BURMA. 1885–87, AND 1887–89.
Reading edition
The relations between the Indian Government and Burma had for some time been unsatisfactory, but in 1885, Thebaw, the despotic and extravagant King of Burma, finding his treasury exhausted, in an endeavour to replenish it, entered into fruitless negotiations with the French. He then began to extort money on different pretexts from the “Bombay and Burma Trading Company,” and on the agents of the Company refusing to pay the blackmail demanded from them, they were harassed and plundered, and at last fired upon by some of the King’s troops. Remonstrances having proved to be useless, the British representative was instructed to break off the negotiations, and an ultimatum was presented to the King, which embodied the British demands, one of them being that a British agent should be received at Mandalay. Thebaw replied by a proclamation, in which he stated that the British had made ridiculous proposals which he could not accept, and called on his subjects to fight in defence of their country and religion. He further declared his intention to conquer and annex the country of the “barbarians.”
An expeditionary force was dispatched to Burma under the command of General Prendergast, who arrived at Thayetmyo November 14th. A British proclamation declaring the dethronement of King Thebaw was issued to the Burmese people, and the first hostile act was the capture of one of the King’s war vessels by two armed launches from H.M.S. “Turquoise,” after a smart encounter. General Prendergast advanced up the Irrawaddy, and on November 16th. shelled a position which the Burmese had fortified on the left bank of the river, and which they abandoned on the landing of the troops. Next day, another position at Minhla, was attacked and carried by storm, after a contest of three hours, by three regiments of Native Infantry, with small loss, and General Prendergast marched for Mandalay.[151] On November 26th. he reached Ava 372when he was met by an envoy from Thebaw, requesting an armistice, and terms of peace. The General replied that the only terms he could offer were the surrender of the King, his army, and Mandalay.
The following day the messenger returned with orders from Thebaw to accede to all demands. Ava at once surrendered, the garrison laid down their arms, and on November 28th. Mandalay was occupied by the British troops without opposition. The day after, the King surrendered to General Prendergast at Mandalay, and with his queen, and about seventy members of his court, was put on board a steamer and sent to Rangoon. Soon after he was removed to a place of security in British India, and on January 1st., 1886, Lord Dufferin, Viceroy of India, announced the annexation of Upper Burma to the British Empire.
But Burma for a long time continued in a very unsettled state. The regular Burmese army for the most part had been disarmed, but swarms of “dacoits,” or native insurgents, spread over the country, and encounters between them and the British troops were of constant occurrence. A few weeks after the annexation there were skirmishes with dacoits at Sagaing and Kaddoo; and in April a daring attempt was made to burn Mandalay, the town being fired in four places, and the walled city in two. Hundreds of houses were destroyed, and the incendiaries escaped with little loss. The same month, a small force of two hundred men, under Captain Wace, had a sharp encounter with dacoits, near Bhamo, and was obliged to retreat; and on June 12th. in an affair at Salen, Captain Durnford of the 8th. King’s regiment, was killed. On the 26th. of the same month, in an engagement near Mingyan, Lieutenant Shubrick was slain; and on July 19th., Lieutenant King, with a detachment of the Welsh Fusiliers, at Shwebo, attacked and defeated a body of eight hundred insurgents with loss, taking one hundred and eighteen prisoners.
General Sir Herbert Macpherson, V.C., who had succeeded General Prendergast in the chief command in Burma, died of fever at Prome, October 20th., and General Sir F. Roberts proceeded from India and took the command.
During the month of November there was some sharp fighting. 373Colonel Lockhart assaulted and captured the camp of an insurgent chief, called the Kemendine Prince, who escaped; and on the 22nd., Colonel Holt of the 2nd. Queen’s regiment, attacked and carried the strong Burmese position of Puzan Myang, at the point of the bayonet, the Burmese leader being among the slain.
On New Year’s day, 1887, a party commanded by Major Jeffreys, Connaught Rangers, attacked the Kemendine Prince at Meiktela, killing him and forty of his followers, but the desultory warfare still continued. Another dacoit leader, called Boshway, gave considerable trouble. His camp was attacked and captured by a party under Captain Golightly, 60th. Rifles on January 30th., but Boshway and most of his men escaped. His good fortune at length deserted him.
In the month of October following, Major Harvey, 24th. regiment, with a party of Mounted Infantry, after a forced march of fifty miles, made a sudden dash on his camp, killed Boshway and dispersed his band. The same month, Major Kennedy, Hyderabad Contingent, and Captain Beville, Assistant Commissioner, were killed while leading an attack upon a village occupied by dacoits. During the whole of the succeeding year, 1888, this guerrilla warfare was carried on, and the British troops were worn out by incessant skirmishing, and the privations they endured in scouring fever-haunted jungles in pursuit of dacoits, often with but little success. At the end of the year a small force of one hundred Mounted Infantry, one hundred of the Rifle Brigade, and about three hundred Native Infantry and Sappers, commanded by Brigadier-General Collett, was sent against a tribe called the Red Karens, who with their chief Sawlapaw had given much trouble. On January 9th., 1889, Sawlon, the chief town of the Karens, was captured, and Sawlapaw fled. In the same month, Lieutenant W. H. Nugent in a daring attempt to carry a dacoit stockade, with but sixteen men of the 17th. Regiment, was killed.
About the end of January, a column composed of a company of the 37th. regiment, and three hundred Sikhs and Goorkhas with two guns, was despatched against the Kachyins and Lepu tribes, in the north-east of Upper Burma. After some weeks of toilsome marching and skirmishing, Khama, the chief town of the Lepu tribe was captured and destroyed, and the troops returned.
Upper Burma is still far from being in a quiescent state, and affairs with dacoits and hill tribes seem to be almost perpetual.
The European regiments which served in Burma[152] in 1885–87 were Royal Artillery, 2nd. Queen’s, 8th. King’s, 13th. Somersetshire, 21st. Fusiliers, 23rd. Welsh Fusiliers, 24th. South Wales Borderers, 51st. Yorkshire, 67th. Hampshire, 104th. Munster Fusiliers and Rifle Brigade. In 1887–89—Royal Artillery, 9th. Norfolk, 17th. Leicester, 37th. Hampshire and Rifle Brigade. The Native troops in the Expedition were—4th. Punjaub, 81st. Bombay Mountain Batteries, 7th. Bengal Cavalry, 1st. Madras and 1st. Bombay Lancers, 3rd. Hyderabad and 2nd. Madras Cavalry, eight companies Bengal, Madras, and Bombay Sappers and Miners, 1st., 2nd., 5th., 11th., 12th., 13th., 15th., 16th., 18th., 26th., 27th., and 43rd. Bengal Infantry, 3rd. Goorkhas, 1st. Madras Pioneers; 3rd., 12th., 13th., 15th., 16th., 17th., 21st., 23rd., 25th., and 27th. Madras Infantry, 2nd. and 3rd. Hyderabad Infantry, 1st., 5th., 7th., 23rd., 25th., and 27th. Bombay Infantry.
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