As the French demands increased in numbers and severity, there was no longer any question that Siam's national survival was at stake. But, in 1896, Great Britain, at last alarmed by France's growing strength in southern Asia and unwilling to have her approach too near the eastern confines of India, intervened. High feelings were aroused in both countries but, after lengthy negotiations, an agreement was concluded in the same year, by which Siam's autonomy was guaranteed that she might serve as a buffer between the rival empires.
Thereafter, relations between France and Siam tended to improve. It was not, however, until 1907, that, in return for yet another "rectification of the boundary," the French agreed to revise their extraterritorial rights and to remove the garrison from Chanthabun. A second convention of the same year resulted in Siam's restoring to Cambodia the province of Phratabong, which she had held since 1809, and receiving in exchange a part of the territory yielded in 1904 and obtaining a recognition of Siamese jurisdiction over Asiatic French subjects. Altogether, in warding off the European neighbor, Siam had been compelled to sacrifice no less than 90,000 square miles of her eastern lands.
Whether the modern traveler enters Siam by steamer from Hongkong or Singapore or by comfortable Diesel-engined train from the Malay States, his destination is certain to be Bangkok. Here, in bewildering juxtaposition, the old Siam and the new Thailand confront him together on every side. The former is represented in the complicated network of canals, upon which thousands of boat-dwellers pass their lives; in the narrow streets hung with the vertical signboards of the inevitable multitude of Chinese traders; in the throngs of yellow-robed monks that appear at daybreak from hundreds of gaily colored shrines whose spires arise in every direction. The new is seen in the modern boulevards lined with spacious wooden houses set among gardens and orchards; in the motorcars competing for space with bicycle-drawn jinrikishas; in the air-conditioned cinema theaters, where, before World War II, were shown the new pictures shipped by air from California; in the cement and match factories; in the great airport of Don Muang, north of the city, where transports arrived daily from Britain and Australia, from Java and The Netherlands.