10 - The end game

Summary

As the war approached a victorious conclusion, British officials anticipated recovery of their lost colonial possessions, particularly resource-rich Malaya. Inclined to view neighboring Thailand as a stepchild of the Empire and accustomed to exerting primary influence in Bangkok, the Foreign Office could not forget that Thailand had violated its 1940 non-aggression treaty by facilitating the Japanese invasions of Malaya and Burma, occupying the Shan States, declaring war on Britain, and accepting British colonial territory from the Japanese. London sought a peace settlement that would give a measure of revenge, and facilitate the re-establishment of the British position in Southeast Asia.

The State Department concluded from consulations with the British that they desired “an extended occupation of the country after liberation from the Japanese, the establishment of an Allied Control Commission and the imposition of economic and military conditions within an international system which might substantially impair Thai administrative control.” Eden's exchanges with Hull during the second half of 1944 and OSS reports from SEAC had confirmed British interest in controlling the Kra Isthmus area. Dening, Mountbatten's political advisor, had acknowledged in January 1945 that the British desired control or international supervision over a strategic zone from the Malay border to as far as Prachuap Khirikhan. An OSS officer involved in preparations for the abortive Operation ROGER reported that his British counterparts envisioned Bangkok surrendering predominantly Muslim Pattani province in the extreme south of Thailand “as a punishment for going to war with Great Britain.”