The King of Siam and the Duke of Mecklenburg - a friendship over time and distance from 1883 to 1910.
This a a report of the 3rd encounter of both gentlemen, the first one was 1883 in Bangkok, the second one 1897 in Schwerin. Now the king is on his second journey to Europe, six month visiting various places and regents.
Coming from Berlin, the king and his entourage arrived at Braunschweig train station in a parlour car on August 11, 1907.
The Berliner Zeitung wrote:
As we have already briefly reported, the ruler of the rear Indian state, King Chulalongkorn I, arrived in Braunschweig on Saturday and, with his son, Prince Paribatra, and his entourage were the guests of the Duke-Regent in the Duke. Taken the castle apartment, from whose battlements the Siamese flag is now waving, flanked by the Mecklenburg and Brunswick flags. The streets of the city leading to the main train station showed an extremely vivid picture long before the arrival of the king, and the closer the arrival of the foreign guests approached, the more the crowd jammed in the streets and finally kept the pavements thickly occupied.
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Shortly before 4 o'clock the Duke-Regent also arrived there, who immediately went to the platform with the aforementioned gentlemen to await the arrival of the train. The king's special train arrived punctually at 4 a.m. in the station hall. The duke-regent welcomed the king and prince Paribatra (Boripat) and escorted his guests to the prince's room, where the presentation of the entourage and the gentlemen appointed to honor the king and prince took place. The King of Siam, his son and their military judicial companions wore a light gray uniform in the style of the hussar attila, black trousers and a white cap.
After a short stay in the prince's room, ( a special room on the upper floor of the railway station, we'd say VIP room today ) the journey into the city to the residential palace took place. The police director from the bush drove ahead, followed by the four-horse court carriage with the king and the regent, and in a second court carriage Prince Paribatra. The retinue of both parties and the gentlemen who had been ordered to do their honorary service had taken their seats in the following car. On the drive to the castle, which led past Gieseler, over Kalenwall and Friedrich-Wilhelmsplatz and on through Friedrich-Wilhelm- and Münzstraße and Langenhof, the princely people were greeted with lively thousands of people. At the moment when the carriage with the regent and the king turned into the castle square, the Siamese flag rose on the castle battlements on the central flagpole. The guard stepped into the rifle, the game was stirred, and with a drum roll the car drove up to the northern entrance of the castle. The princes went to the castle, where, after the greeting had taken place, the princely guests were escorted to their apartments in the south wing. ...
The host was the regent's court, but the city of Braunschweig was also very pleased with the high attendance, so that the city council approved the considerable sum of 3,000 marks for city-side events. In a letter from the city council to the city councilors it says:
... ..We are of the opinion that this suggestion given by the highest authority (... the Duke) should be followed by the city, because on the one hand we consider it an honorary duty of the city to request a foreign ruler to visit the local court to take on the duties of representation incumbent on the residence and because, on the other hand, it is in the well-understood interest of the city to increase tourism and generate income for the local residents through festive events to be carried out with the participation of the residents .
There can be less talk of expensive festivities as these highest places are not desired; rather, as far as the city-side performances are concerned, the organization of a concert by the local men's choir, the holding of a show gymnastics on the small parade ground and the holding of an exercise by our fire brigade are in prospect. Finally, perhaps the decoration of individual streets and squares would come into question, but this should be kept within modest limits.
The theater ticket for the “festival performance” on August 10th. This is interesting because the first of the two ballets was composed by Joachim Albrecht Prince of Prussia, the son of the regent of the Duchy of Braunschweig who died in 1906. (The "Prinzenpark" is named after him)
The second piece, Die Puppenfee, was a very much performed piece of its time.
Apparently the evening was carefully rehearsed for just this one performance with the local ballet corps. “All costumes are based on figurines by K. K. history painter F [ranz]. Gaul newly made in Vienna ”;
The house was actually on summer break and didn't start playing again until September 1st.
At this point, many thanks to Mr. Thomas Krümpelmann from the archive of the State Theater.
... .... the Duke-Regent Johann Albrecht went with the King of Siam and the entourage on both sides by private train to Bad Harzburg, where a detailed tour of the court stud in Bündheim took place.
After having had breakfast in Bad Harzburg, a trip through the mountains was undertaken. While part of the entourage was returning to Braunschweig, the Duke-Regent alone with his guest, deviating from the program, undertook another trip into the Harz Mountains in the direction of Blankenburg.
The return journey then took place around four o'clock, with the Duke and King taking the automobile via Wolfenbüttel to Braunschweig, while the rest of the entourage took the train again.
So that after arriving in Braunschweig there was little time to freshen up and change for the concert in the evening.
The king writes in his diary:
“I was of the opinion that practicing this concert was very difficult. The singers were grouped after comparing their pitches with the trumpet and the violin. They sang some passages without musical accompaniment. I found that very nice. "
The concert was specifically advertised as a charity event, and so the Braunschweiger Landeszeitung reported on August 14th:
"On the occasion of the concert of the United Male Choirs in the Court Theater and the hospital of the Red Cross, the King of Siam had the Louisenstifte transfer an amount of 500 marks each on the occasion of the show gymnastics."
Military things could not be missing at the time, and so the newspaper reports:
This morning, in honor of the King of Siam, a military exercise took place on the parade ground under the command of the commander of the 40th Infantry Brigade, Major General v. Pritzelwitz, in which the Braunschweig Infantry Regiment No.92, the Hussar Regiment No.17 and two batteries of the Field Artillery Regiment No.46 from Wolfenbüttel took part.
The exercise was attended by the ducal regent with his wife, the king of Siam with the prince (Boripat) Paribatra and the mutual entourage. A tremendous crowd had gathered and greeted the princes lively. A retreat followed a combat exercise. The exercises ended with a parade march.
The just mentioned Prince Boripat, we will hear from him more often,
was a son of King Chulalongkorn, whom he had sent to Germany for military training.
In 1897 he joined the Prussian Cadet Corps in Potsdam and later moved to the main cadet institute in Groß-Lichterfelde.
On March 22, 1900 he was assigned to the Guard Grenadier Regiment No. 4 "Queen Augusta" at Tempelhofer Feld in Berlin as an ensign before he went to the Kassel War School for six months.
After his return to Siam, Prince Boripat was appointed Chief of Staff of the Siamese Armed Forces, then he traveled with his father a second time to Germany, where Kaiser Wilhelm II provided him à la suite of Queen Augusta Guard Grenadier Regiment No. 4, so that although she had no official obligations, she was allowed to wear the Prussian uniform.
So it came about, probably to the great astonishment of the audience, that a Siamese visitor appeared in Prussian guards uniform.
Chulalongkorn sent many of his sons abroad to study, to London, St. Petersburg, Paris and of course to Germany. In addition to the Boripat mentioned, Prince Rangsit first went to high school in Halberstadt, then to Heidelberg to study medicine.
It was inevitable that some sons found the ladies of their host country very attractive and married, Prince Rangsit the daughter of his landlady in Heidelberg. She was later raised to the rank of princess in Bangkok. Mom Elisabeth Rangsit na Ayudhaya
After the military exercises, a city tour was on the program, a reception in the town hall and a concert in Dankwarderode Castle.
The demonstration by the fire brigades was more realistic than planned, because they had hardly started when they received an alarm message: The Braunschweig mechanical engineering company is on fire! So they had to move away and extinguish, luckily only the roof of the foundry was on fire and was quickly brought under control.
In the evening there was again a gala dinner in the castle.
Before the king left with his court, he planted a tree in the palace garden. Obviously, during the conversation it had emerged that state guests in Siam tend to plant a tree when they visit, and that this beautiful custom can still be continued here.
So a linden tree was quickly procured, Chualongkorn noted in his diary:
"I found my tree unusual because almost all its roots, large and small, were cut off and it had no ball of earth."
The tree, if it grew at all due to a lack of roots, was definitely destroyed during the bombing raid in October 1945 destroyed, according to the tree register no linden tree can be found. (Thanks to Mr. Nickel from the city archive)
It was a great honour to present my book to the Ambassador of the Kingdom, H.E. Dhiravat Bhumichit in Berlin on September 20, 2021.
