Mem. Day weekend French lesson

I didn't have the patience this evening to read this post on Nigeria, but skipping to its end I saw a note that fighting in Mali has resumed, with a link to an interview (in French) with an historian and W. Africa specialist. Continuing in skim mode, I glanced at the opening bits of the interview, then followed a link to another interview on the military coup in Thailand. The intro to that reads as follows (boldface added):

Entretien avec David Camroux, spécialiste de l’Asie du Sud-Est et maître de conférences à Sciences Po Paris.
Deux jours après l’imposition de la loi martiale par l’armée thaïlandaise, et après plus de six mois d’instabilité politique, le chef de l’armée, le général Prayut Chan-O-Cha, a annoncé jeudi 22 mai à la télévision un coup d’État. David Camroux, spécialiste de l’Asie du Sud-Est, revient sur les tenants et aboutissants de cet événement qui n’est pas si exceptionnel en Thaïlande.

Les tenants et aboutissants -- I had not much idea what that meant. My paperback French dictionary wasn't helpful, but my somewhat bigger hardcover dictionary was. Les tenants et aboutissants de l'affaire = the ins and outs of the case. (Harrap's Concise, rev. ed. 1989, q.v. tenant)

ETA: I see now that I could have just clicked for the English version, but sometimes it's more fun to look things up. (The site is French, and the English trans. appears, from the opening, to be a bit shaky, but "ins and outs" is there.)