Anglo-Burmese Wars

In three wars fought between 1824 and 1885, British India conquered the kingdom of Burma, ruled by the Konbaung dynasty. Each war took another slice of territory, until in 1885 the British seized the royal capital, Mandalay, deposed the last king and annexed what remained. Spread over six decades, the conflicts were among the longest and most expensive that British India waged, and they ended the independence of today's Myanmar.

In the early nineteenth century Burma was itself an expanding power. It had annexed Arakan on the Bay of Bengal and pushed into Manipur and Assam, bringing its frontier up against the East India Company's territory in Bengal. Rebels and refugees from these states used British territory as a base, and Burmese pursuit led to clashes with Company forces. In 1822 the Company declared the hill states of Cachar and Jaintia British protectorates. The British were also anxious to keep French influence out of Burmese ports, and wanted new markets.

War formally began on 5 March 1824. The Burmese commander Maha Bandula had early successes on the Bengal frontier, defeating a British force at Ramu in May and causing alarm as far as Calcutta. But on 11 May a seaborne expedition of some 10,000 British and Indian troops under Archibald Campbell captured Rangoon. Bandula marched his army back over the mountains and attacked the British lines outside the city at the end of November, but British firepower, including Congreve rockets, broke his assault. He was killed at Danubyu on 1 April 1825, and the British advanced up the Irrawaddy. Siam joined the war as a British co-belligerent.

By the Treaty of Yandabo of 24 February 1826, Burma gave up Assam, Manipur, Cachar, Jaintia, Arakan and Tenasserim and agreed to pay an indemnity of one million pounds. The war cost the British some 15,000 dead and between 5 and 13 million pounds, while the indemnity left the Burmese treasury bankrupt for years.

In 1852 the Governor-General, Lord Dalhousie, sent Commodore George Lambert to Rangoon over disputes arising from the earlier treaty. Although the Burmese made concessions, Lambert blockaded the port and seized a royal ship, provoking fighting in disputed circumstances that the British politician Richard Cobden later attacked. The Company took Martaban and Rangoon in April 1852 and then Bassein, Pegu and Prome. On 20 January 1853 Britain proclaimed the annexation of the province of Pegu, henceforth Lower Burma, without any treaty. In the Burmese court, King Pagan Min was deposed in favour of his half-brother Mindon Min.

Mindon tried to modernise the kingdom and built a new capital at Mandalay. Under his son Thibaw Min, relations worsened. The British feared Burmese contacts with France, and a dispute arose when a Burmese court fined the Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation over teak extraction. On 22 October 1885 Britain issued an ultimatum that would have put Burma's foreign relations under British control. When it was effectively rejected, a force of about 9,000 British and Indian troops under Harry Prendergast advanced up the Irrawaddy by steamer in mid-November. Resistance collapsed quickly, and on 28 November Mandalay fell and Thibaw was taken prisoner. He and his family were exiled to India.

Burma was annexed on 1 January 1886 and became a province of the British Raj. Many Burmese soldiers had dispersed with their weapons, and armed resistance continued for about a decade. From 1937 Britain ruled Burma as a separate colony, and the country became independent in 1948.

Our 1815 map shows the Konbaung kingdom before the wars, our 1880 map the reduced kingdom of Upper Burma beside British-held Lower Burma, and our 1900 map Burma as part of the British Empire.