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

by George Bruce

  Not so simple was the attack on Minhla itself. In the dense jungle the troops sometimes lost contact both with their officers and each other, until they were hit by sudden volleys from hidden enemy stockades. But the British were harder targets than in the former campaigns, now that khaki, which merged into the variegated yellow, green and brown of the jungle, had replaced the old scarlet tunics, so bright in the marksman’s eye. The relatively light, easily drawn mountain guns quickly came up and expelled the enemy from their stockades, but they still fought stubbornly for every yard of territory, all the way to Minhla. Flames leapt skyward there, where shell fire from the flotilla had set it ablaze. Here too the Burmese bravely held their ground, until the British took the fort and town by storm, driving out the remnants of the enemy into a hail of fire from the flotilla.

  In the ruins of the two forts Prendergast left garrisons and on 19 November sailed on up river. At Magwe a pleasant surprise awaited him. A boat bearing a flag of truce was rowed out into the river. It held two very downcast Europeans, the two Italian fortifications experts, who had decided that their future was more secure with the British than with King Thibaw, who had cruel ways of dealing with those who had displeased him. Farther up river at Nyaungu, enemy artillery on a cliff top began a cannonade, but it was child’s play for the howitzers to silence them. Troops then landed and heaved the enemy guns down over the cliff top into the river.

  Meanwhile, in Mandalay, it was learned later, the king and queen had received a message from their Commander-in-Chief, reporting a great victory over the British, who, he said, had been routed and driven back towards Rangoon. Supayalat was triumphant. She ordered a magnificent victory celebration. Music echoed beneath the vermilion and gold roofs of the palace, dancing girls performed their bizarre choreography in naked joy. Thibaw drank, confident that the wild foreigners were actually routed, and Supayalat looked on with profound satisfaction.

  Although in the capital there were already rumours that the British were steadily advancing and had passed Pagan on their way to Mandalay the Golden, nobody dared to tell the king and queen.

  Through the steamy haze that rose from the river, the flotilla had sighted the large town of Myingyau at noon on 24 November. Here, it was believed the rest of the Burmese army awaited them, under the command of the Commander-in-Chief, and through their telescopes the British saw the golden umbrellas of the enemy chiefs as they inspected the troops assembled on the defences and stockades. Another deadly bombardment began from a distance beyond the range of the enemy artillery. When the smoke cleared, the British saw through binoculars and telescopes that the defenders had melted away. Prendergast landed his troops and they found the trenches and field works empty even of dead and wounded, hurriedly removed by the terrified enemy.

  Barely ten days after the war had started, it was the end of the Burmese army, and of the fighting. Prendergast cannot have got much soldierly satisfaction from it and the troops certainly felt that they had been cheated of some good fighting. They were said to be morose and irritable for weeks afterwards. Prendergast had a proclamation read the next day in Myingyau promising due respect for religion, customs and private rights and assuring all that they could go about their callings provided they did not oppose the passage of the troops. Officials were called upon to help in preserving public order.

  In Mandalay the thunder of the guns had at last revealed the bitter truth to the king and queen. In desperation Thibaw recalled the disgraced chief minister Kinwun Mingyi, who told him it was too late for negotiation and advised him to concede everything the British demanded. On 27 November, when the flotilla was within sight of Ava, Prendergast received a message from the king agreeing to surrender himself and his army. When Prendergast landed his troops at Ava the Burmese army had melted away with its arms into the forest. Prendergast destroyed the artillery, resumed his advance up river and anchored off Mandalay on 28 November. Troops landed and with bands playing marched up to the royal capital in separate columns which entered the city through each of its different gates.

  Mounted on an elephant, at one of the palace gates, Kinwun Mingyi met Colonel Sladen, the political representative, a former Agent who spoke Burmese, and told him that King Thibaw would see him at once. At the audience, which Supayalat also attended, Sladen said he would permit them to remain in the palace that night, but they must be prepared to leave Mandalay next day, for ever.

  Women attendants of the queen were to be allowed that night to come and go through the palace gates. It was the signal for mass looting. Not only the royal serving women, but scores of women from Mandalay streamed into the palace and while the king and queen were under guard in their apartments took part in an orgy of looting the treasures of centuries, gold and silver, rubies and sapphires, coinage and sacred objects. At daylight, when this was revealed, a detachment of the Hampshires stopped all Burmese from entering.

  When finally they were ready, Thibaw and Supayalat emerged through the gates of the royal palace in a simple bullock cart with a covered-in cab to protect them from the sun. Escorted by British troops they left the lacquered spires and pagodas of Mandalay the Golden for ever. Supayalat’s poise never once deserted her. During the drive to the river she ordered the Burmese driver to stop, then leaning from the window of the coach she beckoned smilingly to a British soldier to give her a light for her cheroot.[74]

  They went on board the steamship Thooreah, which at once cast off and sailed down river, escorted by warships. From Rangoon the couple sailed to India and were exiled to Ratnagiri fort, near Bombay. Thirty years later in 1916 Thibaw died and with him, for ever, the Burmese monarchy. After his death the Indian Government permitted Supayalat to return to Burma, where for some years she lived in a modest bungalow in Rangoon.

  The old order faded like a dream after their departure and the abolition of the monarchy, upon which it was founded. The British had little respect for their surroundings. The magnificent Hall of Audience became a garrison church and upon the Lion Throne an altar was set up. An officers’ club was opened amid the royal palace’s gilded teak columns. The dancing girls and the strange music vanished.

  How did the Burmese leaders and people react to this upheaval of their age-old traditions, customs and beliefs? Lawlessness on a country-wide scale was the first outcome. Disbanded soldiers without food or money formed wandering bands called dacoits and foraged the countryside. Village communities followed, for everyone felt acutely the lack of authority in the country caused by the end of the monarchy, especially in its role of Buddhism’s patron and chief; and by the collapse of the traditional administrative system.

  Soon this general lawlessness changed character into a widespread anti-British political movement, caused to a great extent by the severe penalties imposed by the army for the illegal possession of arms. Dacoits formed larger units for the express purpose of attacking the military outposts the British had established to impose order. In this way guerilla warfare against the British grew and expanded. General Prendergast ordered harsh punitive measures in return, including the shooting of anyone having arms, the burning of villages where resistance was met with and the flogging of those believed to be taking part in resistance.

  The British proclamation on 1 January 1886 that Burma would henceforward become a province of British India only worsened the situation. Military outposts were increased from ten to twenty-five with patrolling between them by strong forces, whose task was to seek out and destroy the dacoit formations. At first little progress was made and by June 1886 a nation-wide rebellion had developed throughout Lower as well as Upper Burma, remarkable for the participation even of the yellow-robed monks. The Commander-in-Chief came over from India and ordered substantial reinforcements, the establishment of a Burmese field force and a more aggressive campaign to crush the rebellion. But it took four years of hard campaigning and summary executions without proper trial before the Burmese gave up the unequal struggle in 1890.

  Bitterness thereafter died,
for the Burmese acknowledged that the new British officials ruled with justice and fairness in their efforts to bring order and prosperity to the country. Burmese customs did not completely decay, the national dress was not supplanted by European clothing, Buddhism remained the national religion, racial or social barriers did not arise to mar relationships between rulers and ruled, and a higher standard of living generally prevailed. The thirty years from 1890 meant growth and prosperity to Burma after the upheavals and insecurity of the past. Not until 1920 did the flames of nationalism begin to burn again, but that is another story.

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  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Primary Sources

  INDIA OFFICE LIBRARY

  Bengal Secret and Political Consultations

  Bengal Secret and Political Proceedings

  India Secret Proceedings

  India Political Proceedings

  Letters from India: Political and Secret Series

  PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS

  First Anglo-Burmese War: Papers Relating to the Burmese War, February 1825

  Second Anglo-Burmese War: Papers Relating to Hostilities with Burma, Cmd. 1490 (1852); Further Papers relating to Hostilities with Burma, Cmd. 1608 (1853)

  Third Anglo-Burmese War: Correspondence Relating to Burma since Accession of King Theebaw, October 1878, Cmd. 4614 (1886)

  Secondary Sources

  BOOKS

  Anon, The Madras European Regiment in Burma

  Baird, J. G. A. (ed), Private Letters of the Marquess of Dalhousie (Blackwood, 1910)

  Cady, John F., A History of Modern Burma, Cornell University Press, 1960

  Crawfurd, J., Journal of an Embassy to the Court of Ava, London, 1834

  Desai, W. S., History of the British Residency in Burma, University of Rangoon, 1939

  Doveton, F. B., Reminiscences of the Burmese War, 1824-26, Allen & Co., London, 1852

  Fortesque, J. W., History of the British Army, vols. XI, XII, Macmillan, London, 1923

  Foucar, E. C. V., They Reigned in Mandalay, Denis Dobson, London, 1946

  Geary, Grattan, Burma after the Conquest, London, 1886

  Gouger, Henry, Personal Narrative, London, 1860

  Hall, D. G. E., Burma, Hutchinson, London, 1960

  Laurie, W. F. B., The Second Burmese War, Smith, Elder, London, 1853

  Marshal, J., Naval Operations in Ava, Longmans, London, 1830

  Maung, Htin Aung, The Stricken Peacock, Nijhoff, The Hague, 1965

  Phayre, Arthur, A History of Burma, London, 1832

  San Germano, Father Vincentius, A Description of the Burmese Empire, Constable, London, 1883

  Smith, Vincent A., The Oxford History of India, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1920

  Snodgrass, J. J., Narrative of the 1st Burmese War, Murray, London, 1827

  Symes, Michael, An Embassy to the Court of Ava, London, 1800

  Wayland, F., A Memoir of Judson

  Wilson, H. H., Documents Illustrative of the Burmese War, Calcutta, 1850

  —— Narrative of the Burmese War, 1824-26, W. H. Allen, 1852

  Woodman, Dorothy, The Making of Burma, Cresset Press, London, 1962

  JOURNALS

  Journal of the Burmese Research Society, all volumes, especially:

  Desai, W. S., ‘Events at the Court and Capital of Ava During the 1st Anglo-Burmese War’, Journal of the Burmese Research Society, vol. XXVII

  Tanner, O. M., ‘Danubyu’, Journal of the Burmese Research Society, XXIX, 2, 1939.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  The author wishes to thank the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs for his permission to reproduce Crown-copyright material from the India Office Records. He also wishes to thank the librarians and their staffs of the India Office Records, the Ministry of Defence (Army) Library, the Indian Institute, the Bodleian Library and the London Library.

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  Copyright © The Estate of George Bruce, 1973.

  First published by Hart-Davis, MacGibbon Ltd, 1973.

  The Estate of George Bruce has asserted its right to be identified as the author of this work.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers.

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-80055-048-3.

  * * *

  [1] A Prisoner in Ava, H. Gouger (London 1830) p. 106

  [2] The Stricken Peacock, Maung Htin Aung, p. 30, The Hague, 1965

  [3] Bengal Secret and Political Consultations, vol. 91, 29 April 1802, No. 20

  [4] Op. cit. 29-April 1802, No. 23

  [5] Op. cit., vol. 96, 2 Sept. 1802, No. 2

  [6] Op. cit., vol. 135, 17 May 1804, No. 160a.

  [7] Ibid.

  [8] Op. cit. quoted in The Mauling of Burma, p. 34, D. Woodman

  [9] Documents Illustrative of the Burmese War, compiled by H. Wilson, Calcutta, 1827, document 4

  [10] Op. cit., document 3

  [11] Op cit., document 6

  [12] A Description of the Burmese Empire, Father San Germano, Constable, 1883, p. 80

  [13] An Account of the Burman Empire, Henry Ball, Calcutta, 1832.

  [14] A History of Modern Burma, John F. Cady, Cornell University Press, 1938, pp. 39-60

  [15] An Embassy to the Court of Ava, London, 1800, pp. 122-123

  [16] Burma Past and Present, A. Fytche, p. 80, London, 1878

  [17] Wilson, op. cit., document 23

  [18] A Narrative of the First Burmese War, G. W. De Rhe-Philipe, p. 33, Calcutta, 1893

  [19] Burmese Expeditionary Force:

  Bengal Division: HM’s 13th (became Somerset Light Infantry), HM’s 38th (became S. Staffordshire Regt.), 40th Bengal Native Infantry, European Artillery

  Madras Troops: HM’s 41st (became Welsh Regt.), 102nd Regt. (Madras European Regt.), 1st Btn. Pioneers, 3rd Madras Native Infantry, 7th Madras Infantry, 8th, 9th, 10th, 17th and 22nd Madras Native Infantry, Madras Foot Artillery, HM’s 89th (became 2nd Btn. Royal Irish Fusiliers), some of whom arrived in June and others in December 1824, Bombay Foot Artillery

  [20] Marshall, op. cit., pp. 4-5

  [21] Reminiscences of the Burmese War, F. B. Doveton, p. 18

  [22] The Naval Operations in Ava, by John Marshal, p. 6
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  [23] Doveton, op. cit., p. 20

  [24] Narrative of the Burmese War, Major Snodgrass, p. 8

  [25] Document 33, Documents Illustrative of the Burmese War

  [26] Document 36, op. cit.

  [27] Bengal Secret and Political Consultations, 5 May 1826, No. 10

  [28] Desai, W. S., ‘Events at the Court and Capital of Ava During the 1st Anglo-Burmese War’, J.B.R.S., Vol. XXVII

  [29] Gouger, op. cit., p. 128

  [30] Crawfurd, Embassy to Ava, vol. II, Appendix

  [31] Snodgrass, op. cit., p. 37

  [32] Ibid.

  [33] Document 37, Wilson, op. cit.

  [34] Doveton, op. cit., p. 70

  [35] Lieutenant John Marshall, Naval Operations in Ava, London, 1830, p. 16

  [36] Crawford, Embassy to Ava, vol. II, Appendix

  [37] Snodgrass, op. cit., Appendix I, p. 302