Burmah and the Burmese

by Kenneth R. H. Mackenzie

Under these circumstances it was plain to them that they could only try the issue of a battle. These thoughts may have passed in quick succession through their minds; and while they were yet uncertain, Alompra and his gallant band burst into the midst, and attacked them furiously with missiles, swords, and spears. The affrighted Peguers, scarcely acquainted with the power of the clumsy muskets they had with them, though most probably they had none or but few of these, feeling that now, indeed, the Devoted to Buddha and his desperate irresistible band were upon them, threw away their arms and fled; Alompra and the rest pursuing them on their way for two miles and more. The number of the Peguers thus routed are estimated at about one thousand. How fearful must the contest have appeared to the victory-drunken soldiers! The Burmese host seeming tenfold the number in the gray dawn of the morning, came down like an avalanche upon them, and swept all away whom it did not destroy.

After an irregular pursuit for some distance, Alompra returned to his fortress, aware of the danger of trusting himself too near to a less panic-struck population. Arrived at that place, he addressed a few words to his comrades, telling them that they had now cast their fortunes together, and that he and they were in as great danger; he called upon them all for assistance, and he invited the Burman towns in the neighbourhood to assist him in the glorious work he had begun so auspiciously. The Burmans were scarcely disposed to lend a willing ear to his exhortations, yet some places gave in their adhesion to his government.

Such was the first decisive combat that was to change the fortunes of Burmah.

Dotachew, with the characteristic irresolution of a deputy, seems to have procrastinated frightfully. Probably he was a young man, utterly unacquainted with the art of war, and placed in the responsible position he occupied by his uncle, merely that the important office should not go out of the family; possibly, his very inefficiency, by the strange contradiction that always pervades a court, led to his promotion; at all events he was utterly unfit for his business, and at this time, when a few energetic measures would have crushed the rebellion at once, he was peculiarly unfitted by his disposition for this important duty. He was uncertain whether it would be more advisable to march against Alompra with the forces at his command, not exceeding three thousand, or to wait for reinforcements from Prome; the third course was to retreat, or rather, in this case, to run away. I have not space to enter into a discussion of which the most advisable measure would have been; yet had he set lustily forward, and cheered his men by a good example, he would have led them on to a certain, though perhaps not easy, victory. However, he neither marched forward, or waited at Ava; but discretion seeming to be the better portion of his valour, he ran away, and, terrified at the reports, no doubt exaggerated in every way, of the growing power of the enemy, he never stopped till he reached Pegu, toward the latter end of the autumn in the year 1753. Alompra meanwhile advanced on Ava, and, assisted by the enslaved Burmans in the capital, took the city, and put the few Peguers who had not pursued the valiant fortunes of Dotachew, to death. Alompra, however, hearing that the Peguese governor had fled, did not personally conduct the operations at Ava, but deputed this to his second son, Shembuan, himself remaining, or returning to Moutzoboo.

Thus matters remained until Beinga Della, the king of Pegu, afraid of losing the frontier provinces of Prome, Keounzeik and Tambouterra, assembled a large army at Syriam under the generalship of Apporaza. This force departed up the Irawadi, in the month of January, 1754. Both France and England had established factories at Syriam again, at this time; and, as the English leaned toward the Burman side, that was sufficient reason for the French to espouse the cause of Beinga Della. However, all their aid was secret, and until their neighbourhood became the seat of war, they did not proceed to active measures.

Apporaza, over whom a species of fatality seemed to hang, had again chosen a most improper and unfortunate season for commencing operations. He proceeded with extreme difficulty up the river, and, while his troops were exhausting their strength amid the marshes of the Irawadi, the Burmans were preparing for the worst, and, having possession of a fine country, felt little uneasiness at the approach of the jaded Peguers. No opposition was made to Apporaza, until he arrived near Ava itself, where straggling parties of the Burmans began to harass his army. When near enough to the fort, he sent a message to Shembuan, calling upon him to surrender, in which case his life would be spared; but vengeance of the most frightful kind was in store for him if he resisted. Shembuan, well knowing what value was to be attached to the professions of Apporaza, merely replied, “that he would defend his post to the last extremity.”

Apporaza, not willing to waste time in a fruitless siege, determined to throw some cold water on the Burman cause, and particularly on the garrison of Ava, by accomplishing something elsewhere. He thus hoped to restore the drooping spirits of his men, among whom sickness and labour had spread a sad confusion. Therefore he quitted his position at Ava, to oppose Alompra, who had collected a tremendous force at Keoum-meouin, both soldiers and war-boats. Here again, though this was decidedly the most obstinately-contested battle, the Peguers gave way, and a report spreading that Shembuan was coming to attack their rear, they fled hastily. Shembuan presently did come, and the two armies pursued the luckless Peguers for many miles, thus gaining another great and important victory.

Yet the Peguers were not discouraged. Preparations were made to send forth another army to meet the fate of that which Apporaza had led to death, not victory. Furthermore, the Peguers showed themselves devoid of all political sagacity, in taking a measure at this critical time which could not fail to seal the doom of his party. I said before, that the old king of Burmah was among the Peguers, and had received kind treatment; now, they completely changed their tactics, charged him with a conspiracy, a charge probably not without foundation; implicated numbers of the Burman nobility in the neighbourhood, and agreed upon a simultaneous slaughter of the obnoxious persons. Accordingly, on the 13th of October, the Peguers rose, and first torturing and slaughtering the court of Chioekmen, drowned him in a sack, and proceeded to the slaughter of the principal Burmans. The measure was not without its effects. The Burmans of Prome, Donabew, and the remaining border provinces, retaliated, and deserted to Alompra.

But events were passing in his court of no little significance. The eldest son of the deposed king had joined Alompra with a large force of the Quois or Yoos tribe inhabiting the country of Muddora, east of Ava. But the prince, not having brains enough to see that Alompra was fighting for himself, and not for any prince, as arrogantly as imprudently assumed the style and title of king. However Alompra would not brook two kings in Burmah, and the prince, soon seeing his mistake, fled to Siam. Alompra, enraged that the pseudo-king had escaped, slaughtered above a thousand of the Quois tribe, under pretence of a conspiracy.