to cling to neutrality and keep the other two sides from engulfing the country in their conflict.

For decades this “unofficial” civil war raged across Laos and divided the Royal Family as well as the populace. Prince Souvanna Phouma (who favored neutrality and was supported by the USSR, which did not want the war to spread) was in Vientiane claiming to be Prime Minister. Prince Boun Oum of Champassak was in the south with the anti-communist forces and was recognized as Prime Minister by the United States. Finally there was Prince Souphanouvong, the “Red Prince” who led the communist Pathet Lao and was backed by North Vietnam in also claiming to be Prime Minister. The King was in the middle trying to bring all sides together and he was the only figure that Prince Souvanna Phouma and Prince Boun Oum would both deal with. The Pathet Lao, of course, were reluctant as their aim was the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of a communist dictatorship (which would actually be a puppet regime for North Vietnam). King Savang Vatthana wanted all three of the feuding princes to come together in a coalition government in an effort to please all sides and end the killing. Unfortunately, he was only partially successful.



Prince Boun Oum

The National Assembly finally voted in Prince Boun Oum as Prime Minister and the King formally appointed him to the post in 1961 and the following year the King did get his wish in the establishment of a coalition government that included representation for all factions. However, the Pathet Lao were never committed to working within the rules of a constitutional monarchy and their plots and schemes against the other members of the coalition were continuous. In 1964 there was a succession of coups and coups attempts which forced the royalist and anti-communist factions together in closer cooperation against the Pathet Lao. The communists became increasingly uncooperative and by 1972 ceased to even pretend to support the legal, existing government, returning to their outright campaign of terrorism and subversion. It also made a difference, of course, that by that time it was becoming increasingly clear that the United States was on the way out of Vietnam and that the non-communist forces would soon be cut off by their primary supplier of funds, weapons and diplomatic support. Time was on their side.

Especially after 1973 the United States had started withdrawing from Vietnam. In the next U.S. congressional elections after the Watergate scandal, the Democrats swept to power and immediately cut off funding for the war effort and all aid going to non-communist forces in Indochina. 1975 was the year of total victory for the communist forces of North Vietnam and, by extension, their fellow revolutionaries across Indochina. On April 17, 1975 the Khmer Rouge occupied Phnom Penh, starting “Year Zero” and the nightmarish regime of Pol Pot. On April 30, 1975 the North Vietnamese army marched into Saigon and the red flag was raised over the Dragon’s Head Palace. The royal government of King Savang Vatthana of Laos was the last to hold out. The Royal Lao Army had been devastated as early as 1968 due to a massive attack by North Vietnamese forces. After the fall of Phnom Penh and Saigon, the Pathet Lao were eager to renew their offensive against the royal government, which they did, with North Vietnamese support. King Savang Vatthana tried to organize a defense but many of his ministers and generals were giving up and leaving the country while that was still possible, due to the obviously hopeless position they faced.

Prince Souphanouvong

Finally, the Prime Minister ordered government forces to offer no resistance to the Pathet Lao, considering any further fighting would simply be a waste of life. The King bravely remained at his post, refusing to leave his people even as the government folded up around him. The communists took over without political opposition as they were already in control of the country. On August 23, 1975 the Pathet Lao occupied Vientiane and on December 2, 1975 forced King Savang Vatthana to abdicate. It was the first time in at least six hundred years that Laos was without a monarch. As in Vietnam in 1945, the communists at first pretended to be moderate and named the former king “Supreme Advisor to the President” who was the former “Red Prince” Souphanouvong. In fact he had no power or role at all in the new “Lao People’s Democratic Republic”, even suffering the indignity of seeing his home seized by the communist party. At first, they would have been glad to see him leave the country, but the noble King refused to abandon his people and was placed under house arrest.

In time, the communists stopped fearing the King would stay and started fearing he would leave. They had promised a utopian paradise and instead had delivered only misery, suffering and oppression, backed up by the North Vietnamese. The Pathet Lao became increasingly worried that the King would escape the country and organize a resistance movement against them so, in March of 1977 he, along with the Queen and several other members of the Royal Family, were arrested and thrown into a concentration camp in the north for political prisoners. That was the last time anyone in the public ever saw him. The following year the communist government stated that the King, Queen and Crown Prince had died of malaria. However, there are conflicting accounts about when exactly the last King died and under what circumstances. In any event, his youngest son who had escaped the country continued to lead the opposition to the regime in exile.

Crown Prince Soulivong Savang

The subsequent history of Laos has been one of unrelenting tragedy. Cut off from China and Thailand, the Pathet Lao became hopelessly dependent on Vietnam and totally subservient to the communist leaders in Hanoi. In 1977 the Pathet Lao signed a treaty with Hanoi authorizing the Vietnamese to provide “advisors” which basically meant their taking over of the Lao army as well as the right to garrison 30,000 Vietnamese troops in Laos. It was only in the 1990’s that the ordinary people in Laos learned what had happened to their Royal Family and this caused great anger and resentment against the government. Some people even adopted the King of Thailand as their own, in the absence of a monarch in Laos. Some moves toward capitalism were made (at the insistence of the USSR) when the socialist policies of the government had brought Laos to a state of terrible poverty and starvation. Things have improved somewhat since then but the country remains occupied by Vietnamese forces and essentially a puppet-state of Vietnam, largely cut off from the outside world. Crown Prince Soulivong Savang, grandson of the last king, continues to lead the free Lao community from exile in campaigning for the restoration of the monarchy and the end of the communist dictatorship.

Monarch Profile: King Savang Vatthana of Laos

Few monarchs of recent times have had to face such a calamitous collection of difficulties as His Majesty Savang Vatthana, the last King of Laos. He was born Samdach Brhat Chao Mavattaha Sri Vitha Lan Xang Hom Khao Phra Rajanachakra Lao Parama Sidha Khattiya Suriya Varman Brhat Maha Sri Savangsa Vadhana on November 13, 1907 at the Royal Palace of Luang Prabang to Their Majesties King Sisavang Vong and Queen Kham-Oun I, the second of five children. During this time Laos was part of the French colonial union of Indochina along with Cambodia and the three regions of old Vietnam (Tonkin, Annam and Cochinchina). The new prince’s father, King Sisavang Vong, was very cognizant of the advances France had brought to his country as well as their role in aiding in the unification of the minor Lao kingdoms into a single Kingdom of Laos. He was determined to always maintain friendly relations with France and, like other royals of the time, sent Crown Prince Savang Vatthana to France at the age of 10 to be given a western education and to learn something of the world outside of Laos.

The Crown Prince went to a prestigious private school in Montpellier and later earned a degree in Paris at École Libre des Sciences Politiques, also a prestigious institution where French diplomats were trained. He spent ten years in France learning about history, science, statecraft, diplomacy and so on. As he had left at such an early age, when he returned to Laos traditional royal tutors had to repeat some of the traditional Lao education he had received as a child. It is probably safe to say that Savang Vatthana would be the most well and diversely education monarch that Laos ever had. Not long after his return, on August 7, 1930 he married his future Queen Khamphoui, a girl from Luang Prabang, beginning what would be a devoted and fruitful marriage. In the following years the couple would have seven children. They were always a close-knit family, praying and playing together. Tennis was a very popular sport that had been introduced to the country and the Crown Princely family would play together whenever they had a chance as well as being always eager to take in tournaments when they happened to be traveling abroad.

HRH Savang Vatthana was also a very religious man. As King of Laos he would one day hold a sacred, even semi-divine position, and he took his religious duties very seriously. He poured over Buddhist scriptures, practiced intense self discipline and, of course, served in a monastery as a monk himself as was customary. In time he became an expert on the sangkha, even by the standards of the Buddhist clergy. The Crown Prince was determined that when he came to the throne and inherited the position of chief protector of the Buddhist faith in Laos that he would know it completely and be able to do so. Not just protecting it from attack but also from any who would attempt to subvert its true meaning. It is tragic that a man who was such a sincere and devout Buddhist would face such a horrific succession of conflicts, violence and hatred throughout his life. The first, but unfortunately not the last, was when World War II spread to southeast Asia.

The Empire of Japan, already allied to the Kingdom of Thailand, occupied Indochina and found many willing allies among those who wished to throw off European colonialism and grasp the hope of independence. The Japanese also made it clear that, believing in the imperial system as they did, traditional monarchs were who they preferred to work with. Many in Japan expected the mere offer of independence would be sufficient to enlist Laos on their side in the greater war. That was not to be the case. Crown Prince Savang Vatthana was sent by the King to the Japanese military headquarters in Saigon, Vietnam to relay his position and carry on negotiations as needed. In a very bold move he made it abundantly clear that the Kingdom of Laos was an ally of France and part of the French union and that was not going to change. The Japanese, needless to say, were not pleased and, as a matter of necessity, occupied Laos and allied with the nationalist faction to force a declaration of Laotian independence. Again acting for the King, Crown Prince Savang Vatthana vociferously protested against the Japanese presence in Laos and their actions in the political sphere.

Ultimately, the King was proven to be the more foresighted. In 1945 the Japanese were defeated and evacuated southeast Asia and in 1949 France granted full self-rule to Laos as part of the Union of Indochina. In 1951 the Crown Prince took office as Prime Minister under his father and in 1953 negotiated the treaty by which France recognized the full independence of the Kingdom of Laos as a neutral constitutional monarchy with a new prime minister taking office. In the summer of 1959 as the King become increasingly frail, Savang Vatthana assumed the position of regent. Fighting was still going on in Vietnam between the communist and non-communist factions and the kingdoms of Laos and Cambodia were in danger of being dragged into conflict as well. A smooth transition of leadership was essential and only a few months later the old king died and on October 29, 1959 Savang Vatthana became King of Laos. The new monarch, however, decided to delay the grand coronation rites due to the civil war that was raging in his country as a result of the communist insurgency.

King Savang Vatthana stood in a precarious position. His country was essentially divided into three factions. On one side were the communist insurgents, the Pathet Lao, who wanted to take over the country and were supported by the communist North Vietnamese. On the other side were the anti-communist nationalists who wanted to fight the insurgency and the North Vietnamese and were supported by the United States of America. In the middle was the neutral faction which wanted to keep Laos neutral and neither support nor oppose either side in the Cold War that come to Southeast Asia, the Soviet Union originally supported this faction. Making things even more painful for the King was the fact that each faction was led by a royal prince who were his cousins with each claiming to be prime minister and each recognized by their primary foreign supporters, either North Vietnam, Soviet Russia or the United States. King Savang Vatthana therefore went on a worldwide tour in an effort to gain foreign support for an independent Kingdom of Laos and by establishing friendly relations with all to hopefully influence them to withdraw their support for the factions which were dividing his country.

However, try as he might, King Savang Vatthana simply could not stop the escalating conflict in Vietnam from spreading to his country. The North Vietnamese established routes through Laos for moving men and supplies into South Vietnam and the United States (clandestinely) employed forces to attack these routes. Finally, in 1961, the National Assembly reached a slim majority in favor of Prince Boun Oum of Champassack, leader of the anti-communist faction supported by the United States. King Savang Vatthana recognized the new government, which was crucial as he occupied the only position in national government that was beyond dispute. However, he hoped that the factions would form a coalition government to unite the country. Putting all of his political and moral authority behind this cause, the following year in 1962 the King managed to obtain this coalition with all sides claiming to want nothing more than a peaceful, neutral, independent Laos. However, the communists would never go along with any regime that they did not control and the coalition soon fell apart.

There was a succession of coups and coup attempts until finally there was no room for neutrality. The communist Pathet-Lao refused to take part in any talks, elections or compromises and the neutralist and anti-communist factions joined forces against them. For roughly a decade after this a civil war raged in the small, mountainous Kingdom of Laos between the royal government and the communist Pathet-Lao. One side was supported by the communist North Vietnamese, the other by the United States. It was extremely painful for the King who was always a man of peace but circumstances had left no other option. Everything would depend on whose allies sent the most support and that issue was determined in 1975.

It was in that year the last U.S. troops left South Vietnam, pulling out the military and financial support the non-communist forces had come to depend on. Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese who were then able to increase their support for the communist insurgents in Laos. They quickly seized power and on December 2, 1975 forced King Savang Vatthana to abdicate. As in the other countries of Indochina, the communists first made a show of reconciliation by appointing the former King advisor to the President but this charade did not last long. The communists did not want to deal with him at all but the King refused to leave the country and abandon his people. Finally, in 1977 the King and Royal Family were arrested by the communists and sent to “Camp Number One” in northern Laos for political prisoners. None of his people would ever see him again. The King passed his 70^th year in this prison but finally died, no one is sure even today exactly when or under what circumstances. The Lao Royal Family continues to survive in exile thanks to those who escaped the country and Laos remains little more than a client state of the communist regime in Vietnam. Thankfully, inspired by the example of King Savang Vatthana, the Lao exile community around the world remains defiant, staunchly royalist and determined to one day see the communist tyranny destroyed and the Kingdom of Laos restored to its former glory.

MM Video: King Sisavang Vong

MM Video: The Last King of Laos

MM Salute: The Loyal Lao

Since I am currently off my regularly scheduled posts, I thought I would take this opportunity to do something I have been meaning to for a while; that is to send a Mad Monarchist SALUTE to the loyal monarchists of Laos. The country is in a terrible condition today, effectively still under Communist Vietnamese occupation, and I had heard that loyalty to the monarchial principle survived there with some people venerating images of the neighboring King of Thailand in the absence of their own monarch. However, I have lately become very impressed by the loyalty of the Lao exile community, particularly the younger generations. Since establishing the Mad Monarchist Channel on YouTube I have been surprised that of all the videos I have contributed (all of them very modest with nothing at all fancy as you all know) that it is a short video on the Royals of Laos that has been viewed more often than any other, some 21,287 times as of this posting. That so many young Lao people, having been born and lived entirely in exile, still have such an interest in their royal history, such fidelity to their ancient monarchy and steadfastly staunch opposition to the communist usurpers who took power frankly inspires me. For displaying all of these qualities in the face of such obstacles I think the loyal monarchists of Laos should serve as an example to others in similar situations around the world. So, ever-loyal, ever-faithful patriotic loyalists of Laos; the Mad Monarchist salutes you!

(so everyone will know this is true loyalty at work and not some fabulous bit of video wizardry on my own part, I submit the video in question)

Monarchist Profile: General Vang Pao

I wonder how many monarchists are aware that there is a loyal defender of his king and country enduring legal persecution in the United States? Well, there is; retired Major General Vang Pao of the Royal Lao Army. Vang Pao was born in 1931 in northeast Laos, a member of the Hmong people who populate areas of northern Laos, Thailand and southern China. Like most he worked as a farmer before joining the French military resistance to the Japanese occupation of Laos (the country was then part of the French Union of Indochina with Vietnam and Cambodia). He proved himself such an adept soldier in the Free French guerilla war against the Japanese that after World War II he was recruited by the French military in their war against the communist-led VietMinh. In time Vang Pao became a general in the Royal Lao Army and he was always a symbol of Hmong pride and loyalty to the King of Laos, Savang Vathana.

During America's war in Vietnam Laos was officially neutral but was effectively divided into three camps; those who supported the communists, those who supported the Americans and those who tried to remain on the sidelines. General Vang Pao was given command of the CIA-trained Secret Army which struggled to defend the Kingdom of Laos from the communist revolutionary forces of the Pathet Lao and the People's Army of Laos who were propped up by the Communist North Vietnamese. Unfortunately, though the Hmong, unofficial US personnel and hired Thai mercenaries waged a brilliant war against the communists, when the US pulled out of South Vietnam the ultimate success of the Pathet Lao was assured. The Kingdom of Laos was doomed.

When the communists took over Vang Pao moved to the United States and became a leading figure in the Hmong community of immigrants in America. Vang Pao never relented in his loyalty to the Lao monarchy or his opposition to communism. He rallied the Hmong community to pressure the UN into halting the forced repatriation of Hmong refugees in Thailand to Laos where they faced brutal treatment. General Vang Pao also raised awareness and rallied opposition to the human rights abuses and tyrannical policies of the communist government in Laos. However, after 2001 he did advocate the normalization of relations between Laos and the United States in the hope that this would improve conditions inside the country.

Nonetheless, in 2007 Vang Pao and 9 others were arrested on charges of plotting the overthrow of the red regime in Laos; a violation of the Neutrality Act. It was not lost on many that the elderly general was being persecuted by the US government on accusations of doing exactly what that same government had once armed and trained him to do. Hundreds of federal agents harassed numerous figures in the Lao and Hmong community and claim that the group in question was planning to obtain weapons, ship them in secret to Thailand and smuggle them to resistance groups in Laos. One of those arrested was a former officer in the US Army who was charged with recruiting US veterans for the operation.

The group was later indicted and more arrests followed with General Vang Pao being denied bail. Many, many people from across the Southeast Asian community in the US and Vietnam vets rallied to his defense, pleading with the Governor of California to intervene. A school that was to be named after the general changed its plan following the government raids and the arrest of Vang Pao. Finally, the massive campaign in support of Vang Pao obtained his release on a $1.5 million bond for which his family had to put up their own property. The General has been back in court this year though nothing has been settled yet and his next court appearance should be sometime next month.