In 1850, the British and Americans both demanded further concessions. Rama III died the next year, leaving the problem to his younger brother, Mongkut, who had spent the previous 27 years as a Buddhist monk. Mongkut, taking the name Rama IV, came to the throne already 47 years old. But he had acquired a wide range of knowledge during this time in yellow robes, speaking and reading several European languages with a sound grasp of their politics and cultures.
Beset by powerful colonial powers on either flank, Mongkut sought connections to other powers that might help redress the balance of power. British desires for commercial hegemony seemed less harmful to his kingdom's independence than France's record of conquest in southern Vietnam, and in 1855 the king gave them the treaty they sought. But the French took Saigon in 1859 and looked likely to press deeper into modern-day Cambodia, then ruled by Siam.
And so Mongkut sent a proposal to Washington, addressed to President James Buchanan. The United States should import Siamese elephants, the king suggested, as they could provide valuable labor in undeveloped areas just as they did at home. Lincoln, in office by the time the Siamese letter arrived, politely declined and noted that steam power could fulfill the same needs.
Mongkut's proposal had much greater merit than Lincoln and later amused writers have allowed. The elephant is a famously hard worker, and in the days before electrification and the internal combustion engine it offered a very mobile heavyweight force for lifting and carrying. Trade in elephants would have established a connection to a non-European power, something the king deeply desired, and forged ties outside Britain or France.
The king did not offer war elephants, but his army did employ them, chiefly in the artillery branch and in the supply train. Elephants pulled heavy artillery, and at times went into battle with light cannon mounted on platforms on their backs. The Siamese general Tengu Kudin deployed elephants bearing light artillery at Kuala Kedah on the Malay Peninsula in 1839 helped crush the fortress garrison of Malay rebels and Rajput mercenaries. Royal Navy observers reported that the Siamese infantry was well-armed with modern muskets, and used the elephant-mounted artillery to spearhead their assault.
Against a modern enemy — as Siamese troops faced during the 1893 loss of Laos to the French — elephants proved fantastically vulnerable to both artillery and rifle fire. But against poorly armed rebels they were extremely intimidating, and even effective against Rajput professionals armed with muzzle-loaders.
