Burmah and the Burmese

by Kenneth R. H. Mackenzie

The campaign was also speedily terminated in the provinces of Cachar, and the Burmese were much weakened in all their attempts upon the Anglo-Indian army.

“We have thus terminated the first period of the system of defensive operations,” observes the Professor, “and shall now proceed to the more important enterprises of an offensive war, to which those we have noticed were wholly subordinate. The results of the operations described were of a mixed description, but such as to leave no question of the issue of the contest. In Asam a considerable advance had been made. In Kachar, also, a forward position had been maintained; although the nature of the country, the state of the weather, and the insufficiency of the force, prevented the campaign from closing with the success with which it had begun. The disaster at Ramoo, although it might have been avoided, perhaps, by a more decided conduct on the part of the officer commanding, and would certainly have been prevented by greater promptitude than was shown on the despatch of the expected reinforcements, reflected no imputation upon the courage of the regular troops, and, except in the serious loss of life, was wholly destitute of any important consequences. In all these situations the Burmas had displayed neither personal intrepidity nor military skill. Their whole system of warfare resolved itself into a series of intrenchments, which they threw up with great readiness and ingenuity. Behind these defences, they sometimes displayed considerable steadiness and courage; but as they studiously avoided individual exposure, they were but little formidable in the field as soldiers. Neither was much to be apprehended from the generalship that suffered the victory of Ramoo to pass away, without making the slightest demonstration of a purpose to improve a crisis of such splendid promises, and which restricted the fruits of a battle gained to the construction of a stockade.”[272]

There is certainly nothing which better shows the little real self-reliance possessed by the Burmese than the idle manner in which they neglected to pursue an advantage. One thing must, however, be always borne in mind, that up to this time they had always been engaged with energies whose fate might be decided by a single skirmish, or one complete rout. They had yet to learn how persevering the efforts of a civilised state are in war. They had now indeed met their masters, and were about to feel their inferiority; for the Indian government at Calcutta were already carrying out an excellent and well-conceived idea, the history of the progress of which it is now my office to relate. But first, it were not inapposite to listen to the following account of the Burmese war by the Burmese themselves; it will afford some amusement, though its strict truth cannot fail to be somewhat doubted. “In the years 1186 and 1187,” according to the Royal Historiographer, “the Kula-pyee, or white strangers of the West, fastened a quarrel upon the Lord of the Golden Palace. They landed at Rangoon, took that place at Prome, and were permitted to advance as far as Yandabo; for the king, from motives of piety and regard to life, made no effort whatever to oppose them. The strangers had spent vast sums of money in their enterprise; and by the time they reached Yandabo, their resources were exhausted, and they were in great distress. They petitioned the king, who, in his clemency and generosity, sent them large sums of money to pay their expenses back, and ordered them out of the country.”[273]

Ere I proceed to give the English account, I think it right to let the Burmans speak for themselves; and therefore I have placed this before the serious history, just as, at Richardson’s, a comic song, by way of a bonne bouche, is placed before the deep tragedy, “Just a-goin’ to begin.”

Some little time before the operations in Cachar were brought to a temporary close, Lord Amherst conceived the idea of diverting the attention of the Burmese from our possessions to their own, and of turning what had hitherto been a defensive war, on the part of the English, into an offensive one. Accordingly, after a formal declaration of war, and the promulgation of an address containing the details of the origin of the quarrel, the court commenced active preparations for an expedition into the enemy’s territory. The idea was a good one, and it was nobly pursued; yet, though it was successful in its ultimate object, it unfortunately cost the government more than its proceeds in land can possibly repay for many years. The military resources of the Burmese were infinitely over-estimated, while the facilities for obtaining food and proper housing for the troops were also totally unknown, except from the work of Symes, who evidently caused the whole mischief, as far as the inadequate outfit was concerned. The consequences of his hasty views ought to be a warning to all travellers in countries so little known as Burmah was then, and, indeed, in many points is now. Symes sacrificed truth for the sake of making an agreeable and amusing book, which it is to be hoped no one else will do.

“The British government was driven into that war by the insolence and aggressions of the court of Ava, intoxicated with the uninterrupted success which had attended all its schemes of aggrandisement from the days of Alompra. The most ambitious of our governors-general had entertained no views of conquest in that quarter. Lord Hastings had anxiously staved off the contest, at the close of his administration, by a political artifice. But Lord Amherst, the most moderate and pacific, was compelled to add vast provinces, covered for the most part with trackless forests, miserably under-peopled, unhealthy, and far beyond our natural boundaries, to our already enormous empire. In this case there was everything to dissuade from appropriation. It was known that the climate of one of the provinces was equally deadly to our European and our native troops; it was known that many years must elapse before any of them could support their own indispensable establishments; but there was no escape. It was absolutely necessary to interpose sufficient barriers between our peaceable subjects, on a frontier where it was impossible to maintain large military establishments, and their barbarous neighbours; to provide places of refuge for the reluctant tributaries, or half-conquered subjects of the Burmese, from whom we had received cordial assistance during the war; and, not less, to inflict upon Ava a chastisement, the smart of which might protect us from future encroachment and annoyance.”[274]

The plan to be pursued in this campaign was to be as follows:—Rangoon, the great trading city, was to be the point assailed in the first instance. This place had its advantages as being the principal maritime (if it may so be called) place in the Burmese dominions; it was also remote from the scene of war, that is, not remote enough to admit of the army remaining where it was in Arakhan, and a fresh levy being made for the defence of the coast: the harbour was likewise good; and there the advantages ceased. These manifest good qualities, in the eyes of the attacking army, were counterbalanced by the extreme unhealthiness of the place, the difficulty of obtaining food there; a disadvantage, however, with which the Indian authorities were not acquainted; and the additional nuisance of the Irawadi not being navigable at the time of the year selected for the expedition. Upon the acquirement of Rangoon, the movements of the army were to depend very much upon circumstances, but an advance was to be attempted in any case. The soldiers for the enterprise were to be levied both in the presidency of Bengal and in that of Madras; and the forces were to unite in the harbour of Port Cornwallis, at the Great Andaman Island, whence the whole squadron was to proceed to Rangoon, under the general command of Sir Archibald Campbell.

The observations of an able historian will prove of no little interest:—“The difficulty of collecting a sufficient force for a maritime expedition from Bengal, owing to the repugnance which the saphahis entertain to embarking on board vessels, where their prejudices expose them to many real privations, had early led to a communication with the presidency of Fort Saint George, where there existed no domestic call for a large force, and where the native troops were ready to undertake the voyage without reluctance. The views of the Supreme Government were promptly met by Sir Thomas Munro, the governor of Madras, and a considerable force was speedily equipped. The like activity pervaded the measures of the Bengal authorities, and by the beginning of April the whole was ready for sea.

“The period of the year at which this expedition was fitted out was recommended by various considerations of local or political weight. Agreeably to the information of all nautical men, a more favourable season for navigating the coast to the eastward could not be selected; and from the account given by those who had visited Ava, it appeared that the expedition, upon arriving at Rangoon, would be able to proceed into the interior without delay; the rising of the river, and the prevalence of a southeasterly wind, rendering June or July the most eligible months for an enterprise, which could only be effected by water conveyance, by which it was asserted that a sufficient force might be conveyed to Amarapura, the capital, in the course of a month or five weeks. That no time should be lost in compelling the Burmas to act upon the defensive was also apparent; as, by the extent of their preparations in Arakan, Asam, and Kachar, they were evidently manifesting a design, to invade the frontier with a force that would require the concentration of a large body of troops for the protection of the British provinces, in situations where mountains, streams, and forests, could not fail to exercise a destructive influence upon the physical energies of the officers and men, and would necessarily prevent the full development of the military resources of the state. To have remained throughout the rains, therefore, wholly on the defensive, would have been attended, it was thought, with a greater expense, and, under ordinary circumstances, with a greater sacrifice of lives than an aggressive movement, as well as with some compromise of national reputation. The armament, therefore, was equipped at once, and was not slow in realizing some of the chief advantages expected from its operations.”[275]