Lord Randolf Churchill

The ultimatum that led to war

On 22 October 1885 Lord Dufferin the Viceroy of India issued an ultimatum calling on the government of King Thibaw to place its foreign relations under the permanent control of the British Indian Empire. The formal aim of the ultimatum was a resolution of the dispute with the Bombay-Burmah Trading Company but the real intent was to permanently end Burmese sovereignty. The British were increasingly worried about prospect of closer Franco-Burmese relations and attracted to the idea of Burma as...

After the Burmese Kingdom fell into British Hands

From 1883-85, the reformists around the king, led by the Kinwun Mingyi, the Yaw Atwinwun, and the Wetmasut Wundauk, were unable to implement the sweeping changes they felt necessary to save the kingdom. Conservatives, supported by factions within the army and the royal establishment, had pushed back and halted many of the constitutional and fiscal reforms originally set in motion. Fast mounting external and domestic challenges, compounded by worsening economic conditions, fighting in the Kachin Hills, two successive years of...