General Faunce\'s Expedition
The seventeenth chapter told the story of the Sawlapaw expedition, which covered the time from the spring 1888 to the second month of 1889. The western frontier of the province was the scene of equally interesting and much more difficult operations during the same period. When Upper Burma was annexed it is doubtful whether the difficulties, that might arise from the wild tribes which would become our neighbours, received much consideration. The Burmese Government thought very little of raids and disturbances on their frontiers. A British Administration could not show the same indifference.
Along the west of the Upper Burma districts of the Upper and the Lower Chindwin, of Pakokku, and of Minbu, lies a wild region of hills, inhabited by semi-savage tribes known to us as Chins. This mountainous region forms a wedge very long in comparison to its width. The broad end marches with the south of Manipur, the Naga Cachar, and east Sylet hills, and the point rests on Cape Negrais. It is formed of high, narrow ridges and deep valleys, all running from north to south, and the people are split up into numerous tribes and clans speaking many different dialects. The only system of government was that of headmen of villages, or at the most of a small group of villages, and consequently negotiations with the Chins as a people were impossible. The principal tribes, with which the present narrative is concerned are, on the north, the Siyins, including the Sagyilains, and the Sokte tribe, including the Kanhows;[288] in the centre of the country the Tashons and Hakas (nicknamed by the Burmese Baungshès); and, southward of them, a number of tribes, Chin-boks among others, who are less formidable as border neighbours.
Between the hills and the Chindwin, and forming an enclosure in the Upper Chindwin district, was the little Shan State of Kalè. Like the States on the Shan plateau, it was governed by a Sawbwa who had a measure of independence. Owing to its position, practically, on the Chindwin, Kalè was much more in subjection to the Government of Burma than the more distant Shan chiefships. It was, moreover, exposed to raids from the hill-men, and for a long time past had suffered much from the Siyin group, who were the most frequent and barbarous raiders, burning villages, slaughtering the peasants, and carrying off many as slaves into the mountains.
At the time of the annexation the Sawbwa of Kalè was an old man, by name Maung Ket, incapable of administering his country. On the 1st of January, 1887, the Chief Commissioner, finding that he could neither keep order within his territory nor protect it against enemies from without, caused him to be removed with some of his officials to Mandalay, and appointed his nephew to rule in his stead. In November, 1887, Maung Ket escaped from Mandalay with his followers and took refuge with the Tashon Chins, who in former years were on friendly terms with the Kalè State.
In March, 1887, the Deputy Commissioner of the Upper Chindwin (Captain Raikes) met representatives of the Tashon tribes at Indin and explained to them that raiding must be stopped. His warnings seem to have influenced them; for a whole year few villages were attacked. Several circumstances, however, had tended to unsettle the minds of these wild tribes.
The ex-Sawbwa of Kalè had a disturbing influence and endeavoured no doubt to persuade them to help him to regain his position. In the open season of 1887-8 a project for opening up the Chin country from the Bengal boundary in the west to the frontier of Burma proper on the east was started in India, prematurely so far as we were concerned. It was proposed that roads should be made through the hills, communications established, and the hill people subjugated. The phrase "from the Salween to the sea" was invented and had some effect.
On the Chin Hills—arranging a plan of attack.
Chin-Liushai Campaign.
[289]
In the winter of 1887 Captain Raikes with another officer went up the Myittha River and arranged a meeting with the Tashon chiefs. Sonpek, the principal man of the tribe, came down from the mountains and met Captain Raikes on the 3rd of January, 1888. He was courteous, even friendly in his manner, but guarded in his speech. His fears were excited by the close questioning (concerning the routes through his country eastward) to which he was subjected, so much so that he would hardly accept the presents offered to him by Captain Raikes. The meeting, however, ended in outward friendliness on both sides. No action was taken by the Government towards entering or approaching the Tashon country, and nothing indicated that the Chins had been seriously alarmed.
Other events followed which added to their uneasiness. Captain Raikes had visited Indin in March, 1887, and had found two persons in the ruling Sawbwa\'s service whose intrigues were causing trouble in the Kalè State. One was Maung Tok San, the other Maung Tha Dun, styled "Chingeh," or "Minister for the Chins." These two men were removed by Captain Raikes from Kalè and confined at Al?n. After some months they were released on security. They made use of their freedom to escape to the Chin Hills, where they joined the old Sawbwa who had preceded them, and helped him to excite the tribes.
It happened at the same time that part of the Pakokku district on the Lower Chindwin was very much disturbed. The guerilla leader, known as the Shwègyobyu Prince, had been able to collect a considerable following and to raise a small revolt (see Chapter VIII., pp. 84, 85). Expelled from the low country, he also sought safety with the Tashons. The arrival of a Burman Prince, whether genuine or pretender, did not matter, a man with a certain amount of prestige, a good deal of energy, and a bitter hatred of the foreigners, gave the Tashons heart, and they determined to take action. On the 4th and 5th of May a body of Sonpek\'s Tashons, numbering some hundreds, descended on Indin, made the Sawbwa prisoner, and took[290] him to Chingaing (a village near the foot of the hills), where he had interviews with Sonpek and the Shwègyobyu Prince. He promised to join them in their resistance to the British, and on that condition was allowed to return to Indin. The Sawbwa, however, kept faith with us. Getting some men together, he sent them to attack the Shwègyobyu Prince in Chingaing, and despatched urgent messengers to the Deputy Commissioner (Mr. Ross) asking for assistance.
This sudden raid by the Chins on the Kalè State, and their readiness to assist a pretender like the Shwègyobyu Prince, had not been foreseen, and took the authorities by surprise. The messages received at headquarters were alarming. Eleven hundred Tashon Chins were reported to have surrounded Indin and carried off the Sawbwa. Several thousands were said to be on the warpath; five hundred had occupied Indin, three hundred were marching on Taungdwin, three hundred on Kalewa—all these of the Tashon tribe. Of the Siyins, five hundred were making for Kalemyo, six hundred threatening the Kabaw Valley, and so on. The numbers were obviously much exaggerated. Nevertheless, as the men on the spot thought the situation serious, measures of precaution had to be taken. A force under Major Gleig, consisting of 100 rifles, Cheshire Regiment, 250 Madras Infantry (15th) and two guns, were sent up the Chindwin River in steamers to Kalemyo. At the same time 150 Mounted Infantry (100 British, 50 Native), accompanied by Captain Eyre, the Deputy Commissioner of the district, were despatched from Pakokku, via Pauk and Gangaw, to take the raiders in the rear. A party of military police from the Kabaw Valley Battalion, with two guns, were moved down to Kalewa.
These dispositions sufficed to restore order for the time. Major Gleig\'s force disembarked at Indin on the 24th of May; Captain Eyre with the Mounted Infantry was at Chingaing, a few miles from Indin, on the 26th, the rifles and guns from the Kabaw Valley arrived at Kalemyo about the same date. The party, accompanied by Captain Eyre, marched up through the Yaw country without meeting with any opposition. They covered 152 miles in eight days and hoped to surprise the Shwègyobyu, who,[291] with a mixed following of Burmans and Chins, had continued to hold Chingaing; but as soon as the alarm was given by his scouts he fired the village and escaped into the hills. The enemy were encountered only on one occasion. On the 17th of May a police officer making a night march with 60 rifles of the military police (Indians) was attacked by a body of men under Bo Saga, a noted dacoit leader. The men lately enrolled were unsteady and fell back, and the party retired, losing two men wounded. The officer reported that he had found the villages on his march deserted and that the insurgents were collecting men and arms. Several Burman villages had been burnt; men, women, and children had been killed, and many carried off into the hills. The measures taken may seem in the recital out of proportion to the danger. But it was by no means a false alarm.
The rains had now set in, and the Kalè and Yaw country in that season does not tempt the hill-men to raid. They returned to their mountains. The disturbances ceased almost as suddenly as they had begun. The troops returned to their quarters, a guard of military police being left at Indin to protect the Sawbwa.
Although order had been restored for the present, it was evident to the Chief Commissioner that the Chins had yielded to the climate rather than to fear. They had escaped punishment; and as they had burnt villages and returned home with many captives the campaign in their eyes must have seemed successful.
It was necessary to protect the Yaw Valley which was our territory, and the Kalè country, the Sawbwa of which was our dependent and too weak to help himself. A proposal was made by the local officer to simplify matters by taking the Kalè State under direct administration. It was argued that as we were obliged to defend Kalè, we might as well administer the country and receive the revenues. Looking, however, to its effect on the minds of the people, this appeared to be a mistaken policy. Every Sawbwa in the Shan States might have been degraded on similar grounds. The Kalè man, so far as was known, had not been disloyal. In the early part of 1887 he had acted well, and in the present affair he had not acted[292] badly. If he had not been well informed regarding the movements of the Chins, he was no worse than the British officers in the district. He was suddenly surrounded and seized. In procuring his liberty by consenting to join the insurgents he took the best course, or what he thought the best course, for himself. He lost no time in sending information to the nearest officer, and he attacked the rebel gathering with his own men. To remove him under such circumstances would have been unfair, and might have alarmed others whose fears it was not good policy to arouse.
It was decided, therefore, by the Chief Commissioner not to absorb Kalè, but to leave a military or police guard at or near Indin, with supports at Kalewa. An ultimatum was sent to the Tashons, ordering them to deliver up the Shwègyobyu Prince and other leading rebels, as well as the leaders of the Chins who captured the Sawbwa of Kalè and raided his villages. On the 21st of July, 1888, the Chief Commissioner (in a minute submitted to the Government of India) recounted the events which have been narrated, and gave his opinion that there could be no peace until the Chin tribes had been subdued. He asked permission to take the matter in hand as soon as the dry weather set in, and to subjugate the Chins once for all.
The first step in the plan of campaign was to occupy in force and permanently the difficult country lying below the Chin Hills, and to bring it under efficient administrative control.
For this purpose the Chief Commissioner in June, 1887, asked the Government of India to raise a frontier battalion in India for the Yaw Valley. It was assumed, in framing the plan of campaign, that this battalion would have been ready before the rains ended, and that it would have been possible to hold this district firmly. To have attacked the Chins and to have withdrawn the troops would have been to leave the villages in the plains exposed to the vengeance of the hill-men.
The next step was to march an expedition into the Chin Hills. The force was to be divided into three parts. The Siyin and Sagyilain tribe was to be invaded from the Kalè Valley by a force of the Kabaw Valley military police, brought down for the duty. The Tashon country was to be entered simultaneously by a column of regular troops with two guns, having its base at Sihaung on the Myittha River, to which place the men, their baggage, and supplies, could be brought by water. At the same time a force collected at Gangaw was to threaten the Yokwa Haka and Thatta Chins, to prevent them from helping the Tashons.
Haka Chins.
A Chin "Zu" drink.
[293]
The subjugation of the Tashons was judged to be the most formidable task. The object was to reach and, if necessary, to destroy their chief village in Burmese Ywama. There were no roads, only difficult hill-paths. Hill-coolies and mules were necessary for transport. There were no supplies in the country. The work, therefore, would have to be taken in hand leisurely, the road cleared and made practicable for mules, supply-stations established, and nothing left to chance. A slow, determined advance, it was held, would have a greater moral effect than an attempt by forced marches to surprise the enemy. If it were possible a simultaneous attack should be made from the Arakan or Chittagong Hills on the west to take the Tashons in the rear.
In reply to the ultimatum sent to them (see above), the Tashons released the captives taken in the raids on the 18th and 19th of May, but declined to give up the Shwègyobu Prince and other Burman rebels. They put forward counter-claims on their own part, and threatened further raids if their demands were not complied with.
In August an order was sent to the chief of the Siyin and Sagyilain tribes to surrender the captives taken by them from several villages in the preceding April and July, and they were warned that if they did not comply with this demand punishment would follow.
Early in September raiding began again. While the Government of India were considering the Chief Commissioner\'s proposals the Chins acted. They put their threats into execution. A village near Sihaung was raided by the Tashons on the 17th of September, and an alliance was formed by a large number of subdivisions of the Haka tribe. On the 18th of September a village in the Gangaw circle of the Pakokku district was attacked, it was reported,[294] by Tashons. It was clear to the local officers that the anticipation of serious trouble would be realized. The Government of India were pressed, therefore, to allow the immediate enlistment of the military police levy for the protection of the Chin frontier, which had been asked for early in June. In October the reply of the Governor-General in Council to the Chief Commissioner\'s minute of July 21st was received. It was a refusal to sanction the proposed expeditions.
About this time the local officers reported that Sonpek, the Tashon leader, was inclined to give up the Burman refugees, but that he would not surrender the old Sawbwa of Kalè. It was just possible that through the latter\'s influence Sonpek\'s inclination might be translated into action. The old Sawbwa, therefore, was informed that he would be pardoned for his part in the disturbances if he brought about the surrender of the Burman rebels by the Tashons. At the same time, as a precaution against the attacks which were anticipated, Kalewa and Sihaung were garrisoned, and endeavours made to prevent the Chins from getting their usual supplies of salt and other necessaries from the plains.
The country lying between the Chin mountains and the Chindwin and Irrawaddy Rivers is, speaking generally, what would be called in India "terai"; covered with large stretches of forest and intersected by numerous watercourses and streams, with a heavy rainfall and intense heat. It is very unhealthy and a difficult country for troops to work in. The main river in this track is the Myittha, which rises from the southern part of the Chin mountains; it runs almost due north for a hundred miles or more, and then turning suddenly to the east for fifteen or twenty miles joins the Chindwin at Kalewa. During its course northward it receives by many affluents the drainage of the eastern slopes of the Chindwin. Three ranges of thickly wooded hills, called the Pondaung Ranges, run parallel to the Myittha on the east, with intervening valleys which are fertile and cultivated. East of the third range of hills lies the Pagyi township of the Lower Chindwin district. In the west of this township, bordering on the hills above mentioned, is the country known as Shitywagyaung—"the valley of the[295] eight villages"—of which the most important is Thitkyidaing. West of this village lie Saga and Kyaw. The country lying between the Myittha River and the range of hills on the east is known as the Yaw country, in the southern part of which is the Yaw River, which rises in the same hills as the Myittha, but, turning in a south-easterly direction, makes its way to the Irrawaddy below Pakokku, the river-port of the district in which the Yaw country lies. Gangaw is the chief village in the Yaw country, and is more than 100 miles from Pakokku. The road to it passes through Pauk at about the twentieth mile, and the Yaw River, which has to be crossed, is unfordable when in flood.
In 1888 the country about Thitkyidaing had not been thoroughly reduced, chiefly on account of its unhealthiness and the scarcity of civil officers. Mr. Carter and Colonel Symons worked this tract in 1887-8, and brought it to order after the disturbances raised by the Shwègyobyu Prince, in which Major Kennedy and Captain Beville, Assistant Commissioner, met their deaths. Many of the dacoit leaders were captured or killed at that time, but the country was not thoroughly controlled.
There was so much to do in the early years of the annexation and so few to do it, that outlying tracts like the Yaw country were neglected for a time. This tract had, it is believed, even in the King\'s time, been left very much to itself. In 1887 the Deputy Commissioner of Pakokku (Captain Eyre) visited it. The people received him well. An arrangement—the best possible at the time—was made with the local officials, who undertook to pay the revenue and to be responsible for the order and protection of the territory. Hitherto the people had defended themselves against the Chins; and, to encourage them, five or six hundred muskets were distributed to villagers who in the opinion of the Burman officials would make good use of them. In some cases a subsidy was given to pay for the maintenance of a rude militia or irregular police. This arrangement had worked well until the time of the events now to be told, and it had the recommendation of economy in money and men when economy was more than usually imperative.
The refusal of the Government of India to allow an expedition[296] into the Chin country in no way absolved the Chief Commissioner from the duty of protecting the people against these savages, for which purpose he had sufficient means at his disposal. He therefore took counsel with the Major-General commanding in Upper Burma (Sir George White) as to the measures necessary. It was resolved to move a body of troops up from Pakokku through Gangaw along the whole line of the frontier subject to raids, and to establish a chain of posts, Tilin, Gangaw, Kan, Sihaung, Kambalè, and Indin. General Faunce, who commanded the military district in which the disturbed tracts were situated, was given the control of the operations. Major Raikes, who was at the time in charge of the Lower Chindwin, and had had more intercourse with the Chins than any other of the civil officers, was associated with General Faunce and entrusted with the political duties. A force about 500 strong was ordered to move up along the frontier with General Faunce, while three companies of Gurkhas were to be sent by river to Kalewa. No preparations were made for attacking the Chin strongholds in the hills, as the Government in India had forbidden it. Raiding parties were to be followed up and punished whenever and so far as it might be possible.
The Chins began to act before these arrangements had been completed. Reports of raiding came tumbling in fast. On the 14th of October Homalin was attacked by followers of the Shwègyobyu, assisted by Chins from the Tashon country. On the 17th Chitpauk, in the Kabaw Valley, was raided by Siyins, who killed seven and carried off forty-five villagers. On the 20th of October Kambalè was surrounded, two villagers were murdered and six kidnapped. On the 22nd of October the Siyins attacked Kantha, north of Kan, and made off with thirty-two villagers. On the 29th of October a large body of the hill-men came down on Kalémyo, the principal village in Kalè. They burnt part of it, killed three of the villagers, wounded four, and carried forty into slavery. On the same day Khampat, in the Kabaw Valley, was raided by a party of Kanhows, seven men were killed and twenty-seven taken away.
These occurrences gave the Chief Commissioner a text for again preaching the need of punishing these unruly[297] mountaineers; and, meanwhile, such measures as were possible and within his powers were taken. On the 9th of November the Government of India intimated that they were inclined to reconsider the proposal of the Burman Administration. On the 16th their orders came, giving the Chief Commissioner a free hand to do what he could with the troops at his disposal, and with the transport to be had within the province.
General Faunce had left Pakokku on the 14th of............