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HISTORY

HISTORY OF MYANMAR

Sagaing King (or) Bagyidaw (1819-1837)

The British Intrusion in Myanmar (1824 -1852)

King Sagaing or Bagyidaw was the grandson of King Badon or
Bodawphaya. Bagyidaw became king at his grandfather’s death in 1819. At that
time, there were rumors of war and the impending fall of the kingdom. To restore
confidence, he announced the abandonment of Bodawphaya’s great temple
(Mingun) and great Lake projects, suspension for three years of all taxes payable
by the people and the removal of the capital back to Innwa. Bagyidaw was
good-natured but weak and he allowed his chief queen, her brother Minthargyi,
and their relatives to become the powers behind the throne. The queen Mai Nu
was an abusive wife who was from an ordinary village. Nevertheless, her brother
and relatives were able and talented people. So they were appointed to high
offices. The army resented her growing power and also the king’s brother, the
prince of Tharrawaddy being the senior commanders. People liked Bagyidaw,
but considering him to be an ineffectual angel.
During his reign, the British were the victors over Napoleon’s Europe.
Moreover, India and Ceylon had their colonial territory in Southeast Asia. The
king of Manipur wanted to please the British by breaking his ties with the Myanmar.
He neither attended the coronation of Bagyidaw nor sent an embassy bearing
tribute, which all vassal kings were under an obligation to do. By not fulfilling
his obligation, he was making a declaration of independence. Bagyidaw felt that
he should assert his authority immediately before the British could intervene. He
dispatched a punitive expedition. The king of Manipur fled into the neighboring
kingdom of Cachar but he proved to be not a mere fugitive as he proceeded to
drive out the king of Cachar. The King of Cachar appealed to both the British
and the Myanmar to assist him to regain his kingdom.

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The Myanmar continued to meet resistance from rival claimants to the

throne. The long Anglo-Myanmar frontier from Assam to Bengal was the scene of
rebal activities and Myanmar pursuits into British territory. During these trouble,
the king’s uncle, the prince of Taungoo, rebelled and as it was this second attempt
at rebellion, he was executed.
In January 1824, Myanmar troops marched into Cachar and in the
following March, the British formally declared war against the Myanmar. Maha
Bandula, the commander-in-chief with headquarters in Assam, decided on a
two-pronged attack: one from Assam and Manipur through Cachar, and the
other from Arakan. The two armies met in Bangal and attacked Calcutta together
which was the seat of the governor-general. Maha Bandula himself led the army
from Arakan. At the battle of Ramu across the frontier the Myanmar defeated
units of the British Indian army. Bandula used a combination of guerrilla tactics
and frontal attacks.

Bandula decided to wait for the chance for invading Calcutta through
Cachar. While he was awaiting, British ships with troops and arms and other
equipment were sailing from Indian ports to keep their rendezvous at the
Andaman Islands. It was some miles to the south of Yangon in the Bay of Bangal.
In May 1824, this armada entered the harbour of Yangon, taking the Myanmar

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by surprise. Bagyidaw hastily mobilized two armies and sent them down to
Yangon which had fallen to the British almost without resistance.

The Myanmar armies were

awaiting the arrival of Bandula and
their task was to stop the British from
advancing. He made a frontal attack
on the British forts at the Shwedagon
Pagoda. Probably, he thought he
would win the battle because his
forces outnumbered the British two
to one. However, because of the
weapons dated from the eighteenth
century, Bandula and his army had
to retreat.

Bandula then made an orderly retreat to Danubyu at the head of the delta,
awaiting the advance of the British. The Myanmar had taken their positions
on the only high ground in the neighborhood. It was the British who had the
cannons, and during a fierce battle Bandula was killed by a bursting shell.