Lord William Amherst

The First Anglo-Burmese War (Part 1)

On 5 March 1824 Lord Amherst, then Governor-General of India (later the first Earl Amherst of Arracan), declared war on the kingdom of Burma from Fort William, Calcutta. The war would last more than two years and was one of the most expensive in British imperial history (costing approximately $30 billion in today's money). It led to the deaths of tens of thousands of European, Indian, and Burmese soldiers and civilians, and ended with the annexation of Assam, Manipur, Arakan...