The campaign of the lost footsteps: the pacification of Burma, 1885-95

What Rudyard Kipling called the ‘campaign of lost footsteps’ was the longest campaign fought by the Victorian army. The conquest of Upper Burma, an area of 140,000 sq. miles with a population of four million, took only three weeks in November 1885 and was accomplished with minimum cost. However, the removal and deportation of the Burmese King and dismantling of all traditional authority dismantled led to growing resistance to British rule leading to an increasingly difficult guerrilla war. Though the Burmese guerrillas were characterised by the British as mere bandits or dacoits, many were former soldiers along with Buddhist monks. The extremely difficult nature of campaigning in the terrain and climate of Burma was not sufficiently appreciated by the War Office, who viewed the conflict as a ‘subaltern’s war’ and ‘police’ work. Intended regime change was also not accompanied by any consideration of the likely implications. Prolonged insurgency necessitated deploying a force far larger than originally intended; though order was finally secured by 1895, the campaign proved destructive of Burmese society while British recruitment of hill tribes into the police and armed forces sowed the seeds for future divisions.