The First Anglo-Burmese War
In March 1824 the East India Company declared war on Burma, the opening salvo in a series of conflicts that would see one empire fall, another expand and leave divisive wounds still felt today.
In March 1824 the first in a series of three conflicts between Britain and Burma broke out. At the outset of hostilities Burma was an independent state ruled from Amarapura by the Konbaung dynasty; by 1886, following the conclusion of a brief, three-week war (the ‘Third’) and subsequent ‘pacification campaign’, Burma was subsumed as a province of British India. The British Empire, having ‘inherited’ India from the East India Company in 1858, had also inherited the Company’s problems with the Burmese, which were brought to a conclusion in 1885. King Thibaw Min, the last Konbaung king, travelled into exile in India; British rule in Burma would last until 1948.
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