ABSTRACT

Two events of political importance stand out in the last ten years or so of Sisowath’s reign. These are the so-called 1916 Affair and the murder of a French résident, Félix Louis Bardez, in rural Kompong Chnang in 1925. The first of these revealed how little the French knew about communications and social organization in Cambodia after more than fifty years of being in control. The second, perhaps because it was the only incident of its kind in the colonial era, shocked the regime and was blown out of proportion in postcolonial times by Cambodian nationalist writers.