Victory Monument (Thailand)

Victory Monument (Thai: อนุสาวรีย์ชัยสมรภูมิ, Anusawari Chai Samoraphum) is a large military monument in Bangkok, Thailand. The monument is located in Ratchathewi District, northeast of central Bangkok, at the center of a traffic circle at the intersection of Phahonyothin Road, Phaya Thai Road, and Ratchawithi Road.

The monument is entirely western in its design: in this it is in sharp contrast with another prominent monument of Bangkok, the Democracy Monument, which uses indigenous Thai forms and symbols. The central obelisk, although originally Egyptian, has been frequently used in Europe and America for national and military memorials - its shape suggesting both a sword and an outstanding mark that holds in a territory, here it is designed in the shape of five bayonets clasped together. The five statues, representing the army, navy, air force, police and militia, are in a standard western "heroic" style, familiar in the 1940s in both fascist and communist states, and were executed by the Italian sculptor Corrado Feroci, who worked under the Thai name Silpa Bhirasi. The sculptor did not like the combination of his work with the obelisk, and referred to the monument as "the victory of embarrassment."

The monument was erected in June 1941 to commemorate the Thai victory in the Franco-Thai War, a brief conflict waged against the French colonial authorities in Indo-China, which resulted in Thailand annexing some territories in western Cambodia and northern and southern Laos. These were among the territories which the Kingdom of Siam had ceded to France in 1893 and 1904, and nationalist Thais considered them to belong to Thailand.

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