Burmese Conquest of Assam 1819-1822

Assamese refugees fled into Manipur, under British protectorate, and again British territory was used as a base for attacks on territory occupied by the Burmese (1820-22). Burmese complaints got no satisfaction from the British East India Company.

The first wave of refugees into British territory was the beginnings of an Arakanese insurgency. In 1811, a new royal levy for 40,000 men sent another huge exodus of refugees towards Chittagong, adding impetus to the local guerilla resistance which soon defeated the Burmese garrison and took Mrohaung. The guerilla leader Chin Byan had offered to hold Arakan as a vassal of the East India Company, and this increased Amarapura's suspicions of Calcutta's motives, especially as his bases were located well within Company territory. British troops had prevented the Burmese from pursuing his men across the Naaf river boundary and cross-border relations quickly soured.

The second arena of contention was in the far north, in Manipur and in the Himalayan states of Assam, Jainta and Cachar, where Ava's forward policy was meeting with growing British influence and concerns over the security of Bengal. The Burmese occupation of Manipur had driven large numbers of refugees into Cachar and the raja of Cachar in 1823 invited Ava to help restore order in his country. The Burmese occupation of the Brahmaputra valley and its probing moves into the adjacent high grounds were clearly intended to place pressure on Bengal. The British, worried about losing this buffer and with expansionist designs of their own, unilaterally declared Cachar and neighboring Jainta as protectorates and sent a force to halt the Burmese advance. Clashes soon developed between the two armies in Cachar and this, coupled with a worsening situation along the disputed Arakan border, led Fort William, on 5 March 1824, to declare war on the Kingdom of Ava.

References

Making of Modern Burma, 18; Military History, 865.

Category

TBD

Region

TBD

State(s)

TBD

Belligerents

TBD

Dispute

TBD

Initiation Date

TBD

Termination Date

TBD

Duration

TBD

Outcome

TBD

Fatalities

TBD

Magnitude

TBD