Military Memoirs: The Challenge of Representing War and Conflict

Military memoirs are one of the oldest forms of historical discourse, but in the nineteenth century the challenge of writing about the subject intensified. The combination of greater access to travel, imperial adventures and the creation of much wider reading publics ensured that metropolitan audiences followed military conflict with increasing interest. War correspondents became popular and influential in the second half of the nineteenth century. It is useful to recall the basic outlines of the career of William Howard Russell (1820–1907). John Thadeus Delane (1817–1879), editor of the Times, sent Russell first to cover the Crimean War and his success on this mission ensured that he would continue to travel to write about war: after the Crimea, he went to the Indian Uprising, the American Civil War, and other key conflicts (Knightley 5). From the Crimea he reported on the outbreak of cholera, “the cavalry assault event later known as ‘the Charge of the Light Brigade,’ the Battle of Inkerman and the attack on Sevastopol” (Knightley 12–15). Russell was basically a “battlefield correspondent,” which meant that he could describe a scene, but his analysis did not explore the root causes of the failures which he witnessed and reported (Knightley 10). His works were emotive and controversial, but this could have only benefitted the Times. Little wonder that Sidney Herbert, the former Secretary of War, wrote that the “Army will lynch The Times correspondent” (Knightley 15). Russell was influential in the making of British policy, but he would ultimately be remembered as the first war correspondent who would be quickly imitated by a number of figures determined to make their name and fortune by skillfully reporting on the events associated with military conflicts.

Military memoirs are frequently left out of discussions of travel literature, but, in fact, they make up a significant genre in their own right, partly because soldiers often participate in some of the same activities (such as “sightseeing”) as tourists.Footnote ² Soldier narratives are usually replete with sightseeing moments and accordingly, these participant warriors arguably construct a “tourist gaze,” which draws upon local landscapes and cultural encounters to define signs which differentiate the combatant from his or her setting.Footnote ³

Therefore, it makes sense to conceive of “the soldier's stare” as an organizing concept to explore the traveler's perspective which can be found in military war narratives. The soldier's stare stands in contrast not only with “the tourist gaze,” but with the work of war correspondents. The soldier's narrative (which can take a multiplicity of forms and greatly depends upon a war's outcome), as such, invariably is shaped by the need to recount events retrospectively and to explain his or her place in it. Normally, this means that the author contextualizes his or her own experience by connecting it to the larger causes and the dimensions of the conflict. With this frame of reference, military narratives, which are gendered and often self-conscious of bias, frequently investigate the conflict as a kind of travel story – with the corresponding analysis of the adventure with reference to the place and its occupants. If “sightseeing” is one of the fundamental experiences of the tourist, then it might be said that the soldier participates in “involuntary sightseeing.” The very process of fighting in a foreign land requires the soldier to see it – not as a destination, but as a place of disorientation, danger, work, and possibly sustained occupation. Unlike the correspondent who has made a conscious decision to go to a battle theatre to report, the soldier must be there because he or she has been trapped into the situation. Furthermore, the soldier does not bring with him the temptation or compulsion to go “off the beaten path,” but to survive the conflict – even if there are opportunities for participating in activities which might befit many tourists. Nevertheless, military narratives can be at least as self-reflective as those which belong to travelers and tourists, because the soldier often asks not only “Why am I here?” but “Could we have done better?” “Did I have to be involved in killing . . . or watching so many die?” All of this means that the soldier's stare contains within it a peculiar type of hybridity: on the one hand, if the soldier is fighting far from home or in a foreign land, he or she may very well differentiate himself or herself from his or her enemies; on the other, there are often moments in military narratives, when the soldier reflects on the system which has put the soldier there or made her or him witness the loss of his friends and fellow soldiers. The “stare” from this vantage point is hardly unique to those serving in the military, but can be found wherever women and men critically reflect upon any given system which has placed them in a situation where their actions are nearly incomprehensible to themselves.

Furthermore, there is room to investigate what might be gained by reading these figures not “against the grain” but “outside it” in order to explore better and contextualize the experiences they sought to share.Footnote ⁴ Reading “against the grain” has been taken to refer to looking for the meanings which might be concealed from the agendas and values of a dominant culture or hierarchy. Ann Laura Stoler's Along the Archival Grain: Epistemic Anxieties and Colonial Common Sense (Reference Stoler2008) argues for a more sensitive approach to archival sources. Reading sources “outside the grain” offers the opportunity to make or even restore their credibility. These war memoirs do not belong to official archives, yet, they are essential primary materials for comprehending British beliefs and values. Accordingly, these war memoirs will be read “outside the grain” in two ways: first, to recover the manner in which their assumptions and presuppositions helped frame the development of a larger colonial narrative which would be used to justify British colonial expansion; second, to comprehend how these narratives contest re-assessments of British policy or the representations of these conflicts by war correspondents. The argument here is that the memoirs mattered because they assisted collectively in the fashioning of a colonial narrative which exhibited the Burmans as backward, ignorant, and violent, while representing the conquering British as humanitarian, open-minded, modern, and progressive. This narrative helped to establish not only the legitimacy of colonial rule, but a set of expectations for a governing power, the legacies of which endured beyond British rule, to the making of modern Myanmar.Footnote ⁵

John James Snodgrass: Burmese Vices vs. British Virtues

John James Snodgrass provided a detailed account of the First Anglo-Burmese War, which he experienced as a combatant. Despite the importance of the conflict and the abundant documentation available, the First-Anglo-Burmese War has hardly attracted the scholarly interest it merits. In fact, scholars have been reluctant to assign blame or to explore the causes of this conflict in the depth that the issues deserve (Aung-Thwin and Aung-Thwin 175–77). Nevertheless, in the Stricken Peacock: Anglo-Burmese Relations 1752–1948, Maung Htin Aung criticized both the British and the Burmese, noting that “except for the great disparity of arms, it was a fair fight” (Maung Htin Aung ix). However, Oliver Pollak stressed that the origins of the war had to be understood as a conflict of imperial systems: in particular, Burmese aggression meant that its “westward expansive policy presented the British Indian frontier with sporadic murder, robbery, kidnapping, disruption of trade, and clashes with British border forces.” Furthermore, the East India Company was concerned with security, and in the 1820s “Burma offered few financial and territorial rewards” (Pollak 15).

The First Anglo-Burmese War, which proved difficult and costly for the victors, does reveal British technological and organizational superiority, but on the other side it exhibits a very capable Burmese opponent, who waged an effective, if ultimately futile, “scorched earth” strategy. It seems clear from the cost of the war (both in terms of lives and resources) that the British commander Sir Archibald Campbell (1769–1843) would be criticized for his approach to the war. But it seems plausible from the war narratives alone that a less skilled or determined general might not have been as successful.

Snodgrass, of course, did not see himself as a travel writer, but believed that it was important to record what he had experienced. It is instructive to compare Snodgrass's account with the one assembled by Horace Hayman Wilson (1786–1860), who was a well-known “orientalist” scholar, because it furnishes an almost equally vivid and detailed account of the conflict. Wilson's Narrative of the Burmese War 1824–1825 (Reference Stoler1852) was published because of “the present doubtful aspect of our relations with the Burman kingdom” (Wilson viii). With another war on the horizon, Wilson might be said to have used an archive, assembling his narrative from the safety of London, painting a compelling picture not only of the major events (Wilson's narrative is much broader) of the First Anglo-Burmese War, but what additionally amounted to a traveler's portrait of the country.

Snodgrass's motivation to write may well have stemmed from his desire to defend Campbell. Responding to criticism of Campbell, he explained to his readers that he wrote the work while on a “tedious voyage from Bengal” (Snodgrass viii) and had “collected some materials for entering more fully into an account of the interesting and still imperfectly – known countries the army traversed on its route to Ava” (Snodgrass vii). However, he limited his narrative to a “strictly military form” presented to the public “without pretension of any kind beyond that of the accuracy in the details it may contain” (Snodgrass vii-viii). This included an appendix with both British and captured Burmese documents. Looking ahead, Snodgrass's attempt to describe what had happened that meant that his war narrative would read as a series of revelations.

He asserted that the origins of the conflict lay in Burmese aggression. His narrative was not replete with justifications of empire; instead, he merely assumed that the British were the proper rulers of India. The invasion of Burma might be understood as a defensive act because of the “unprovoked aggressions” of the Burmese against the Indian state (Snodgrass 1). Snodgrass also believed that it reflected some of the negative features of the Burmese character, which he asserted to be “restless” and aggressive (1).

This behavior indicated that for Snodgrass the Burmese were not much more sophisticated than ignoble savages. The Burmese were products of their environment which meant that they were “half amphibious” in their nature (Snodgrass 75). In addition to being able to travel easily on rivers, Snodgrass's narrative identifies the Burmese with the jungle – who use it for military purposes and are adept at moving in it. Instead, it would be the British army who would find the “insalubrious jungle” to be a difficult obstacle to surmount (Snodgrass 75). Snodgrass also viewed the Burmese as inherently militaristic: “Born a soldier, the Burmese is accustomed, from his earliest years, to consider war and foreign conquest as his trade, and the plunder of the countries he invades as the fair and legitimate reward of his toil” (204).

The vocabulary Snodgrass employed to characterize the Burmans was almost directly opposite to the way in which the British sought to view themselves. Hence, beyond being “restless,” the Burmese were arrogant, “blindly superstitious” (Snodgrass 63), and often practiced unthinking obedience to their superiors (Snodgrass 61). The Burmese army might be large, but upon closer examination appeared to be “motley and mobbish” (Snodgrass 100). With respect to behavior, Snodgrass's narrative emphasized the duplicitous nature of the Burmese who were an “insidious enemy” (Snodgrass 123). Yet, if the Burmese were arrogant and insidious they were also ignorant and stubborn (Snodgrass 294).

Even though Snodgrass had promised his readers a strictly military narrative, he made observations about other facets of Burmese life. Replicating his own culture's fascination with the variances between private and public experience, Snodgrass revealed that the domestic features of Burmese social organization were surprisingly different from what he perceived to be their natural bellicose habits. However, in a passage which unwittingly anticipated the “Burman Question,” which began to develop more than two generations later, Snodgrass claimed that Burmese were lazy.

Significantly, it was the military narrative which shaped the evaluation of domestic life. More important, it was the recording of specific events in the narrative which defined much of what Snodgrass had to say about the Burmese: they planned to execute European civilians, their commanders were ruthless with deserters, and in moving the population out of Rangoon (and with other villages later) they mobilized the town's inhabitants with cruelty. Snodgrass chronicled the fate of Rangoon exhibiting first the forced removal of its population, their utilization as near slaves of the military effort, and their joyous return to the city as the conflict moved northward. Yet, the military narrative also described the city as a squalid and disgusting place (Snodgrass 14). The treatment of prisoners, non-combatants and civilians pointed to larger more fundamental problems with Burmese rule. Snodgrass portrayed a society rife with corruption and exploitation and populated by the descendants of conquered peoples. Snodgrass did not emphasize slavery, but regarded subjugation as a constant feature of the country. Last, Snodgrass thought that violence and terror played key roles in the organization of the military effort which was being waged against the British.

Perhaps the most dramatic part of Snodgrass's account (echoed by Wilson) concerned the defeat of elite soldiers known as the “Invulnerables,” who could be identified by their bright tattoos. Recent scholarship has called attention to the significance of ways in which the British understood tattooing as a ritual for social protest during the Saya San Rebellion in the 1930s (Aung-Thwin, Maitrii, 2011 passim). In fact, it is clear from Snodgrass's account that this trope was already part of the British frame of reference a century earlier. These elite fighters might well be regarded as the exotic “other” because they presented the British with a very different warrior – and one whose strength and power was based upon magic and ritual practice. Snodgrass found the “Invulnerables” interesting, but not particularly impressive:

With their belief in magic and bright depictions of their bodies the “Invulnerables” represented the opposite of British civilization. Defeating the “Invulnerables” meant repelling primitivism. Despite the presentation of evidence which might be taken to exhibit Burma's substantial military inferiority, one of the most striking things about both Snodgrass's narrative and the actual events of the war (which do not appear to be at significant variance) is the fact that the Burmese successfully waged a “scorched earth” strategy. While Snodgrass disparaged many aspects of Burmese military capacity – the withdrawal from Rangoon, the desertion of many villages and the destruction of the land – it actually left the British with considerable obstacles. The British forced to mount an invasion deep into Burma, but they were exposed to the harshness of the natural elements. This proved to be an expensive campaign for the British and perhaps, inevitably a large number of imperial soldiers died from disease or suffered significant injuries (including the young James Brooke, the future ruler of Sarawak). In what might serve as a metonym for the text Snodgrass explained:

Furthermore, Snodgrass's narrative recorded the details of many battles in which the Burmese were almost always defeated by superior British discipline and battlefield tactics. Yet, a careful reading of The Burmese War shows that the First Anglo-Burmese War was very difficult for the British to fight and win. Possibly the success of British arms in India made this aspect of Burmese strategy difficult for Snodgrass to comprehend. Despite one apt comparison to Napoleon's experience in Russia, in which he noted that even Russian resistance “did not offer to the invading host such a continued scene of desolation,” Snodgrass did not give adequate credit to the Burmese command (191). On the surface, this might be a minor deficiency, but it pointed to a similar set of misunderstandings which colored British behavior (and how they understood the Burmese) after the Third Anglo-Burmese War, when the “Pacification” of the country took place. It might be pointed out that Snodgrass did not have the vocabulary that exists for those who lived through the twentieth century, but much of what he objected to might be considered practices consistent with “total war.”

While the contrast between the British and Burmese would have been evident from the organization of Snodgrass's narrative, by stressing the humanity of British practices, he unwittingly anticipated some of the jingoistic discourses associated with “civilizing mission” that developed later in the century. Upon coming to Rangoon, Snodgrass noted that “on our side humanity forbade that we should be the first aggressors upon an almost defenceless town” (6). The course of the conflict also challenged British codes of conduct:

These explicit examples carried an implicit message as well: the acts of brutality by the invading British forces were actually the fault of the Burmans, who had caused the conflict. Snodgrass was probably responding to criticism of Campbell in noting that the British went into the conflict with very poor knowledge of the country (a condition which would British armies faced in many colonial settings), which had the effect of locating the blame for the difficulties in prosecuting the war away from the commanding officer. This point of view also reinforced the idea that the British were only defending India from Burmese aggression. Additionally, in Snodgrass's mind, the British were a modern professional army who approached their tasks with “calm indifference and cool determination” (124). Nonetheless, Snodgrass recorded the disappointment which the British experienced when the war ended as the army was approaching Ava. He noted that many in the army hoped to enter Ava because it was the capital of the despot from which the “war and all its lengthened misery had sprung, and from the primary cause of so much suffering and bloodshed.” Snodgrass admitted, as well, that it “was not in the nature of a British soldier to turn his back upon the Golden City, the supposed riches of which he had hoped to share, without some feelings of regret” (284). Snodgrass could not see any inconsistency in criticizing the Burmese for plundering and the same expectations which the humane British soldiers had for their entry into Ava.

With their humanity and high-minded outlook, the British were also the opposite of the Burmese in that they brought a sophisticated army into the country. The contrast with the Burmese defined much of Snodgrass's account. The British brought a well-organized, orderly army into Burma, while the Burmese evacuated Rangoon, hid in the jungle, despoiled their own countryside, practiced cruelties, and proved to be treacherous. One side represented modernity, the other seemingly backwardness. These themes were later underscored by Wilson, who described Burman practices as uncivilized. Writing about a military engagement, he observed:

More was at stake than the simple narration of the conflict because for these British writers the organization, means, and practices of war pointed to vast cultural and social differences.

Snodgrass ended The Burmese War by exploring the country's future. This meant evaluating the prospects for peace (again, represented as the major aim of the British) and, perhaps more prophetically, engaging the possibilities for the economic development of the new imperial territories. The theme of Burma's great commercial potential, which writers repeated after the Second and Third Anglo-Burmese Wars, ensured that their narratives of conquest were fundamentally progressive. The modern, enlightened, humane British empire had been forced to fight the backward, cruel, violent, and scarcely civilized Burmese, bested them and now offered economic development and modernization.

Again, it is instructive to refer to Wilson's account, which aimed to educate British readers about Burma, because it went beyond Snodgrass's in offering a broad and more complete picture of the events which defined the First Anglo-Burmese War. Snodgrass had promised what might be called military realism (a genre which has always helped to define the writing of military history), but it had not prevented him from also serving as a travel writer. He was quite capable of writing about peoples, landscapes, the environment, and the difficulties inherent in moving through parts of the country. More important, his readers could regard his account of the war as a series of revelations about Burma and the Burmese. The land and its peoples stood revealed by the conflict and the author's experience of it. Drawing on more materials, Wilson's readers would discover the origins of the conflict in the late eighteenth century, the fears of Burman aggression in the eastern parts of British India, and a direct account of the outbreak of hostilities. He also detailed Burmese cruelties in Assam (including slave raiding), the military disaster at Ramoo where the British were defeated, Britons taken prisoner, and the fear which then gripped Calcutta: “The defeat of the detachment at Ramoo, was also the source of great uneasiness at Chittagong and Dacca, and the panic spread to Calcutta, where, however absurd the supposition, it was thought by many not impossible that the enemy might penetrate through the Sunderban forest to the metropolis of British India” (Wilson 57–58). Wilson's narrative, then, went beyond what might normally be associated with a first hand account, but offered a history of the conflict.

More important, Wilson's narration almost certainly drew upon Snodgrass and other accounts amounted to the official East India Company history of the event. The “soldier's stare” (as represented by Snodgrass) had become part of the basis for the narrative produced from the archive. The representation of things Burmese – the land, its peoples, the Burman Kingdom, its practices – became nicely “framed” within a military narrative. However, Snodgrass had seen Burma, but had chosen not to see or was unable to see that his own perspective reflected the success of British colonialism in India. Most of his troops were Indian sepoys who served Britain because they were part of a much more developed colonial enterprise. In fact, they were actually beginning a process of secondary colonization because these Indian soldiers (who later would be followed by even larger numbers of immigrants from South Asia) were helping to annex Burma not just to Britain, but to India. Therefore, soldiers such as Snodgrass had experienced the conflict in which one better developed empire had utilized its colonized peoples to create a stronger more powerful military force, which subsequently defeated at great cost another imperial entity, which ultimately had neither the advanced organization capacity nor the resources to successfully resist. To anticipate, subsequent authors might not have cared for the details of the First Anglo-Burmese War, but their narratives would repeat many of the representational strategies (including their biases) deployed by Snodgrass and later Wilson.

Henry Gouger: British Individualism in a Land of “Savage Ignorance”

Henry Gouger’s A Personal Narrativeof Two Year's Imprisonment in Burmah 1824–1826 (Reference Gouger1860) provides one of the most vivid accounts of the country around the time of the First Anglo-Burmese War (1824–1826). Gouger's memoir – which was published after the Second Anglo-Burmese War (1852–1853) – is one of the great captivity narratives in the history of the British Empire. The fact that Gouger's memoir did not appear for a generation was not uncommon. Linda Colley cites the example of John Zephaniah Howell's A Genuine Narrative of the Deplorable Deaths . . . in the Black Hole (1758) which was not reprinted until 1804, when it became part of the larger effort to re-invent the story of British India around the events of “the Black Hole of Calcutta” (Colley 255). Citing Macaulay, Colley observes that episode became a “poignant foundation myth of British India,” whereby atrocities associated with the event become the basis for a larger narrative (255). For Gouger, it seems probable that the realities of the Second Anglo-Burmese War now made his narrative even more significant.

The story told by Gouger remains an extraordinary one.Footnote ⁶ Motivated by the possibility of developing trade with Burma, he managed to come to the country, make friends with the King, become a well-regarded figure at court and enjoy royal patronage, while attempting to develop a lucrative trade with India. All of this changed quickly with the commencement of the war in 1824: Gouger (along with other Westerners including the American missionary Adoniram Judson) was seized, imprisoned in horrid conditions, tortured, and left to wonder about his fate as the war progressed. His fortunes would again shift profoundly: gaining his liberation with the end of the conflict, Gouger (who by this time had become fluent in Burmese) was then employed by the British to help with the negotiations with his defeated captors. He left the country only after he served in the government's futile attempt to develop the new community of Amherst.

Unlike Snodgrass (and many other memoirs and travelogues devoted to Burma which would followed), who never had the opportunity to see Burma at peace or from inside the court, Gouger had witnessed the opulence of Burmese royalty and lived among many (not just Westerners) who were incarcerated. His memoir, as such, records not only his own changing fate, it also left readers with testimony about the country and an unusual range of its peoples. Not only did he become acquainted with the Burmese from above and below, but Gouger also remembered Burma “at a time when to the inhabitants of the interior a white man was a novelty” – and before British power and civilization were fully manifest in the country (Gouger iv).

Gouger's portrait of Burma oscillated between civilization and “savagery.” He regarded the Burmese Court as despotic, mixing arrogance with favoritism, but being open to outside interests. He acknowledged catching “the disease of Court favor . . . at once” (Gouger 31). His expectations of the Court was derived not only from direct experience but from reading Symes's Embassy to the Kingdom of Ava (Gouger 29), but the portrait he left his readers would have further confirmed any orientalist stereotypes for despotic rulers:

Gouger had entered the court with a preconceived idea that that Burmese monarch was the embodiment of oriental despotism. Yet, his portrayal of the high Queen would have possibly fulfilled even more pronounced orientalist stereotypes. Gouger explained that she had risen from humble origins to gain control over the king and that by corrupt methods “acquired immense wealth” (34). He then related his encounter with her at the Court:

Burma, then, might be understood to epitomize many of the worst features of the Orient. It was corrupt, lawless, exotic, disgusting, and possibly unknowable. Nonetheless, the traveler in Gouger informed his readers that the country was diverse, with both a Chinese community and a Muslim minority. However, it is Gouger's specific complaints – not only about Burma – which are valuable for recovering the outlook of colonial officials, because they reflect a baseline of expected behavior for a modern nation state or even a colony administered by Britain. Gouger lamented, as such, the corruption, ignorance, favoritism, and ultimately incompetence. These were exhibited not only in the daily administration of the country, but also in the legal system.

Paying attention to Gouger's complaints about British behavior tells us a good bit about his expectations for government. Gouger was critical of the British government because it had failed to warn him about the deterioration of Anglo-Burman relations. Consequently, he did not have the opportunity to flee Ava before the commencement of hostilities:

Gouger's description of the torture instruments and the experience of torture are also contrasted with the manner in which the British army behaved during the conflict.

Yet, Gouger was not excessively grateful – instead he was also critical of the British policy failures with respect to Pegu. Colley noted that imperial failures were often rewritten to emphasize some aspect of British virtue. Writing about the representations of the Mysore Wars she observed that the narratives of imperial conquests were domesticated for popular consumption. The British required proof that they were a “virtuous, striving and devoted people” (Colley 303) and after 1790 this meant captivity narratives (in this case those which came out of the Mysore Wars) were one of the ways in which the “British military overseas was repackaged for improved domestic consumption” (Colley 305).

A Personal Narrative of Two Year's Imprisonment in Burmah 1824–1826 illustrates that these narratives could aim at more than domesticating imperial adventures. Gouger saw in British power the virtues of civilization which he felt were lacking in Burma – especially during his imprisonment. Yet, Gouger's narrative was also a complaint about British incompetence, both in terms of his own situation and the one he perceived at the conclusion of the First Anglo-Burmese War. In addition to the fact that he had not received adequate warning and protection from the British, he believed that they had still not really understood the nature of the Burmese state. Consequently, he asserted that it had not been adequately dealt with and the British should have done more to strengthen the aspirations and means of the Peguans (a term the British used for the Mon-people in the southern part of Burma who had been most recently conquered in 1757) to achieve independence. Unlike Snodgrass, Gouger wrote as an aggrieved critic, angered by what he perceived to be British incompetence. Despite their differences, Gouger came to the same conclusion as Snodgrass: the Burmese state itself was an imperial one, which had gained power by suppressing Pegu (and other areas). All told, Gouger painted a picture of the Burmese state as corrupt, cruel, and incompetent. But his narrative was not Manichean, as he effectively criticized the British (including the failure to develop Amherst as a new Indian Ocean port). Gouger expected that his government would be informed, efficient, and humane in its treatment not only of its citizens but of peoples from other places – even if their respective societies such as Burma could be comprehended as backward. Accordingly, he never worried about the prospect that Burma would be essentially colonized by India, but believed that despite its failures, British rule was a progressive force.

William F. B. Laurie: Britain's Honorable Soldiers

Laurie's experience in Burma was not as searing as Gouger’s, but as someone who fought in the Second Anglo-Burmese War he believed that it was his “soldier's duty” to “give the reader as much information regarding Burmah” and to take “from him as little time, as possible” (Laurie iii). Laurie would have the “soldier's stare”: he recounted more than the events of the conflict, but leaving his readers with better understanding of the country in which he had experienced combat. Furthermore, in The Second Burmese War (1853), which might be seen as following from Wilson's work, Laurie chronicled the rise of the Burmese state, pointing out that at least some of its power came from suppressing Pegu, once a strong state in its own right. The British knew that in the second half of the eighteenth century Pegu had been the center of a Mon state which the Burmese decisively defeated in the 1750s. After the First Anglo-Burmese War, the British actually contemplated supporting the re-establishment of the Mon state (South 87–90). At the same time, he traced the origins of the first conflict, in order to contextualize the both conflicts, noting that it had been “the most expensive and harassing war in which the British had even been engaged in India” (Laurie 13). The earlier conflict, then, had been difficult, expensive, but justified by the behavior of the Burman monarchy.

With respect to the Second Burmese War, Laurie anticipated writers a generation later who used the economic development of the British controlled parts of Burma as one of the justifications for another conflict. Moulmein was doing well, in Tenasserim the mines were being successfully run and operated by Chinese and he hoped that Pegu might become independent. By fighting against the Burmese the Peguans might “gain reason and freedom” (Laurie 19). Just as Snodgrass and Wilson represented the first conflict as just, Laurie (who also provided an appendix with documents) recorded the Burmese provocations, the British evacuation and the attempts to avoid hostilities.

Laurie's account traces the assembling of the British forces in Madras and the inherent logistical issues in some detail, but for our purposes here, it is most interesting because it focuses on the moral conduct of soldiers and their commanders. Burmese bravery was never in question, but Laurie was fascinated by these opponents. It is worth noting that much of this discussion was framed by the narratives of the First Anglo-Burmese War. For example, in the capture of the Shewdagon Pagoda in the Second War, he referred to the horrific discovery that the British had made in 1824, when they found that Bundoola the Burmese commander had chained his soldiers to their canons (Laurie 116). Again, the treatment of prisoners was heralded as an important difference between the British and their Burmese foes. Laurie cited the seizure of British nationals (he had not read Gouger's book, but knew aspects of the story) and lauded the humane British treatment of Burmese prisoners, which was indicative of the qualities of “civilized soldiers,” adding that in “no country has this humanity been more exercised than in India” (Laurie 122). Laurie's account of the Burmese under the advancing British forces echoes that of Snodgrass:

Laurie regarded British civilization as superior to Burmese despotism and this could also been seen by a study of captured structures (Laurie 20). He noted that a mud fortification which the British captured had been constructed with incredible speed. In Laurie's view the process by which these mud works had been built demonstrated something just short of slavery.

Developments at the conclusion of the war confirmed Laurie's understanding of the attractiveness of British rule in Burma. Notably, Rangoon's population had increased as large numbers of refugees were being resettled there; the “majority consisted of those who were by hunger to flee from Burmese oppression, and now rejoiced to live in certain security, under British protection!” (Laurie 190) This positive development could be understood theologically as “Was it not for this, Providence sent us here? Is not the Indian Government working out its grand destiny?” (Laurie 190). British rule, then, offered security, prosperity, and superior civilization to the Burmese.

Laurie evaluated the prospect of the expansion of British power in Burma, which he favored. Responding to arguments made in colonial newspapers, Laurie declaimed:

Another option reflected the legacy of the First-Anglo Burmese War. Like Gouger, Laurie was concerned about the fate of Pegu; he believed that annexing the province would be a good investment. Taking Pegu, Laurie argued, would “humiliate the court of Ava” and in addition to taking this wealthy province would “relieve the Peguese from tyranny and oppression” (Laurie 195). Laurie quoted from the newspaper Friend of India, which enumerated the economic advantages of absorbing Pegu, predicting that Rangoon would grow into the “Liverpool or Glasgow of further India” (196). This new metropolis would be marked by “[i]mmense traffic which would naturally crown such an admirable commercial position, and the woods, grain, oils and minerals of Pegu, with its various, would be diffused throughout the civilized world” (Laurie 196–97). Steam power, which Laurie demonstrated to be critical in the movement of troops in and through Burma, was a signifier of British power: “Steam would render Pegu truly British in character; and, with its auxiliary, the Press, it might soon form the nucleus of civilization in a new land, which would be sure to flourish under a wise and liberal Government” (205).

Laurie's image of a bright future in Burma stood in contrast to his assessments of the Burmese government and society. In The Second Burmese War he had made the case for the extension of British rule, but, more interesting, he had written about British military practices in a way which would be consistent with Snodgrass and Gouger in that he had shown that the British soldiers had practiced great humanity and that achieved the support of large numbers of the conquered population. Beyond the implicit argument for colonial popular sovereignty, Laurie had demonstrated another facet of the developing British colonial mindset – the need to frame imperial matters within the context of public opinion. Laurie drew on the Friend of India to support his arguments; he could not foresee that war correspondents would soon prove to become problematic for the British military establishment. Yet, in 1853 it would be clear to Laurie British military performances would be successful and reflect the nation's progressive trajectory. To believe in the British Empire in India and “further India,” then, implied being part of an on-going and genuinely open debate about it viability, successes (and possible failures) and future extension.

Major Edmond Charles Browne: Invoking Victoria

If Laurie sought to engage public opinion, Major Edmond Charles Browne believed that it was important to justify British policy in Burma. Capitalizing on the Golden Jubilee celebrations, Browne published The Coming of the Great Queen, A Narrative of the Acquisition of Burma (Reference Browne1888) which reflected not only his experiences in the Third Anglo-Burmese War (1885–1886), but also the growing difficulties the British were having in subjugating what had been referred to as “Upper Burma” (Browne Reference Browne1888). Despite its triumphant title, (an example of the domestication of imperial adventures) much of Browne's account was actually defensive in character, as he sought to vindicate British military decisions and behavior. Additionally, Browne's work was a memoir – which included a relatively detailed account of his own desire to fight. At the commencement of the campaign Browne raised his own cavalry unit to support the British effort. The Coming of the Great Queen, then, drew upon direct experience and like earlier works attempted to be an important book about the region because it “contains more information on Indo-China . . . than any other publication” (Browne 1). In tracing the origins of the Third Anglo-Burmese War, Browne's work dutifully chronicled the worst of Burmese civilization, exhibited the heroic and humane side of British military operations, responded to accusations made against it, and offered options for future British policy makers. As we will see, this vast vision, at least partly articulated because of mounting criticisms of British policy, was couched in Golden Jubilee rhetoric invoking Victorian to proclaim and justify the advent of a new British Burma.

Browne's contextualization of the three conflicts predictably locates Burmese despotism as the source of these wars. This involved protectionism (especially after the Second War), cultural arrogance, and the mistreatment of British subjects – but also political instability. The squalid picture which Browne painted of Mandalay (between the Second and Third wars) emphasized the tensions between the Chinese who lived there and the Burmese – who were represented as lazy and cruel. Last, the descent into war was framed by accounts of royal massacres and Burmese attempts to interfere with British commerce.

Like Laurie, Browne's narration of the Third Anglo-Burmese War emphasized not only the heroic and humane conduct of British soldiers, but also the support which they received from the indigenous population. Browne's cavalry unit was made up of both British residents and Burmese volunteers. He was impressed with the spectacle of the British forces going up the Irrawaddy and noted that they were to avoid bloodshed (Browne 155). Furthermore, students of Burma's history are familiar with the charge that at the end of the Third-Anglo Burmese War in 1885, British soldiers looted and despoiled Mandalay Palace. Possibly with the reporting of unnamed war correspondents or Grattan Geary's Burma After the Conquest (Reference Geary1886) in mind, Browne disputed this characterization of events, asserting that there was little looting and the removal of the monarchy to India – another seismic event in Burmese history – was a dignified process (Browne 182–87). Above all, “English” soldiers had not misbehaved and the arrival of British power – signified as the coming of the “Great Queen” – was a smooth and uncontroversial process (Browne 178).

Browne assailed the growing prestige of war correspondents. In particular, he sought to challenge those such as Archibald Forbes (1838–1900) whom he had known in South Africa. Forbes, who enlisted in the Royal Dragoons after being inspired by hearing a lecture by Russell, began his career as a writer by authoring a novel about the Indian Uprising; by the time of the Third Anglo-Burmese War, he was regarded not only as an ambitious and enterprising correspondent, but as an expert on contemporary military affairs (Knightley 42–45). He further established his reputation during the Franco-Prussian War by utilizing the telegraph, with which he became associated. In fact, Forbes's use of the telegraph produced a veritable race between his articles for the London Daily News and Russell's pieces for the Times, with latter reporting on events several days later than the former (Browne 47). Forbes would go to great lengths to use the telegraph in order to be the first to report on the outcome of a military campaign or event. For instance, he witnessed the battle of Ulundi from inside a British square (a military formation) then quickly trekked through 120 miles of dangerous country to be the first to announce the defeat of the Zulus (Knightley 47). Forbes's ability to exploit this new technology meant that he had made the work of Russell, who had virtually defined the profession at mid-century, appear obsolete (Turner 14). Browne drew upon experience to challenge the representation of the conflict which had appeared in the British press:

In all probability, Browne was challenging reports about the looting of the palace of Mandalay, which involved both British soldiers and local residents. The easier thing to do was to challenge the rise of the war correspondent, by underscoring their motivations for rapid – and possibly unreliable reporting. Browne was undoubtedly aware that the British military establishment regarded figures such as Forbes with great contempt (Browne 53). Here, he used Forbes's aim of reporting the story first as a basis from which to call into questions its accuracy. To formulate this in alternative terms, the “soldier's stare” might well prove to be more reliable source of authority, than the immediate and frenzied accounts produced by ambitious war correspondents.

The theme of Britain's ostensibly humane soldiers was extended to the subsequent campaign to subdue opposition in Upper Burma. Browne's narrative made it clear that “dacoity” was deeply rooted in Burman life and that it posed a serious, but ultimately insurmountable problem for the British (Browne 268). The term “dacoit,” which would be used with great frequency in Burma, was actually borrowed from India. It is worth citing the passage of legislation against dacoits in India as well as Captain P. J. Briggs's memoir Heathen and Holy Lands (Reference Briggs1859) in which he provided a sustained account of the author's experiences in dealing with dacoits. In this little known text, Briggs acknowledged that the concept was borrowed from India as it was a “Hindostanee word,” but that did not bother him because it was endemic to the country: the “Burmese, under their native government, were notorious dacoits; their war was a serious of dacoities on a larger scale” (Briggs 99). Dacoits for Briggs were “armed bands of marauders,” who “plunder by force, and hold in contempt the robber who steals by cunning” (99–100). Briggs's identified dacoits with a wide range of crime in Burma – including “cattle lifting” robbery (by assault), and slavery. Browne's narrative underscored both the frustrations and the great efforts made by British commanders to spare Burmans who were not connected with dacoity. Browne, writing with the conflict on-going, might not appear as candid as Sir Charles Crosthwaite's The Pacification of Burma (Reference Crosthwaite1912) – a book whose title conveys the brutal measures used by the British to secure Upper Burma.

Browne acknowledged that dacoity was more than criminal gang activity because “evidently a large portion of the population who were decidedly averse to our remaining in permanent occupation” (225). In so doing, he confirmed that the end of the Third Anglo-Burmese War had not produced the cessation of hostilities. He also credited the dacoits for capitalizing on their environment as they learned to hide within and around villages:

Just as the earlier writers had been intrigued by the “Invulnerables,” Browne developed an admiration for the dacoits – both for their ingenuity and courage. Yet, they appeared to be terrified of transportation to the Andaman Islands. He noted that in his experience in South Africa he had seen “flogging parades” and the “faintings and groaning that accompanied them, I confessed I was surprised at Jack Burman's pluck” (Browne 284). He added that he thought:

Browne, possibly aware of Gouger's narrative, added that this was actually indicative of the ways in which the Burmans treat prisoners. Unlike the British, the Burmans treated their captives to “excruciating torture, [being] utter brutes in this way themselves” (Browne 285). Hence, every “Burman has heard that we transport our prisoners to the Andaman Islands, and it is a ‘black country’ in their imaginations” (Browne 286–87).

Nonetheless, Browne saw a positive future for the Burmans under British rule:

Browne concluded that when “these people have thoroughly realized that they are henceforth, and for ever, the subjects of the Great Queen, a wonderful change for the better will come over the spirit of their dream” (Browne 287). This meant prosperity based upon free trade, new markets (connecting India and China) and the extension of the civilizing virtues of British rule.

The Coming of the Great Queen, then, at once exhibited the humanity of British soldiery, while confirming the decisions made by its leadership. It helped inscribe a military/travel narrative which at once underscored the Burmans as unfit for self-government and economic development, while also showing that British rule was desirable and right. However, it is also clear that arrival of “the Great Queen” would also mean much more than ostensibly well behaved soldiers. Instead, it would be the beginning of British rule over all of Burma – a development which would be challenged fiercely by the Burmese. Indeed, the “pacification” that followed might have done well to employ ambitious war correspondents to describe to metropolitan readers some of the nasty means necessary to secure the country. Additionally, the arrival of British power in the north of Burma would redefine the country's boundaries and in some cases set the ground work for some of the civil conflicts which plague Myanmar after it became independent. Nonetheless, in assessing The Coming of the Great Queen it is probably safe to say that Browne was probably not concerned with those who had written about the First Anglo-Burmese War half a century earlier, but like so many travelers was actually on a “well beaten path.”