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The Anglo-Burmese Wars were a clash between two expanding empires, the
British Empire The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts e ...
against the
Konbaung Dynasty The Konbaung dynasty ( my, ကုန်းဘောင်ခေတ်, ), also known as Third Burmese Empire (တတိယမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်) and formerly known as the Alompra dynasty (အလောင်းဘ ...
that became
British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...
‘s most expensive and longest war, costing 5–13 million pounds sterling (£400 million – £1.1 billion as of 2019) and spanning over 60 years. There have been three Burmese Wars or Anglo-Burmese Wars: *
First Anglo-Burmese War The First Anglo-Burmese War ( my, ပထမ အင်္ဂလိပ်-မြန်မာ စစ်; ; 5 March 1824 – 24 February 1826), also known as the First Burma War, was the first of three wars fought between the British and Burmes ...
(1824 to 1826)San Beck Org.
/ref> * Second Anglo-Burmese War (1852 to 1853) *
Third Anglo-Burmese War The Third Anglo-Burmese War ( my, တတိယ အင်္ဂလိပ် – မြန်မာစစ်, Tatiya Anggalip–Mran cac), also known as the Third Burma War, took place during 7–29 November 1885, with sporadic resistance conti ...
(1885)


Chronology

The expansion of Burma (present-day
Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...
) under the
Konbaung dynasty The Konbaung dynasty ( my, ကုန်းဘောင်ခေတ်, ), also known as Third Burmese Empire (တတိယမြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်) and formerly known as the Alompra dynasty (အလောင်းဘ ...
had consequences along its frontiers. As those frontiers moved ever closer to the British
East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Sou ...
and later
British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...
, there were problems both with refugees and military operations spilling over ill-defined borders.


First Anglo-Burmese War

The
First Anglo-Burmese War The First Anglo-Burmese War ( my, ပထမ အင်္ဂလိပ်-မြန်မာ စစ်; ; 5 March 1824 – 24 February 1826), also known as the First Burma War, was the first of three wars fought between the British and Burmes ...
(1824–1826) ended in a British East India Company victory, and by the
Treaty of Yandabo The Treaty of Yandabo ( my, ရန္တပိုစာချုပ် ) was the peace treaty that ended the First Anglo-Burmese War. The treaty was signed on 24February 1826, nearly two years after the war formally broke out on 5March 1824, by ...
, Burma lost territory previously conquered in
Assam Assam (; ) is a state in northeastern India, south of the eastern Himalayas along the Brahmaputra and Barak River valleys. Assam covers an area of . The state is bordered by Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh to the north; Nagaland and Manipur ...
,
Manipur Manipur () ( mni, Kangleipak) is a state in Northeast India, with the city of Imphal as its capital. It is bounded by the Indian states of Nagaland to the north, Mizoram to the south and Assam to the west. It also borders two regions of ...
, and Arakan. The British also took possession of Tenasserim with the intention to use it as a bargaining chip in future negotiations with either Burma or
Siam Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...
. As the century wore on, the British East India Company began to covet the resources and main part of Burma during an era of great territorial expansion.


Second Anglo-Burmese War

In 1852, Commodore Lambert was dispatched to Burma by
Lord Dalhousie James Andrew Broun-Ramsay, 1st Marquess of Dalhousie (22 April 1812 – 19 December 1860), also known as Lord Dalhousie, styled Lord Ramsay until 1838 and known as The Earl of Dalhousie between 1838 and 1849, was a Scottish statesman and co ...
over a number of minor issues related to the previous treaty. The Burmese immediately made concessions including the removal of a governor whom the British had made their ''
casus belli A (; ) is an act or an event that either provokes or is used to justify a war. A ''casus belli'' involves direct offenses or threats against the nation declaring the war, whereas a ' involves offenses or threats against its ally—usually one ...
''. Lambert eventually provoked a naval confrontation in extremely questionable circumstances and thus started the Second Anglo-Burmese War in 1852, which ended in the British annexation of Pegu province, renamed
Lower Burma Lower Myanmar ( my, အောက်မြန်မာပြည်, also called Lower Burma) is a geographic region of Myanmar and includes the low-lying Irrawaddy Delta ( Ayeyarwady, Bago and Yangon Regions), as well as coastal regions of the c ...
. The war resulted in a palace revolution in Burma, with King Pagan Min (1846–1853) being replaced by his half brother,
Mindon Min Mindon Min ( my, မင်းတုန်းမင်း, ; 1808 – 1878), born Maung Lwin, was the penultimate King of Burma (Myanmar) from 1853 to 1878. He was one of the most popular and revered kings of Burma. Under his half brother King ...
(1853–1878).


Third Anglo-Burmese War

King Mindon tried to modernise the Burmese state and economy to ensure its independence, and he established a new capital at
Mandalay Mandalay ( or ; ) is the second-largest city in Myanmar, after Yangon. Located on the east bank of the Irrawaddy River, 631km (392 miles) (Road Distance) north of Yangon, the city has a population of 1,225,553 (2014 census). Mandalay was fou ...
, which he proceeded to fortify.German Language Institute
These efforts would eventually prove unsuccessful, however, when the British claimed that Mindon's son
Thibaw Min Thibaw Min, also Thebaw or Theebaw ( my, သီပေါ‌မင်း, ; 1 January 1859 – 19 December 1916) was the last king of the Konbaung dynasty of Burma (Myanmar) and also the last Burmese monarch in the country's history. His r ...
(ruled 1878–1885) was a tyrant intending to side with the
French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
,www.enotes.com
/ref> that he had lost control of the country, thus allowing for disorder at the frontiers, and that he was reneging on a treaty signed by his father. The British declared war once again in 1885, conquering the remainder of the country in the
Third Anglo-Burmese War The Third Anglo-Burmese War ( my, တတိယ အင်္ဂလိပ် – မြန်မာစစ်, Tatiya Anggalip–Mran cac), also known as the Third Burma War, took place during 7–29 November 1885, with sporadic resistance conti ...
resulting in total annexation of Burma.


See also

* Burma campaign (World War II)


References

{{Reflist


Further reading

* Aung, Htin. ''The Stricken Peacock: Anglo-Burmese Relations 1752–1948'' (Springer Science & Business Media, 2013). * Bruce, George. ''The Burma Wars, 1824–1886'' (1973). * Gupta, AshwAni. ''Military Lessons of Burma'' (2015). * Messenger, Charles, ed. ''Reader's Guide to Military History'' (2001) pp 73–74. * Pollak, Oliver B. ''Empires in Collision: Anglo-Burmese Relations in the Mid-Nineteenth Century'' (1980) * Stewart, A.T.Q. ''Pagoda War: Lord Dufferin and the Fall of the Kingdom of Ava, 1885-186O'' (1972) * Tarling, Nicholas, ed. ''The Cambridge History of Southeast Asia, Vol. 2, Part 1: From c.1800 to the 1930s'' (2000
excerpt
Wars involving Myanmar Burmese 19th-century conflicts 19th century in Burma 19th-century military history of the United Kingdom