Siamese–Vietnamese wars


The Siamese–Vietnamese wars were a series of armed conflicts between the Siamese Ayutthaya Kingdom and Rattanakosin Kingdom and the various dynasties of Vietnam mainly during the 18th and 19th centuries. Several of the wars took place in modern-day Cambodia.
The political, dynastic, and military decline of the Khmer Empire after the 15th century, known as the Post-Angkor Period, left a power vacuum in the Mekong floodplains of central Indochina. United under strong dynastic rule, Siam to the west and Vietnam to the east, both sought to become hegemon in the lowland region and the Lao mountains. The Siamese introduced - and Vietnam soon followed - the hostage system for Cambodian royals, who were relocated to their courts, actively undermining royal affairs and shaping future Cambodian policies. Eventually territory was annexed by both powers, who conceived, maintained and supported their favorable Cambodian puppet kings. Actual combat mainly took place on Cambodian territory or on occupied lands. The 19th-century establishment of French Indochina put an end to Vietnamese sovereignty and to Siamese policies of regional expansion. Subsequent clashes of the two countries are not caused by regional rivalry, but must be viewed in the context of the 20th-century imperial policies of foreign great powers and the Cold War.

Prelude

By the 15th century, the Vietnamese Lê dynasty had been able to annex the modern-day provinces of Lai Châu and Điện Biên in an attempt to conquer the Lan Xang kingdom and pacify the Muang Phuan principality of Laos. However this conflict also involved and was fought on Siamese and Burmese soil. As a result, Vietnamese forces under Lê Thánh Tông continued to occupy territory in northern Siam for some additional 10 years. Siam, incapable to oppose this incursion therein saw the origin for all future conflict between the two nations.

List of Siamese-Vietnamese wars

Citations