¹ The traditional kingdom of Lan Xang lasted from 1345 to 1707 and included territory on both banks of the Mekong, notably the entire Khorat plateau, now comprising northeastern Thailand. Cf. Boulanger, Paul Le, Histoire du Laos français (Paris: Plon, 1931).Google Scholar

² An English edition appeared first in 1846. Mouhout, Henri, Travels in the Central Parts of Indo-China, Siam, Cambodia, Laos, etc. (London: John Murray, 1864; reprinted Bangkok: White Lotus, 1986).Google Scholar

³ Bock, Carl, Temples and Elephants: The Narrative of a Journey of Exploration Through Upper Siam and Laos (London: Low, 1884Google Scholar; reprinted Bangkok: White Lotus, 1985) uses Laos exclusively to refer to northern Thailand. Bock never crossed the Mekong. The Lao of northern Thailand were often referred to as western Lao as opposed to the eastern Lao of Luang Prabang. More recently the term ‘Lao’ or ‘Tai-Lao’ has been reserved for the ‘ethnic Lao’ of Laos and northeast Thailand. The people of northern Thailand are known as Tai-Yuan.

⁴ The French increased taxes as high as they dared, but they were always aware that if taxes were set too high, people would cross into ‘Siamese Laos’. See ‘Note sur la situation du Laos’, Conseil Supérieur de l'Indo-Chine (Première Commission) 1802, p. 4.Google Scholar Dépôt des Archives d'Outre-Mer, Aix-en-Provence [AOM Aix] Fonds de la Résidence Supérieur au Laos, D3.

⁵ Cf. Osborne, Milton, River Road to China: The Mekong River Expedition, 1866–73 (New York: Liveright, 1975).Google Scholar Osborne's sub-title is somewhat misleading as the Mekong expedition lasted from 5 June 1866 to 29 June 1868. Osborne's book also covers the subsequent period up to Garnier's death in 1873 during which attention shifted from the Mekong to the Red river as the ‘river road to China’. Garnier's own account has recently been re-issued. Garnier, Francis, Voyage d'exploration en Indochine (Paris: Editions La Découverte, 1985).Google Scholar

⁶ Garnier, Voyage d'exploration en Indochine, p. 57.Google Scholar

⁷ Ibid., p. 104.

⁸ Cf. Grossin, Pierre, Notes sur l'histoire de la province de Common (Laos) (Hanoi: Imprimerie d'Extrême-Orient, 1933), p. 38.Google Scholar

⁹ Georges Taboulet, ‘Les Origines du chemin de fer de Saigon à My-Tho: Projet Blancsubé d'un chemin de fer de pénétration au Laos et au Yunnan (1880)’, Bulletin de la Société des Etudes Indochinoises [BSEI], Nouvelle Série, Tome XVI, no. 3 (1941), P. 4.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Ibid., pp. 10–14.

¹¹ Ibid., p. 12.

¹² Guillot, E., La France an Laos et la question du Siam (Lille: L. Daniel, 1894), p. 82.Google Scholar Laos, Guillot argued, should be annexed so that the Mekong could complete ‘a vast commercial circuit’ linking Tonkin with Cochinchina (p. 71).

¹³ Etienne, E. merely voiced a widespread belief when he told his readers in L'Echo de Paris that Siam would inevitably fall to either France or England, so it had better be France.Google ScholarMeyer, Johnet al., Histoire de la France coloniale: dès origines à 1914, vol. I (Paris: Armand Colin, 1990), p. 673.Google Scholar

¹⁴ In 1888 reports reached the French that Ham Nghi and his partisans were at Sepone, west of the Ai Lao pass. Hickey, Gerald Cannon, Kingdom in the Morning Mist: Mayréna in the Highlands of Vietnam (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988), p. 61.Google Scholar Phan Dinh Phung's followers were still active in the mountainous east of Khammouane province in Laos as late as 1897–98. Grossin, Notes sur l'histoire, PP. 49–50.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Victor Demontes, ‘Le Laos Français’, Excursions et reconnaissances (1907), p. 601.Google Scholar This article summarizes two lectures given by Colonel Tournier to the Geographical Society in Algiers on 17 and 22 March the previous year.

¹⁶ A. Massie to the Governor-General of Indochina, dated Luang Prabang, 28 July 1889, argued strongly for establishment of a French protectorate over Laos based on Vietnamese tributary rights. AOM Aix, Fonds des Amiraux, 14405.

¹⁷ Iché, François, Le statut politique et international du Laos français (Toulouse: Imprimerie Moderne, 1935), p. 138.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Ibid., p. 155.

¹⁹ Cf. Grossin, Notes sur l'histoire, p. 38Google Scholar, referring to the debate of 1881 over whether to ‘faire le Siam’ or ‘faire le Tonkin’, i.e. whether to concentrate on extending French influence west over Siam, or north over Tonkin.

²⁰ Maleret, Louis, ‘Trois lettres inedites d'Auguste Pavie’, BSEI, Nouvelle Série, Tome IX (1934), p. 59Google Scholar

²¹ See Pavie, Mission. A full list of participants is also given in Le Boulanger, Histoire du Laos français. pp. 335–7Google Scholar.

²² Anonymous pamphlet, ‘ The Truth about the Mekong Valley’ (Bangkok: Bangkok Times, 1891).Google Scholar

²³ Courtet, M., ‘Esquisse commerciale du Laos inférieur’, BSEI Serie I (1890), PP. 43–5.Google Scholar

²⁴ AOM Aix, Fonds des Amiraux, 14476.

²⁵ In a report to the Quai d'Orsay dated November 1892, quoted in Toye, Hugh, Laos: Buffer State or Battleground (London: Oxford University Press, 1968), p. 39.Google Scholar

²⁶ Pavie to French Foreign Minister, 29 December 1892, AOM Aix, Fonds des Amiraux 14479.

²⁷ Débats du Chambre des Deputés, 4 02 1893.Google Scholar

²⁸ ‘Conventions et traités entre la France et le Siam rélatifs au Laos (1893–1947)’, Péninsule. nos 16–17 (1988), pp. 11–14.Google Scholar

²⁹ This is implicit, for example, in de Lanessan, J.-L., La colonisation française en Indochine (Paris: Félex Alean, 1895). Wherever Laos is mentioned, it is in relation to Annam, in the population of which the Lao population is included (p. 211).Google Scholar

³⁰ de Barthélemy, P., ‘Le Laos’, Bibliothèque Illustrée des Voyages Autour du Monde par Terre et par Mer, no. 44 (1898), p. 2.Google Scholar Those who argued that the Mekong constituted a natural frontier for French Indochina did so in the name of Vietnam. Cf. Lemire, Charles, Le Laos annamite (Paris: A. Challamel, 1894), pp. 76–7.Google Scholar

³¹ de Barthélemy, P., En Indochine 1894–1895: Cambodge, Cochinchine, Laos, Siam méridional (Paris: Plon, 1899), pp. 203–4.Google Scholar Under the terms of the 1896 agreement, the independence of Siam in the Menam basin was to be preserved while French interests in the Mekong basin were recognized.

³² Cf. Goldman, Minton F., ‘Franco—British Rivalry over Siam, 1896–1904’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 3 (1972), pp. 210–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³³ ‘Conventions et traités’, pp. 19–28.Google Scholar Dansai, too, was ceded to Laos, only to be sacrificed for Western Cambodia in the treaty of 1907.

³⁴ Demontes, ‘Le Laos français’, p. 225.Google Scholar

³⁵ Conseil Supérieur de l'Indochine, Note sur la situation du Laos, 1903. AOM Aix, Fonds de la Résidence Supérieur au Laos, D₃.Google Scholar

³⁶ Lévy, Paul, Histoire du Laos (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1974), p. 68.Google Scholar

³⁷ The 1907 treaty gained the western Cambodian provinces of Battambang and Siem Reap for the loss for Laos of a small area around Dansai, south of Pak Lay. ‘Conventions et traités’, pp. 29–34.Google Scholar

³⁸ Meyer, Le Laos, p. 111.Google Scholar

³⁹ Tournier, A., ‘Note sur les progrès accomplis au Laos de 1897 à 1901’, in Doumer, Paul, Situation de l'Indo-Chine (1897–1901) (Hanoi: Schneider, 1902), p. 450.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ These are Le Boulanger's dates (Histoire du Laos français. p. 343).Google Scholar The uprising was not finally quelled, however, until 1936. Cf. Moppert, François, ‘Mouvement de résistance au pouvoir colonial français de la minorité protoindochinoise du plateau des Bolovens dans le sud Laos: 1901–1936’, Doctoral Thesis, University of Paris VII, 1978.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Cf. J. Lambert to Résident-Supérieur, 26 01 1909.Google Scholar AOM Aix, Fonds de la Résidence Supérieur au Laos, F10.

⁴² In the period from 1908 to 1912, merchandise to the value of 2,119,060 francs entered Laos from the rest of French Indochina as against 9,166,366 francs worth from Siam. Gunn, Geoffrey C., Rebellion in Laos: Peasant and Politics in a Colonial Backwater (Boulder: Westview, 1990), p. 22.Google Scholar

⁴³ Taillard, Christian, Le Laos: stratégies d'un état-tampon (Montpellier: Groupement d'Intérêt Public RECLUS, 1989), pp. 16–18.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Robequain, Charles, The Economic Development of French Indo-China. Translated by Ward, Isabel A. (London: Oxford University Press, 1944), pp. 101–2.Google Scholar See also Barton, Thomas Frank, ‘Outlets to the Sea for Land-locked Laos’ The Journal of Geography, 59 (1960), pp. 206–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁴⁵ Auvray, Georges, ‘Les voies de pénétration au Laos’, Bulletin des Amis du Laos, 1 (1937). P. 54.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Doumer outlined his plans in L'Indo-Chine française (souvenirs) (Paris: Viubert et Nouy, 1905).Google Scholar The map of the railways he wanted to construct is on p. 354. Total length was estimated at 3,200 km, costing 400 million francs. On the advice of the Commission du Conseil Supérieur, construction was begun on lines totalling 600–700 km, requiring capital investment of 75 million francs (p. 355).

⁴⁷ Tournier, ‘Note sur les progrès accomplis au Laos de 1897 à 1901’, p. 452.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Demontes, ‘Le Laos français’, p. 595.Google Scholar Doumer included the projected route of this line in the frontispiece map in L'Indo-Chine française.

⁴⁹ Commissaire du Gouvernement à Luang Prabang au Résident Supérieur au Laos, 25 04 1904.Google Scholar AOM Aix, Fonds des Amiraux, 21758.

⁵⁰ The line cost 165 million francs, or nearly 354,000 francs per kilometre. Murray, Martin J., The Development of Capitalism in Colonial Indochina (1870–1940) (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), p. 173.Google Scholar

⁵¹ de Reinach, Lucien, Le Laos (Paris: E. Guilmoto, 1911), p. 52.Google Scholar

⁵² Ennis, Thomas E., French Policy and Development in Indochina (New York: Russell and Russell, 1973), p. 124, note 35.Google Scholar

⁵³ Barton, ‘Outlets to the Sea’, p. 207.Google Scholar For a description of the proposed route, together with technical construction details, see Deloncle, Pierre, ‘La mise en valeur du Laos’, in Renaud, Jean, Laos: dieux, bronzes et montagnes (Paris: Alexis Redier, 1930), pp. 146–7, 156.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Meyer, Roland, Le Laos (Hanoi: Imprimerie d'Extrême-Orient, 1931), pp. 55, 61.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Auvray, ‘Les voies de pénétration au Laos’, pp. 54–5.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Charles Lemire thought it would take forty years or more. Lemire, C., Les cinq pays de l'Indo-Chine française (Paris: A. Challamel, 1900), p. 87.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Cf. Deloncle, ‘La mise en valeur du Laos’, p. 142.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Meyer, Le Laos, p. 61.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ The first section of 4.5 kilometres was completed in 1897, but was extended in 1893. Auvray, ‘Les voies de pénétration au Laos’, p. 47Google Scholar; Barton, ‘Outlets to the Sea’, p. 211.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Meyer, Le Laos, p.62.Google Scholar

⁶¹ The estimate frequently given was 800,000. Cf. Deloncle, ‘La mise en valeur du Laos’, p. 138.Google Scholar

⁶² ‘Conventions et traités’, p. 16.Google Scholar

⁶³ Thompson, Virginia, French Indochina (London: Allen and Unwin, 1937), p. 380.Google Scholar One such was Rochet, Charles, Pays Lao: Le Laos dans la tourmente, 1939–1945 (Paris: Vigneau, 1946).Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Quoted in Le Boulanger, Histoire du Laos français, p. 225.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Taupin, J., ‘Rapport à M le Gouverneur Général’, BSEI, Serie I (1888), p. 54.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ Ibid.

⁶⁷ de Barthélemy, En Indochine, p. 199.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ Taupin, ‘Rapport à M le Gouverneur Général’, p. 50.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ de Reinach, Le Laos, p. 386.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ Ibid., p. 387. The possibility of using Lao Theung (Kha) labour (suggested in Conseil Supérieur de l'Indo-China, Note sur la situation en Laos, 1903, AOM Aix, Fonds de la Résidence Supérieur du Laos, D₃) was soon dropped.

⁷¹ Meyer, Le Laos, p. 102.Google Scholar

⁷² Demontes, ‘Le Laos français’, p. 227.Google Scholar Général Leturc, writing in Annales politiques el littéraires, no. 2181, 05 1925Google Scholar, foresaw a time when European farmers would be growing 100,000 head of cattle, not to mention ‘the flowers, fruit and vegetables of our country’ on the plateau of Xieng Khouang (p. 513).

⁷³ de Reinach, Le Laos, p. 387.Google Scholar

⁷⁴ For example, Maurel, A., ‘La mise en valeur du Laos’, Revue scientifique, 4th series, 1 (1894), p. 432.Google Scholar

⁷⁵ Very few French colonists ever settled in Laos, where the total European population numbered only about 600 by the late 1930s. In 1914 there were thirty colons in all of Laos. Moppert, ‘Mouvement de résistance au pouvoir colonial français’, P. 32.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ Gosselin, G., Le Laos et le prolectorat français (Paris: Perrin, 1900), p. 309.Google Scholar

⁷⁷ Ibid., p. 310. Earlier the French administrator at Savannakhet, P. Odend’hal, had said much the same thing in a report to his superior. ‘The day the Lao see their land pass into the hands of new-comers, the day they see them expand and multiply, perhaps then they will shed their torpor and decide to work.’ Cited in Moppert, ‘Mouvement de résistance au pouvoir colonial français’, p. 106.

⁷⁸ Tournier, ‘Note sur les progrès accomplis au Laos de 1897 à 1901’, p. 599.Google Scholar

⁷⁹ de Barthélemy, En Indochine, p. 198, note 1.Google Scholar

⁸⁰ de Reinach, Le Laos, p. 388.Google Scholar

⁸¹ Gosselin, Le Laos, pp. 95–6.Google Scholar

⁸² Quoted by Gay, Bernard, ‘La frontière Vietnam—Lao de 1893 à nos jours’, in Centre d'Histoire et Civilisations de la Péninsule Indochinoise, Les frontières du Vietnam (Paris: Editions L'Harmattan, 1989), p. 210.Google Scholar

⁸³ Ibid., p. 99. In 1904 the Garde Indigène in Laos comprised 723 Vietnamese as against 591 Lao, who were said not to make good soldiers. Officers had to count on the Vietnamese. Conseil Supérieur de l'Indo-Chine, Situation politique et économique du Laos, July 1904. AOM, Aix, Fonds de la Résidence Supérieur au Laos, D₃.

⁸⁴ de Reinach, Le Laos, p. 388.Google Scholar Cf. the discussion of preferences of Vietnamese migrants in Robequain, The Economic Development of French Indo-China, pp. 59–73.Google Scholar

⁸⁵ Aymonier, Mission Etienne, Voyage dans le Laos Vol. 1 (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1895), p. 182.Google Scholar

⁸⁶ Ibid., pp. 7, 64.

⁸⁷ Ibid., p. 63.

⁸⁸ Ibid., p. 64.

⁸⁹ Meyer, Le Laos, p. 62.Google Scholar

⁹⁰ Pietrantoni, Eric, ‘La population du Laos de 1912 à 1945’, BSEI, Nouvelle Série, Tome XXVIII (1953), p. 34.Google Scholar

⁹¹ Pietrantoni, Eric, ‘La population du Laos en 1943 dans son milieu géographique’, BSEI, Nouvelle Série, Tome XXXII (1957), p. 243.Google Scholar

⁹² In Vientiane 53%; in Thakhek 85%. By 1943 Vietnamese constituted 60% of the population of the six principal towns in Laos. Only in Luang Prabang did they number less than half (28%). Ibid., p. 230.

⁹³ As many as 80% of the Vietnamese population of Laos left either to return to Vietnam or to settle in northeastern Thailand in the face of the French reconquest of Laos. Brown, MacAlister and Zasloff, Joseph J., Apprentice Revolutionaries: The Communist Movement in Laos, 1930–1985 (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1986), p. 34.Google Scholar

⁹⁴ So argued Jules Ferry. Cf. Roberts, History of French Colonial Policy, p. 16Google Scholar, where Ferry is quoted as saying: ‘there is no need to have surplus population in order to colonize: an excess of capital will suffice’. Jean de Lanessan, Governor-General in 1893 when French forces marched into Laos, was another who stressed the role of capital in colonization. Cf. Persell, Stuart Michael, The French Colonial Lobby (1899–1983) Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1983), p. 42.Google Scholar

⁹⁵ These included the Société français de Haul Laos and the Société d'Attopeu.

⁹⁶ Grown by the Commerciale du Laos, founded in 1922 with a capital of one million francs. Gunn, Rebellion in Laos, p. 23.Google Scholar

⁹⁷ ‘Situation actuelle des principales exportations de la colonie (du Laos) avec indication des quantités absorbés par la métropole’. Rapports faits à la conférence des gouverneurs généraux, Paris, 3 November 1936. AOM Aix, Fonds de la Résidence Supérieur au Laos’, D₂.

⁹⁸ Deloncle, ‘La mise en valeur du Laos’, p. 157.Google Scholar

⁹⁹ ‘Situation actuelle …’.

¹⁰⁰ Deloncle, ‘La mise en valeur du Laos’, p. 150.Google Scholar

¹⁰¹ Ibid., p. 151.

¹⁰² This account of the Lao mining boom and bust is taken from Deloncle, ‘La mise en valeur du Laos’, pp. 150–4Google Scholar, and Robequain, The Economic Development of French Indo-China, p. 265.Google Scholar

¹⁰³ Pietrantoni, ‘La population du Laos en 1943’, p. 241.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁴ Some have argued that French Indochina was indeed ‘a fulfilment of longstanding goals of Vietnamese expansionism’. McAlister, J. T. Jr ‘The Possibilities for Diplomacy in Southeast-Asia’, World Politics, 19 (1967), p. 265.CrossRefGoogle Scholar This certainly looked like happening. Only the independence of Laos and Cambodia prevented it.

¹⁰⁵ Journal Officiel de la République Française, 5 June 1930, p. 459.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁶ Iché, Le statut politique el international du Laos français, p. 153.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁷ This exchange took place on 29 December 1931 and 25 February 1932. Cf. Stuart-Fox, Martin and Kooyman, Mary, Historical Dictionary of Laos (Metchuen, N.J. and London: Scarecrow Press, 1992): Chronology, p. xxxi.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁸ Under the terms of the Franco-Lao agreement of 21 August 1941 between King Sisavang Vong and the Vichy government of Marshal Pétain. This was replaced by the Franco—Lao modus vivendi of 27 April 1946 which formally created a unified Kingdom of Laos.Google ScholarLevy, Roger, Indochine et ses traités: 1946 (Paris: Hartmann, 1947), PP. 55–69Google Scholar.

¹⁰⁹ Discours prononcé par Monsieur le Résident Supérieur au Laos, 30 Août 1923, AOM Aix, Fonds de la Résidence Supérieur au Laos, F⁵.

¹¹⁰ Rochet, Pays Lao. Rochet himself was far more sympathetic to Lao nationalist aspirations than were most of his fellow officials.

¹¹¹ Général de Crèvecœur, commander of French forces in the reconquest of Laos, quotes a letter from the pro-French Minister of Finance and National Education, Outhong Souvannavong, to Prince Phetsarath admitting three justified Lao criticisms of the French administration: ‘having sometimes badly chosen her representatives to govern our country; not having trained indispensable Lao civil servants; having considered Laos as an Annamite colony’ —all of which he believed would be redressed. de Crévecœur, Jean Boucher, La libération du Laos 1045–1046 (Château de Vincennes: Service Historique de l'Armee de Terre, 1985), p. 54.Google Scholar Cf. also Lao Issara: The Memoirs of Oun Sananikone, translated by Murdoch, J. B.. Data Paper No. 110, Southeast Asia Program, Cornell University, 1975.Google Scholar

¹¹² Gunn, Geoffrey C., Political Struggles in Laos (1030–1954) (Bangkok: Editions Duang Kamol, 1988), pp. 133–62.Google Scholar

¹¹³ The exodus of Vietnamese is referred to in Wyatt, David K. (ed.), Lao Issara: The Memoires of Oun Sananikone. Data Paper 100, Southeast Asia Program (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press), pp. 41, 43–4, 56.Google Scholar For additional references and numbers involved, see Toye, Hugh, Laos: Buffer State or Battleground? (London: Oxford University Press, 1968), pp. 73, note 54.Google Scholar

¹¹⁴ After 1975, Vietnam denied any intention of creating a Vietnamese dominated federation of states in Indochina. None the less, in 1977, Laos and Vietnam signed a Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation endorsing what the Vietnamese in particular referred to as the ‘special relationship’ between the two countries. After the overthrow of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, the People's Republic of Kampuchea became similarly dependent on Vietnam. It has taken both states the best part of a decade in the context of a rapidly changing international environment to disengage themselves from the close embrace of Vietnam and return to something approaching their traditional ‘buffer’ status between Thailand and Vietnam.