The Burma Wars: 1824-1886 (Conflicts of Empire)

by George Bruce

  A few days later, on 20 December, on behalf of Dalhousie, Captain Phayre, who was to be the commissioner of Pegu, announced the annexation of the entire province to the British. The document, which threatened the ‘total subversion of the Burman State and the ruin and exile of the King and his race’, if the annexation was not accepted quietly, ordered also that all Burmese troops were to be driven out of the province; and for this purpose General Steel set out from Martaban, in the south, on 14 January 1853, with 4,000 men and supporting artillery, to march to the northern boundary.

  He took with him one month’s supplies borne on the backs of 120 elephants and in 300 bullock carts, an extremely vulnerable supply line if the enemy was enterprising enough. But his march was practically unopposed, so that he arrived in Toungoo, on the province’s northern border, almost without bloodshed, on 22 February, after a march of 240 miles through unexplored tropical forest.

  British intelligence agencies at this time in Arakan and elsewhere had learned of conspiracies to dethrone Pagan Min and replace him by his brother Mindon Min, who was opposed to continuing the war. But this could not be counted on, and since the Burmese had not yet asked for negotiations, Dalhousie had been forced to accept the fact that he might yet have to march upon Ava to bring this costly war to an end.

  Transport animals to pull the heavy guns and carry supplies were vital for such an operation. The army in Arakan had for this purpose assembled three hundred fully grown elephants, which by now were treading the forests and climbing the mountains of the Arakan Yoma range, on the hazardous route to Prome. Such a vast undertaking could hardly be kept secret, and the Burmese built a stockade near the start of the Aeng Pass to try to overcome the escort and seize the elephants. Scouts riding ahead of the great column winding its way up the mountains discovered the stockade in time. A force of Arakanese troops led by British officers seized the stockade in a surprise attack on the night of 6 January 1853, killed numbers of Burmese troops and scattered the rest. Soon the elephants entered the Irrawaddy valley via a pass about 100 miles south of Aeng and began to lumber into Prome early in March.

  But, greatly to Dalhousie’s relief, these costly preparations now became superfluous. On 18 February King Pagan was deposed and one of Mindon’s first steps as successor was to send two Catholic priests as envoys to the British on a peace mission. Captain Phayre met them on 31 March at Meaday, fifty miles north of Prome, with a ready-made treaty, which included for cession to the British hundreds of square miles of valuable teak forests in the area between Prome and a track north of Meaday. It far exceeded the boundary of Pegu, defined in Dalhousie’s proclamation of 20 December 1852. The Burmese objected strongly, and the issue was referred back to Dalhousie, who answered with a memorandum stating bluntly that ‘the frontier of the British territory is fixed at six miles north of Meeaday.’[66] The Burmese were warned to respect this frontier and to remember that although the British wanted peace they were fully prepared for war, which could only mean the end of the Burmese state.

  King Mindon had no alternative but to accept this fait accompli, but he refused to sign a treaty which embodied it. Dalhousie was a little cynical. ‘Our real treaty is our military power, and I will take care that it is maintained,’ he declared in a private letter to a friend.[67] Captain Phayre delivered the memorandum to the Burmese envoys on 10 May 1853 and broke off negotiations with them.

  A cease-fire was finally declared on 30 June 1813, and thus the Second Anglo-Burmese War ended, having cost British and Indian taxpayers £1 million. There was little enthusiasm for it in England and the newspapers, including The Times, agreed that it was ‘an inglorious war’. For there were feelings abroad then that to ruin and crush a small Oriental nation hardly added to the lustre of the British Empire. Informed men and women were somewhat ashamed to have to admit that a people entirely lacking in industrial techniques were being thrown against the most powerful weapons which the manufacturing industry of England could put into the field.

  Yet from the military standpoint Godwin’s task was no easy one. The Burmese dacoits were, of course, a jungle guerilla force, so, like the Americans in Vietnam, he was faced with intimidated villagers on all sides as likely to betray him as tell him the truth. Sickness, in the form of malaria, dysentery and cholera also killed hundreds of his men. And he too seems to have been affected by his personal feelings about the rightness of the war to the extent that he hesitated about pursuing it with the maximum vigour.

  Dalhousie believed the assurances he had received from missionaries and merchants that the Karens and the Mon people of Pegu would welcome British instead of Burmese rule, but instead, when the annexation became known both peoples revolted, while Burmese officials set up jungle resistance groups. One of these, Myat-Htoon, commissioner of the Danchen district, dominated an area north of Danubyu with his headquarters in a town or stronghold of 20,000 people, held by an armed force of 7,000 men. The first British attempt to overthrow him, when a force of about 600 men with guns marched against his stronghold, was ambushed and thrown back in February 1853 with more than eighty killed and wounded.

  Brigadier-General Cheape with a force of 1,100 with two guns, including a 24-pounder howitzer and a few rocket tubes, was then given the task. It took him twenty-four days of hard jungle fighting, with the temperature around 93 degrees, before the task was completed, Myat-Htoon’s force scattered and his power broken. The British lost 130 killed or wounded, among whom was Ensign Garnet Wolsely, later Lord Wolsely, whose thigh was ripped by an enemy shot, so that for ever after he walked with a limp. Cholera killed more than a hundred, all ranks.

  But the defeat of Myat-Htoon did not end guerilla opposition to British rule, even though officially hostilities ended on 30 June 1853, with the Burmese ceding Pegu Province. Other chiefs came forward to replace him and terrorise people who had accepted alien rule. So difficult did the situation become that in September 1853 Phayre sought and received from Dalhousie the power of summary trial with the death sentence for anyone found carrying arms illegally, and not for another four years was political opposition to alien rule curbed, while dacoity and general lawlessness, as a form of protest, continued until beyond 1860. Thereafter, however, while the Burmese social fabric crumbled in British Burma, economically the region prospered.

  Largely, the ending of the sumptuary laws relating to social status, the disappearance of the feudal myothugyi or hereditary township chief and his influence; the emergence of a money economy with wage labour and individualism under British rule, and the weakening of religious sanctions, robbed Burmese social structure of its former vitality. At the same time, from 1862 to 1883, British Burma’s population rose by fifty per cent (2.3 million to 37 million), its trade increased five-fold and its revenues trebled. This very prosperity was soon to lead to cries for the annexation of independent Upper Burma in England and among the English merchant community in Rangoon.

  10: THE THIRD WAR AND ANNEXATION

  Prince Thibaw had succeeded to the Burmese throne in 1878, upon the death of King Mindon in September of that year. The Kinwun Mingyi, or chief minister, and Mindon’s chief queen, Sinpyumashin, had engineered his succession and his marriage to her daughter, Supayalat, because Thibaw lacked any personal political following and was in any case pliable. Evidently, the chief minister believed, wrongly as it turned out, the council of ministers would in these circumstances be able to rule without hindrance and carry out a programme of reform. But the two women, Queen Supayalat and her mother, aided by Taingda, a high functionary who was chief of the all-important Palace Guard, quickly seized the reins of power.

  Almost at once the queen showed her true character by instigating the arrest of numerous royal relatives who could have challenged her and her husband’s supremacy. Then came the blood-bath. Nearly a hundred of them, including eight princes, the king’s step-brothers, were publicly executed by strangulation or mallet-blows upon the head, during a dazzling festival of music and dancing. British protests
stayed some of these murders, which, in any case, the council of ministers, or Hlutdaw, had not authorised, but the Kinwun Mingyi explained blandly that there was a traditional basis for them, as a means of avoiding civil strife after the succession of a new king.

  It gave the British in Rangoon their first solid grounds for intervention and annexation, but war in Afghanistan at the time ruled out military adventures in Upper Burma. Meanwhile, under Thibaw’s ineffectual rule, corruption and banditry flourished wholesale, with rebels even controlling the town of Sagaing, almost facing the new royal capital of Mandalay across the Irrawaddy. News from Mandalay of public executions of numbers of known followers of two exiled princely contenders for the throne again gave rise to hopeful cries for annexation among British merchants in Rangoon.

  In August 1885, blew up the incident that was the apparent cause of the Third Anglo-Burmese War, of the annexation of the remainder of the country and of the end of the monarchy. This was the ruinous fine ordered in Mandalay by the council of ministers of 23 lakhs of rupees (£2.3 million) on the Bombay-Burma Trading Corporation for allegedly having exported more teak logs than they had actually paid for. Obviously a commercial dispute subject to arbitration or negotiation, it was not a cause for war. Anglo-French rivalry in South-East Asia was the real trouble, but the affair of the teak logs, deeply involved as it was with powerful commercial interests, was likely to evoke a more bellicose response in the public mind than fears that French domination of Indo-China might succeed in spreading through Laos to unstable and chaotic Upper Burma, and even challenge the British in Lower Burma.

  These fears took a turn for the worse, when French encouragement led to Thibaw’s government sending a mission of six high officials to Paris in 1883 to arrange a treaty, on the face of it a commercial one, but believed by the British, despite French assurances to the contrary, to involve the supply of arms, especially French artillery. The Franco-Burmese Treaty was finally signed in 1885 and the mission, turning its back on England, then caused more British suspicion by meeting the Italian Government in Rome before going home.[68]

  British fears were, of course, well-founded, for the Burmese, having lost much of their territory to them already, and knowing the commercial pressures for annexation of the remainder, were trying with Oriental astuteness to use Britain’s main rival in imperialism, France, to extricate themselves. But at this time, 1880-85, Gladstone’s anti-imperialist government ruled in London, firmly opposed to solving the difficulty by war and annexation.

  But briefly, from June to December 1885, Lord Salisbury’s Tory government came to power. It coincided with reports that the French had negotiated the construction of a railway from Mandalay to Toungoo, which would link up with the British line from Rangoon, thus forestalling them in Upper Burma. In addition, the French had apparently arranged the establishment of a Burmese state bank, with a capital of £2.5 million, to issue currency. The necessary French loans were to be repaid from royalties from Burmese oil and river customs dues.[69]

  This and other rumours of French concessions prompted Lord Dufferin, the then viceroy of India, to warn London of what he believed should be done to counteract French advances. ‘We are unanimously of the opinion that the establishment by France of dominant or exclusive influence in Upper Burmah would involve such serious consequences to our own Burmese possessions and to India that it should be prevented even at the risk of hostilities with Mandalay,’ he said in a telegram on 2 August 1885.

  … Assuming that an agreement is contemplated by means of which the French would dominate trade and the chief sources of revenue in Ava, we think that immediate action should be taken to arrest the scheme.

  We would propose on our side to address the Burmese Government in the terms proposed by Bernard, and to insist on reception and proper treatment of a British Resident, to whose advice in all matters of foreign policy we should require Burmese Government to submit. If those terms were refused, we should be prepared for measures of coercion…

  At the same time, we should consider it a misfortune on many accounts to be forced to adopt coercive measures of this description. The time is most inopportune; we are opposed on principle to annexationist policy, and the acquisition of Upper Burmah would entail upon us considerable responsibilities.[70]

  At this clear warning Lord Salisbury saw the French Ambassador, who, however, declared that he knew nothing of it, but would write to M. de Freycinet, the prime minister, about it. In September the Ambassador told Salisbury that the French Government also knew nothing about such agreements, but added that his government believed it would be wise, in view of the position occupied in the East by France, to open negotiations with Britain for a division of influence in the Indo-China peninsula, which, of course, meant Burma.

  It was an ominous suggestion, in view of everything. Lord Randolph Churchill, Secretary of State for India, had not the slightest intention of dividing Burma with France. He knew now well enough that French policy was to secure the political ascendancy of France in Upper Burma to the disadvantage of England.

  Commercial interests in Rangoon now intensified their campaign for annexation and thus the dispute over the teak logs with Mandalay in August intensified. Lord Dufferin on 16 October proposed to Lord Salisbury’s government the sending of an ultimatum to Mandalay. The government gave consent on 17 October and on the 22nd a British ultimatum gave Mandalay until 10 November, less than twenty days, to accept an envoy with free access to the king, as well as his own warship and guard of 1,000, to accept British control of its foreign relations, to agree to arbitrate the Bombay-Burma fine and to grant proper facilities for British trade with China via Bhamo. Since the Burmese Government was likely to reject the ultimatum, three brigades of troops sailed at once for Rangoon under Major-General Prendergast ready for an immediate advance on Mandalay. Meantime, before the decision was known, both the London and the Glasgow Chambers of Commerce were petitioning the government for the ‘immediate annexation of Native Burma, or the establishment of an efficient protectorate over it’.

  In Mandalay, Queen Supayalat, King Thibaw and the Taingda decided that the ultimatum’s terms were too humiliating to accept. Only the disgraced chief minister, the Kinwun Mingyi, summoned to the Hall of Audience, advised a conciliatory reply immediately in the hope that meantime international public opinion would make the British moderate their demands, but Queen Supayalat and the Taingda angrily dismissed him.

  On 5 November the king informed the Governor-General that the fine was lawfully imposed and therefore not subject to negotiation, but the Corporation could petition about it. He agreed to accept a British Agent as he had before, but said he would refer to France, Germany and Italy the demand for control of Burma’s foreign relations, since these countries were friends of both states.[71]

  Queen Supayalat and the king knew well enough that their answer meant war, but blithely they had deceived themselves in the traditional manner about their military power. ‘Those heretics the English kalas barbarians, having most harshly made demands calculated to bring about the impairment and destruction of our religion, the violation of our national traditions and customs, and the degradation of our race, are making a show and preparation as if to wage war with our State,’ Thibaw declared in a country-wide proclamation on 7 November 1885.

  They have been replied to in conformity with the usages of great nations, and in words which are just and regular. If, notwithstanding, these heretic kalas should come and in any way attempt to molest or disturb the State, His Majesty… will himself march forth with his elephants, captains and lieutenants, with large forces of infantry, artillery, elephanterie and cavalry, by land and by water, and with the might of his army will efface these heretic kalas and conquer and annex their country.[72]

  In almost the same way King Bagyidaw had spoken when the British landed in Rangoon sixty-two years earlier. If the people no longer did, the king and queen still believed in the myth of their personal invincibility.

  Dir
ectly the reply was known in London, on 11 November, Lord Randolph Churchill telegraphed to the Viceroy: ‘Please instruct General Prendergast to advance at once.’

  Major-General Sir Harry Prendergast, VC, CB, of the Madras Engineers, a veteran of the Mutiny, had assembled at Rangoon some 10,000 men consisting of three infantry brigades, British and Sepoy, with sixty-seven guns, supported by floating batteries of heavy modern artillery (70-pounders and howitzers), a naval brigade 600 strong and a body of volunteer cavalry.[73] A flotilla of armed naval steamships towed the troops up river in river steamers, barges and lighters equipped with awnings and adequate living quarters. Plumes of dark smoke marked its progress up the wide expanse of the great Irrawaddy on this expedition which was to be so fateful for the Burmese kingdom.

  On 15 November the flotilla crossed the frontier into independent Burma and all that day steamed up river against the torrent. The first Burmese reaction occurred on the 16th, when Burmese artillery opened up from stockades on each side of the river. The heavy 70-pounders, known as ‘Mother Carey’s chickens’, because Colonel Carey commanded them, fired a few rounds in reply, then the infantry landed and quickly carried both stockades.

  Minhla now lay ahead, a town British intelligence knew to have been strongly fortified for Thibaw by two Italian experts, Majors Molinari and Comotto. Opposite, on the left bank, up on a hill, lay the fort of Gweg-Yaung Kamyo, also strengthened by the Italians and furnished with guns that commanded the river. Fortunately, there was reason to believe that the guns were antiquated and served by relatively untrained gunners.

  Prendergast decided that his force was strong enough to attack both forts at once and early on 17 November he landed several battalions, British and Indian, two or three miles below them. Dense jungle separated the troops from their objectives and through its steamy heat they stumbled and cursed their way forward. Meanwhile, directly the flotilla rounded a bend in the river both forts opened up on it with gunfire. ‘Mother Carey’s chickens’ began thumping away in reply and destroyed them with accurate hits. When the infantry stormed the Gweg-Yaung Kamyo fort they encountered almost no resistance, for the violent bombardment had so demoralised those of the defenders who were not killed or wounded that nearly all of them fled.