Historical figure
Sisowath Monivong
ស៊ីសុវត្ថិ មុនីវង្ស
Sisowath Monivong (ស៊ីសុវត្ថិ មុនីវង្ស) was king of Cambodia from 1927 to 1941, under the French protectorate.[1][2] He trained as an army officer in France and succeeded his father, King Sisowath, on the throne. His reign ended with his death in April 1941, weeks after Cambodia lost its western provinces to Thailand, and the French named the young Prince Norodom Sihanouk to succeed him.[3][2]
Early life
Monivong was born in Phnom Penh in 1875, Sisowath's fourteenth son. Cambodia had been a French protectorate since 1863.[1] In 1904 Sisowath succeeded his brother, King Norodom, on the throne.[1][2] Monivong went with his father to France in 1906 and stayed there for military training.[1] He came home in 1909 as a graduate of a French military school. He followed an army career, and he also took part in the inner councils of the government and the royal family.[2]
In February 1925 a hotel opened at the Bokor hill station in Kampot. A press report of the opening wrote that at the supper, the head of the hotel company thanked Prince Monivong and the French Resident Superior for the brilliance they had given the event.[4]
Coming to the throne
In 1909 Sisowath wrote to the Governor General of French Indochina that he wished Monivong to follow him as king.[1] Geoffrey Gunn wrote that the Resident Superior, Paul Luce, replied to Sisowath that he could not guarantee firm approval of the choice.[2] The French at first favored a descendant of Norodom.[1] When Sisowath died in 1927, the main Norodom candidate, Prince Sutharot, was thought to have ties to nationalist circles.[1] The French turned to Monivong, the eldest of Sisowath's living sons.[1][2] The Humazur record says that he gave up a hope of becoming the first Asian general in the French army in order to reign.[1] He came to the throne on August 9, 1927.[1][2]
Reign
Like his father, Monivong left most of the work of government to the French administration. The Humazur record says that most of the power lay with the French resident general in Phnom Penh.[1] In 1929 he set up a Religious Commission to settle doctrinal quarrels among the Buddhist monks.[2] On May 12, 1930, he joined the king of Laos, Governor General Pierre Pasquier and George Coedès, head of the École française d'Extrême-Orient, in founding the Buddhist Institute in Phnom Penh. Its purpose was to revive Cambodian Buddhism, and its library was housed at Wat Ounalom.[2]
After France fell to Germany in June 1940, the Vichy government kept control of French Indochina, which it placed under Admiral Jean Decoux as Governor General.[3][1] Gunn wrote that a decree of July 19, 1940, "deconcentrated" the king's powers. The king lost his right to intervene in law-making and administration. Some matters were reserved for him, among them the naming of high Buddhist officials, honors, royal pardons and the running of the palace. Others he could decide only after consulting the Council of Ministers, with the agreement of the Resident Superior. Gunn quotes Decoux as saying that the decree "reinforced the authority of the monarch".[2]
Loss of the western provinces
In January 1941, Thailand attacked to take back provinces of Laos and Cambodia on the western side of the Mekong. Japan imposed a ceasefire, and a preliminary accord between France and Thailand was signed on March 11, 1941.[3] Under it, Cambodia lost about 60,000 square kilometers and 300,000 people. The lost lands took in all of Battambang province, Siem Reap province apart from Angkor and parts of a few districts, the north of Kampong Thom province and most of Stung Treng province west of the Mekong.[3]
The bulletin of AEFEK, a French association for Khmer studies, wrote in 2021 that the king, shattered by the loss, shut himself away at his villa on Bokor and let himself die soon after.[3] The Humazur record says that he withdrew to Kampot as Japanese and Thai oppression grew.[1] The same bulletin wrote that he spent his time either in his palace or in his villa at Bokor.[3]
Death
Monivong died in April 1941.[1][3] The Humazur record gives April 22, at Kampot.[1] The newspaper L'Écho annamite, on April 25, 1941, gave April 23, in his palace on Bokor, in his sixty-fifth year.[4] A telegram from Admiral Decoux, quoted in the AEFEK bulletin, placed his death on the evening of April 23, after a fainting fit, at the villa he occupied at Bokor in Kampot province.[3] Geoffrey Gunn gives April 24, 1941.[2]
At about one o'clock on the morning of April 24, the king's body was brought quietly into the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh. Princes Sisowath Monireth and Sisowath Monipong, Princess Kossamak, her husband Prince Norodom Suramarit and their son Sihanouk rode with it. The death was announced publicly later that morning.[3]
Succession
Under the protectorate, the French authorities chose the king's successor.[3] In 1939 Georges Mandel, the French minister of the colonies, had chosen Monireth, the king's eldest son.[3] From March 1941, Admiral Decoux and the Resident Superior, Léon Thibaudeau, worked out the succession in coded telegrams with Vichy, and Decoux vetoed Monireth.[3] Gunn wrote that several candidates were weighed, including the king's eldest son, whom he calls Prince Sisowath Monorith. He wrote that the Vichy minister of the colonies, Admiral Charles Platon, gave his agreement to Sihanouk's candidacy on April 4, 1941.[2] The AEFEK bulletin dates Decoux's reply to Platon to April 4 and Platon's telegram to April 9, 1941. It wrote that this telegram only put Sihanouk's name on the short list of possible successors, and did not name him successor.[3] Gunn wrote that the French had settled on Sihanouk before Monivong's death, and named Resident Superior Gautier in Phnom Penh among the officials who made the choice.[2] The AEFEK bulletin names Léon Thibaudeau as the Resident Superior of Cambodia from 1936.[3]
On April 26, 1941, the Crown Council met in the Throne Hall under Thibaudeau. On his proposal, it named Sihanouk, then 18 years old, as Monivong's successor by a unanimous vote.[3] The French presented the choice as a way to join the Norodom and Sisowath branches of the royal family.[3][2]
References
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 Humazur, Sisowath Monivong (1875-1941 ; roi du Cambodge), authority record of the Photothèque ASEMI (undated; in French)
- ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13 The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, Geoffrey Gunn, The Passing of Sihanouk: Monarchic Manipulation and the Search for Autonomy in the Kingdom of Cambodia, 10(50) no. 1 (December 9, 2012)
- ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 3.11 3.12 3.13 3.14 3.15 AEFEK (Association d'échanges et de formation pour les études khmères), Les premiers pas du roi Norodom Sihanouk en France : retour sur une double légitimation royale par deux régimes français, Bulletin no. 24 (December 2021; in French)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Entreprises coloniales françaises, Le Bockor Palace, a compilation of colonial press reports including L'Avenir du Tonkin (February 18, 1925) and L'Écho annamite (April 25, 1941) (compiled July 8, 2014; in French)