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THE PACIFICATION OF BURMA
THE PACIFICATION OF BURMA
BY
SIR CHARLES CROSTHWAITE, K.C.S.I.
CHIEF COMMISSIONER OF BURMA, 1887-1890
MEMBER OF THE COUNCIL OF INDIA, ETC., ETC.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS
LONDON
EDWARD ARNOLD
1912
(All rights reserved)
PREFACE
Upper Burma was invaded and annexed in the year1885. The work hardly occupied a month. In thefollowing year the subjugation of the people by the destructionof all formidable armed resistance was effected; lastly,the pacification of the country, including the establishmentof an orderly government with peace and security, occupiedfour years.
As head of the civil administration, I was mainly concernedwith this last phase.
It would be a difficult task to give a continuous history ofthe military operations by which the country was subjugated.The resistance opposed to our troops was desultory, spasmodic,and without definite plan or purpose. The measurestaken to overcome it necessarily were affected by thesecharacteristics, although they were framed on definiteprinciples. A history of them would resolve itself into anumber of more or less unconnected narratives.
A similar difficulty, but less in degree, meets the attemptto record the measures which I have included in theterm "pacification." Certain definite objects were alwaysbefore us. The policy to be followed for their attainmentwas fixed, and the measures and instruments bywhich it was to be carried out were selected and prepared.But I have found it best not to attempt to follow[vi]any order, either chronological or other, in writing thisnarrative.
My purpose in writing has been to give an intelligiblenarrative o