v3 Chapter 589： Britain's third colonial war against Burma

On May 27, 1869, the President of the United States of America, Johnson. Andrew, following Secretary of State Bush, once again called on the United Kingdom to take a responsible attitude towards the Indians in Washington and to resolve the dissatisfaction of the Canadian Indians.

At the same time, President Andrew also called on the British Empire to abandon the practice of colonizing the Burmese territory.

On the same day, Dutch Prime Minister Tolbeck also believed that the United Kingdom should not disrupt the balance in the Far East, breaking the status quo and allowing the United Kingdom to dominate. To this end, the Netherlands protested.

However, the British Foreign Office did not directly respond to the British.

On May 28, 1869, the ambassador of the Five-Party Alliance of Upper Burma to the Kingdom of Siam handed an ultimatum to the ambassador to the Kingdom of Siam of the Disraeli government of the British Empire, requesting the British Empire to withdraw from the Inner Commonwealth within one week. capital, or face them at war with Britain.

This pre-war ultimatum has not been waited for a week, and the ambassador of Upper Burma to the Kingdom of Siam received a direct reply from the British ambassador to the Kingdom of Siam: let’s go to war!

The mobilization of the people of the Five-Party Alliance in Upper Burma is very loud, how could the British Empire not know about it.

Only the enemy who hurts will sit down and listen to you, not a group of demons dancing around in front of you. As the next colonial target of the British Empire, the Disraeli government has never relaxed its surveillance of any troubles on the Southeast Asian peninsula, not to mention the semi-colonial Myanmar that borders the British colony of the Bay of Bengal colony.

The policy of the British Empire before was to win over while suppressing them, trying to slowly boil the frogs in warm water to break down their solidarity and anti-British heart. Unfortunately, for some unknown reason, the five forces in Upper Burma turned out to be united against Britain.

This broke the British plan. Seeing that the plan could not be implemented, the result was naturally that the Disraeli government would no longer do anything in vain.

By this time, the British Prime Minister Disraeli saw that Upper Burma was almost an ultimatum under the general mobilization of war, and he already knew that war was inevitable.

And if you look at the map of the current power distribution in the Far East, you can see that the United Kingdom is actually in the right place at the right time to deal with Myanmar. Disraeli's ambitions are not limited to Myanmar, but there is no time for it.

In the Far East, there are only three threats to Britain, the ancient power in the far northeast, the second is the South occupying the Netherlands East Indies, the Australian mainland and other Netherlands, and then the current possession of the North and South Vietnam territories, and then launch a colonial war and occupy The Cambodian region of the Kingdom of Siam and the French Empire in the central and eastern, southern Laos region.

And in the middle is the Kingdom of Siam surrounded by three European powers and an ancient power in the Far East, and the surviving Upper Burma.

The geographical location determines that Upper Burma is now the best place to fight during the expansion of the British Empire, even if it is not lost, because the British currently occupy areas close to the coast. There is no risk of total annihilation with a British naval **** there.

Because of this, when the Disraeli government faced the ultimatum of the indigenous peoples in Upper Burma, it felt that it was a serious insult, but a gauntlet.

"Then let's fight"

Disraeli clearly remembered that when he reported to Queen Victoria, the Queen gave him the answer in this way, and he also directly passed the answer to the British Embassy in Siam to Upper Burma.

The French Empire did not dare to attack Burma, or it could not be touched. The bordering Upper Burma is the closest to France's current power is Laos. At present, southern Laos has become a French colony, and northern Laos is also infiltrating, at least Laos, which is close to North Vietnam. The area is being eroded, so it has a little influence on Upper Myanmar, but because it is still under the jurisdiction of the Kingdom of Siam, it is isolated by the Kingdom of Siam, and it is more than enough to intervene from the Bay of Bengal or the Andaman Sea by sea. Insufficient, it is estimated that even the opportunity to land was blocked by the British Navy and disappeared.

As for the passage from the Kingdom of Siam, just kidding, although the French Empire and the Kingdom of Siam have ceased the war on the Cambodian side, both sides are on guard and ready to fight again at any time.

This is also the reason why the United Kingdom did not seem to have imposed sanctions on France against the Netherlands, but it did not mean to block it, in order to keep France deep in the Far East and have a bad relationship with the Kingdom of Siam, the neighbor of Burma, which the United Kingdom wanted to colonize. The Kingdom of Siam and Burma have been competing for the southeastern peninsula for hundreds of years, and the Kingdom of Siam will not help the Kingdom of Siam.

The ancient country in the north was even more afraid of the United Kingdom after the war launched by Britain in 1840. It couldn't control its own domestic affairs, and where would it be concerned with these dependent countries in Southeast Asia, otherwise the Kingdom of Siam did not have it in 1861. Why didn't the ancient great country respond when the tribute was paid? In the end, the Kingdom of Siam completely fell to the west and became a friend of hope instead of becoming a vassal to the ancient great country in the north.

The Netherlands is the only one left. Although the Netherlands has developed rapidly in recent years, it is limited by the weakness of its homeland. Although the development of the Far East has strengthened the strength of the Netherlands, the homeland has become the weakness of the Netherlands. Don’t forget, there may become the British Navy at any time. where the bombardment was.

And the Dutch Far East can participate in and defeat the British Indian fleet.

What's more, don't forget that the United Kingdom has more than just the Indian fleet in the Indian Ocean. There is also the South African fleet, one of the six fleets of the British Empire, at the southern tip of the Indian Ocean. In addition, there is the New Zealand squadron in the southern Pacific Ocean close to the southeastern part of the Indian Ocean.

With the support of the three major fleets around the Indian Ocean, whether it is to attack Burma to become a strong backup or the French Empire or the Dutch Far East Army who are trying to intervene in the British attack on Burma, they can complete the blocking. As mentioned by many people in the British cabinet government, shelling can be done directly on the coasts of Sydney and Melbourne in major Australian cities, or Jakarta and Surabaya, the largest cities in the Dutch East Indies in the north, are also good.

Therefore, when the Disraeli government reported to Queen Victoria for her own analysis, it confidently stated that it would win Upper Burma in a short period of time and complete the colonial rule of the entire Burma in the first half of the year.

Or it would be too easy for the British army to block the Strait of Malacca in violation of the agreement signed by Britain and the Netherlands.

In a word, from Prime Minister Disraeli's point of view, the ultimatum issued by Upper Burma was a farce in his opinion, a casus belli sent to Britain.

So under the idea of ​​Prime Minister Disraeli, the British government began to ask the Governor of India, Sir John Laird Meyer Lawrence, to quickly recruit 30,000 indigenous troops in India and pull them to the coast of Myanmar by freighter. The Arakan region on the westernmost coast of Myanmar landed, and at the same time, the indigenous people in the Bangladesh region also became the target of British recruitment of indigenous troops, where they formed a line of defense against the attack on Myanmar.

It is said that the Five-Party Alliance has formed more than 100,000 troops in Upper Burma, while the British has only 85,000 troops in a hurry, 30,000 in West Bengal, 20,000 in Arakan, and 30,000 in Lower Burma. Kingdom, and far away from Upper Burma, where the battlefield is located, so only 5,000 British troops were deployed there.

On June 1, 1869, both sides were declaring war. Britain, despite the "dissuasion" of the Netherlands and other countries, still launched war on Burma, but the first blow was to hurt itself.