On his coronation day Vajiravudh also established a new Military corps called the Wild Tiger Corps (Thai: กองเสือป่า) (RTGS: Kong Suea Pa). The Corps was meant to be an nationwide paramilitary corps, answerable only to the monarch. At first a ceremonial guard, it became a military force of 4,000 within its first year. Filled with commoners, the king would often share mess with them and socialize with them openly. The Corps eventually rivaled the army in strength and the civil service in influence. The King even went so far as appointing some into high ranks in the Army and Nobility.
While the King socialized with members of the Corps, the regular army and aristocrats were deeply dissatisfied. They saw these new appointments as a threat to their hold over power. Despite massive spending on new Palaces and dramatic productions, the kingdom was in truth, deeply in debt and was in imminent threat of financial collapse.
Read more about this topic: Palace Revolt Of 1912
Famous quotes containing the words wild, tiger and/or corps:
“An endless imbroglio
Is law and the world,—
Then first shalt thou know,
That in the wild turmoil,
Horsed on the Proteus,
Thou ridest to power,
And to endurance.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“When a man wants to murder a tiger he calls it sport; when a tiger wants to murder him he calls it ferocity.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“L’amour pour lui, pour le corps humain, c’est de même un intérêt extrêmement humanitaire et une puissance plus éducative que toute la pédagogie du monde!”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)