สำนักงานราชบัณทิตยสภา

The Journal of the Royal Institute of Thailand Volume IV - 2012 40  While the most tangible rationale for King Chulalongkorn’s fi rst trip to Europe in 1897 was to prevent the kingdom from becoming a colony of the West, there were other more abstract reasons for the journey. The fi rst of these was to familiarize the West with Siam and to fi x in the minds of the people of Europe an image of the country as ‘civilized’. This is why it mattered that King Chulalongkorn was hailed by the European media as an intelligent leader skilled in winning the hearts of almost all those he met, whether royals like himself or common people. The affection, in almost the same way as his grandson, King Bhumibol and Her Majesty Queen Sirikit were shown, was virtually equal to that showered upon him by his own subjects in Siam. At the beginning of the voyage to Europe in 1897 by King Chulalongkorn, it was reported, in Illustriertes Wiener Extrablatt, that Siam, after the sensation of the famous Siam-twins, In-Chan, that the Austrians had seemed to forget this country until the arrival of the King of Siam. King Chulalongkorn succeeded in changing the way in Figure 25: Their Majesties in a banquet, New Zeland, 20 August 1962, in: Juwel ihree Landes, p. xx 25 Pornsan Watanangura, Tosporn Kasikam, Relations between the Kingdom of Siam and the Royal Houses of Europe in the Documents Pertaining to King Chulalongkorn’s First Visit to Europe in 1897, footnote 4, p. 119-268 (chapter 4, 5) Queen Sirikit on Her Majesty’s State Visits in 1960 and 1962