Siamese War (Napoleon's World)

The Siamese War is the Western name given to the struggle of the French Empire to support the collapsing Kingdom of Siam in the early 1990's under pressure from the Siamese People's Army. The war's length is under debate - the SPA was formed in 1989 and began conducting guerilla operations in 1990, and the French Foreign Legion dispatched soldiers during that time. The Escalation of 1991 is often cited as the true start of the war. France lost around 120,000 men (officially) although numerous sources cite the number as well over 200,000, and suffered severe non-fatal casualties in the forms of wounds, disease, and lingering effects from chemical and non-conventional warfare tactics. Between six and seven million Siamese died in the war. The French withdrew from Siam in the fall of 1995 in a bungled exercise costing thousands in lives and materiel, and the last foreign soldiers were withdrawn from Burma and Bangkok in 1996. The war severely crippled Albert II's respect amongst his own generals, ended the period of overseas "police actions" by Albertine France and hampered Albert's efforst to support his client state in Cyrene during the 1998 Cyrene War. It has been called "France's Brazilian War" by Americans.