The explorer who consolidated France's colonialism in Far Asia: Who is Auguste Pavie?

Auguste Pavie; (b. 1847, Dinan – d. 1925, Thourie, France) was a French explorer and diplomat known for his research in the Upper Mekong Valley.

In 1869, as a sergeant in the navy, he went to Nam Ky. Later, he started working in the Post and Telegraph Administration, and in 1879 he telegraphed between Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, and Bangkok, the capital of Siam (today Thailand), and between Phnom Penh and Saigon (today Ho Chi Minh) in 1882. Managed the laying of lines. Traveling all over Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam, he learned perfectly the customs and languages of these three countries. The French government, seeking to bring the Lao states of the Mekong River Valley under their control, appointed Pavie in 1886 as vice-consul to the Siamese government in Luang Prabang. For five years, Pavie traveled around northern Laos, befriending the local rulers and chiefs with France, and thwarting the Siamese attempts to restore order in the region besieged by Chinese gangs.

Auguste Jean-Marie Pavie (31 May 1847 – 7 June 1925) was a French colonial civil servant, explorer and diplomat who was instrumental in establishing French control over Laos in the last two decades of the 19th century. After a long career in Cambodia and Cochinchina, Pavie became the first French vice-consul in Luang Prabang in 1886, eventually becoming the first Governor-General and plenipotentiary minister of the newly formed French colony of Laos.

Pavie, who served as Consul-General in Bangkok between 1891-93, played a role in the outbreak of the Franco-Siamese Conflict in 1893. On the grounds that the Laotian states had come under the rule of Vietnam from time to time, he argued that now that France was dominating Vietnam, the rights of Vietnam in Laos passed to France. The Depression resulted in the entry of all Lao states east of the Mekong into the French protectorate. Before returning to France, Pavie set out on an expedition to mark Laos' borders with China and Upper Myanmar, which the British annexed in 1886.