First Anglo-Burmese War Looms

1823

British and Burmese forces skirmished along the ill-defined Arakan frontier as Konbaung Burma, flush from conquering Assam and Manipur, pressed into company territory. Within months the war would become official, and British steamships would be chugging up the Irrawaddy. Burma's long slide into British India had begun. The war would cost Britain five million pounds and fifteen thousand dead, most of them from disease rather than battle.