On the morning of March 2 a rnment press release indicated that matters were under control The abortive coup of 1912 was more than a dramatic episode in the history of modern Thailand. The motives of its leaders showed the spread of Western political ideas, including the idea of nation alism, among the Thai people. Some of these ideas, in the forms in which the coup leaders expressed them, bear unmistakable traces of His Majesty's own rhetoric. The abortive coup of 1912, then, in some respects constituted an indirect tribute to the effectiveness of vajira vudh's nationalistic message. The essential aims of the 1912 coup group were not entirely in the category of political idealism. Dissatisfaction with the King on a much more persona evel was, in fact, the first stimulus to revolu tionary thought. The coup idea seems to have originated in an incident that occurred shortly before vajiravudh became king. A small group of soldiers got into a quarrel with a group of pages of the then crown Prince Vajiravudh over the favors of a girl who sold betel nut. The quarrel ended with the soldiers, armed with sticks, chasing the pages back into the safety of Parusakawan Palace. The following day the Crown Prince demanded redress for the insult to his position by the application of an old provision of the palatine law that called for lashing on the back with a rattan rod, King Chulalongk orn at first resisted, so did the Minister of Justice, Prince Rabi, who pleaded that the new Westernized penal code made lashing with the rattan out moded. (Undoubtedly both the King and the Prince were concerned over the possible bad effects that the resumption of such "barbaric practices would have on Western states at the very time Siam was seeking to achieve removal of treaty restrictions on its juridical sovereignty.) The crown Prince insisted. The beatings were adminis- red, and the seeds of embitterment with vajiravudh were planted among the military and among some members of the leg profession.' Personal antipathy to the Prince intensified after he became king in 1910. Testimonies of those involved in the 1912 abortive coup show a wide range of criticisms: coup members spoke not only of Vajiravudh's insistence on the shameful" beatings but also of his absorption in putting on plays" and indulgence in other extravagant diversions; his overfondness for the Wild Tiger Corps, whose maneu vers were no better than "playacting"; his waste of money in "build and his excessive devotion to "officials in the ing various palaces and who in royal household" who were "eating up the kingdom suited those beneath them. Some criticisms circulated in the form of The Monarchy rumors. These criticisms were generalized into comments such as The King does not pay attention to the government" and "our country will be in danger of foreign exploitation because of the wickedness of one person The personal antipathy to the King on the part of some of the coup members, however, became part of a larger picture. It merged with, and can hardly be separated from, the conviction that absolute monarchy in Siam was outmoded and must go. None of the coup leaders held that the removal of "one person' was the whole solution to Siam's problems. The coup leaders spoke against "obligation to they spoke for "faithfulness to the Thai nation one solitary person In the area of political ideology, the ideas of the coup party of 1912 were far from mature. A few of the coup members knew some- thing of outside events and attempted to instruct the others in the dea that absolute monarchy was an unprogressive and dying institu tion, that virtually all other states in the world were either constitu or told less-well-read members tional monarchies republics. The about the forms of governments in Europe and America, the success of Japan after its adoption of a constitution, the movement of the Young Turks, the democratic revolution in Portugal, and finally and above all, the victory of the Kuomintang in China. Siam, they said. was behind the times: Siam also needed a parliament, in which the people could have a voice in government, in order to progress economically, socially, politically. The coup group, however, had not yet crystallized its thoughts on the form of government best suited to Siam. Some opted for a republic. The majority appear to have favored having a king under law, that is, a constitutional monarchy. But no constitution had been drawn up, no clear political path for the future had been agreed upon. The lack of a precise political goal, however, was not seen as an obstacle to taking political action in the interests of the nation. The nationalistic purposes of the coup group are hard to question. Patriotic slogans abounded and were convincingly phrased. The nation's lack of progress, the poverty of the people, the susceptibility of the country to foreign domination were all cited as real ills. All Thai had to love their country and put its interests before all else. Death was preferable to national slavery. It is paradoxical that many of the remarks and slogans of the coup party closely reflected the ideas of the King himself, said one coup member, "We are Thai and must a paraphrase love our nation and religion and land of our birth of the King's own "nation, religion, and king," with "land of our birth substituted "king the coup party was up life rather than nation"-almost identical to the wild motto "Give u rather than honor. Although the coup members focused mainly affairs they took an occasional glance at the presumed reaction of the outside world. The prevailing thought seemed to be that foreigners who looked down on the Thai as unprogressive, who even criticized the for would be by a move toward constitutionalism. favorably impressed view was also hat the existing government was exercising too harsh a policy with respect to local Chinese, that this policy had to be changed or it might lead to revolts of the chinese in Siam and to severe action on the part of the Chinese republican government 6 The King's very stress on the crucial need for national defense was used by the coup party, and used against him. The argument here repeated the King's own comments that long peace in Siam had ed to national weakness and consequent disadvantage in terms of outside power. The coup members, almost all of whom were soldiers, however, faulted the King for not giving adequate support to the regular armed forces. The army, they said, lacked weapons; its leaders were ignored. The real defense of the kingdom was not being prepared to do its job. The cry "can all of us soldiers and Thai just silently watch our Thai nation be destroyed? yielded the answer No, of course not Indeed, the coup leaders argued, soldiers were the on y element in society brave enough and in a strong enough position to do something to remedy the situation Some of the coup leaders undoubtedly had selfish motives as we as political and nationalistic ones, but the self-serving motivation appears not to have been dominant. only a few of the secre and often extremely frank, testimonies refer at a to the relatively poor wages and the slow promotions in the army. Perhaps if the coup party had grown larger in numbers, and with such growth had appeared more likely to succeed, the numbers of those who joined in the hopes of gaining personal advantage would have become more significant. The organization and tactical plans of the 1912 coup party had serious weaknesses.