The battles of the British Army

by Robert Melvin Blackwood

Major-General, afterwards Sir, H. N. D. Prendergast, V.C., was placed in command, while Colonel Sladen accompanied the troops as chief political officer. A naval brigade, a field battery, two garrison batteries, one British, and two native mountain batteries, three European and seven native regiments of infantry, and six companies of sappers and miners made up the force. Brigadier-Generals Foord, White, V.C., and Norman commanded the first, second, and third brigades respectively, while Captain Woodward, R.N., was in charge of the naval detachment. The native troops hailed from Madras, Bengal, and Bombay, while the British regiments were composed of the Liverpool and Hampshire regiments of the 1st Battalion Royal Welsh Fusiliers. There were 10,000 men in all.

The part played by the naval brigade was of the utmost importance. The quickest and most satisfactory method of carrying out the campaign was at once seen to be an advance by water direct on the capital. At Rangoon were then lying a number of light-draught steamers belonging to the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company, and those with H.M.S. Irrawaddy, the armed launch Kathleen and other vessels made up the river transport and defence. No fewer than 55 steamers, barges, launches, etc., were employed in the advance. This began on the 14th November. “There is not the slightest doubt,” says one account, “that the Burmese king and his country were taken completely by surprise by the unexampled rapidity of the advance.”

A minor naval engagement was the opening one of the campaign. Moving out of Thayetmyo, the British post on the river nearest the frontier, the Irrawaddy, on the 14th, the first day of the advance, engaged the first Burmese batteries she came across, some 28 miles up stream, and was successful in cutting out the king’s steamer and some barges, which she brought back in triumph and without a casualty to our arms. Two days later the batteries themselves were captured by a land force, after a very feeble show of resistance.

On the 17th, however, at Minhla, where indeed most resistance had been anticipated, the Burmese made a determined stand. Successively they held a barricade, a pagoda, and the palace and redoubt of Minhla. A somewhat simple plan of attack was decided upon, which proved highly successful. The forts were to be attacked from the land face by troops landed higher up the river, and marched down through the dense undergrowth, while the naval brigade was to feint a determined onslaught from the river or front of the position.

Seven miles below Minhla, on the morning of the 17th, the land forces were disembarked, the first and second brigades on the left bank, the third on the right, for the forts were on both sides of the river. Immediately after the landing, the Irrawaddy and Kathleen made all speed up stream to Minhla, and soon the terrific noise of their great guns told of the commencement of the feint attack. Slowly and stealthily the troops crept forward in the dense underbush. Presently Kolegone on the left bank, the strongest of the Minhla forts, was reached, and, to the surprise of all, it was found to be empty. Shaken by the gunboats, and learning at length of the advance of a great land force, the Burmese, leaving only a few wounded, had evacuated the fort.

But the fighting was to come. On the right bank the enemy held a strong barricade in front of Minhla, and an obstinate resistance had to be overcome with cold steel ere the foe was driven out. Lieutenant Drury was killed here, and other officers wounded, but the fighting was not for long. Driven out of their barricade into a pagoda, and from there again into Minhla itself, the harassed Burmese eventually became victims to a panic. Throwing down their arms, others jumping in the river, many fleeing over land, the soldiers of King Theebaw fled in all directions, leaving 170 killed and nearly 300 prisoners in our hands. The British casualties totalled 36, of whom only five were killed, one being an officer. This, the most important engagement of the campaign, thus proved itself to be a victory cheaply bought, and in confidence and high spirits the troops moved out of Minhla on the 19th, leaving only a small garrison to hold the place against a possible recapture.

No further resistance, with the exception of a little desultory firing on the far side of Pagau, the ancient city of temples, was now met with for nearly a hundred miles up the river, but on the 24th of the month the fleet came in sight of Mingyan, where the whole Burmese army was reported to be assembled. Here, as before, resistance was slight, the task of turning the enemy out of their position being entrusted to the naval guns. Though Mingyan was not reached until the evening, Captain Woodward at once opened a terrific fusilade, and soon silenced the enemy’s batteries and musket fire, driving all before him. Darkness now put a stop to the operations, but on resuming firing in the morning it was found that the Burmese had cleared out with heavy loss. British casualties were virtually nil, two or three men only being slightly wounded.

The route to Mandalay now lay open, and news was apparently carried to King Theebaw of the irresistible British advance, for on the afternoon of the 26th, as the flotilla was approaching Ava, envoys from the king approached General Prendergast with offers of surrender. The General’s reply was brief and to the point—only in the capital could details of surrender be arranged. The steady forward movement was recommenced.

On the 28th of the month Mandalay was occupied without resistance, the city’s defences being at once occupied by our soldiery.

Says a published record:—“The people seemed everywhere of a friendly disposition, and the soldiery gave up their arms and were allowed to disperse, a measure which afterwards proved highly disquieting, though the consequences of it could not at the time have been foreseen. There was doubtless a considerable party in the capital favourable to the palace and its inmates, as could only be expected; so, after an interview with the king, and a slight survey of the state of affairs in Mandalay. Colonel Sladen advised General Prendergast to let Theebaw and his family be sent out of the city without delay, for fear of an outbreak of the plundering hangers-on of the late favourites.