Word: baht
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Defense Ministry last week drew 8,000,000 baht (about $800,000) from the National Bank of Siam. In orderly Western fashion, the Ministry accounted for the expenditure: "to pay coup expenses." Tango Interrupted. The coup itself had been orderly (one of the plotters described it as "very straightforward and very kind-hearted") but a little hard for Westerners to understand. The first point to get straight is that all Siamese politics turns around the rivalry between royalist Field Marshal Phibun (pronounced "fee bun") Songgram and republican Pridi Banomyong, who both went to school in France in the 1920s...
...attacking Siberia, and wished to avoid the war with Britain and the U.S. that would follow an attack on Singapore or the Indies, her most likely next move would seem to be on Thailand. Under pressure, the Government of Premier Luang Pitul Songgram granted Japan a 10,000,000-baht ($3,600,000) loan, recognized Manchukuo as a token of friendship. (It was carefully explained that the recognition of Manchukuo had been chosen as a lesser evil than recognizing Puppet Wang Ching-wei at Nanking.) Japan continued pressing demands-demands which, if accepted, could end only in the capitulation...