The steady encroachment of the two most…

The steady encroachment of the two most aggressive European powers in the region, Britain and France, gravely threaten Siam during the last years of the nineteenth century.

To the west, Britain had completed its conquest of Burma in 1885 with the annexation of Upper Burma and the involuntary abdication of Burma's last king, Thibaw.

To the south, the British are firmly established in the major Muslim states of the Malay Peninsula.