The Pacification of Burma

by C. H. T. Crosthwaite

It was a matter, however, in which it was unsafe to rush, and in which a heavy responsibility rested on me. Events were happening from time to time which warned us that we were not yet out of the wood. On the 3rd of June, for example, the troops at Pyinulwin, forty miles from Mandalay, led by Colonel May, had attacked a stockade held on behalf of the Setkya Mintha, a pretender. Darrah, Assistant Commissioner, was killed, an officer named Cuppage badly wounded, and several men lost. Hkam Leng (see Chapter XX.) was active in the Möngmit Country.

"The Moat," Mandalay.
And North Wall of Fort Dufferin.

The Commissioners of the Northern and Central Divisions were urging me to have the large and numerous islands between Mandalay and Sagaing cleared of the gangs who held them. They represented the necessity of a river patrol. The cry from the Southern Division was for launches. The Commissioner wrote that the only boat in his division fit for service was that assigned to the military authorities; and this was the day after Captain Hext's arrival on his mission from India, to persuade me to reduce my demand for boats.

The Deputy Commissioner for Mandalay reported that there was a dacoit leader stockaded within forty miles of Mandalay, and that he was unable to get a force to turn him out of his position.

At the same time (July, 1887) bad news came from the Ye-u district. Two pretenders had appeared with a considerable following. As a prelude they had burnt villages, crucified one of the village headmen, and committed other brutalities. The civil administration was obliged to ask for help from the soldiers in this case. The weather was fine, and the country which these men had occupied was a good field for cavalry. The Hyderabad Cavalry were in the field at once, and the Inspector-General of Police was able to get together a hundred mounted military police and send them to help. A force from the Chindwin side co-operated. The gathering was very soon scattered. One of the leaders died of fever and the other escaped for a time, but was afterwards captured in the Lower Chindwin district, where he was attempting to organize another rising.

I was compelled in Sagaing also to ask Sir George White's assistance. The Sagaing Police battalion was backward in training and not fit for outpost work in a bad district. The death of Hla U had been expected to bring peace. But it now appeared that the district on both sides of the Mu was in the hands of three or four dacoit leaders who collected a fixed revenue from each village, which was spared so long as the demand was paid. Any headman who failed to pay was murdered remorselessly. In some cases the man's wife and children were killed before his face, to add to the sting of death.

The system in the Sagaing and other districts much resembled—in its machinery, not altogether in its methods—the organization of the Nationalists in Ireland.

At my request Sir George White consented to occupy the district closely, and although the gangs were not caught or brought to justice, some protection was given to the peaceful part of the population until we were ready later on to take the district in hand and destroy the gangs.