မြန်မာဘုရင့်တပ်မတော်

မြန်မာဘုရင့်တပ်မတော်သည် ၉ရာစုမှ ၁၉ရာစုအထိတိုင်အောင် အရှေ့တောင်အာရှတွင် အင်အားအလွန်ကြီးမား​သော တပ်မ​တော်အဖြစ်တည်ရှိခဲ့ပါသည်။ ၁၉ရာစုတွင် ဗြိတိသျှတို့သည် ကျူးကျော်စစ်သုံးကြိမ်ခင်း၍ မြန်မာဘုရင့်တပ်မတော်ကို နှစ်​ပေါင်း၆၀ကျော် ကြာအောင်တိုက်ခိုက်ဖျက်စီးခဲ့သည်။ မြန်မာဘုရင့်တပ်မတော် ဆိုသည်မှာ သရေခေတ္တယာအင်ပါယာ၊ ပုဂံအင်ပါယာ၊ တောင်ငူအင်ပါယာ၊ ညောင်ရမ်းအင်ပါယာ၊ ကုန်းဘောင်အင်ပါယာ၊ မြင်စိုင်းနိုင်ငံ၊ ပင်းယနိုင်ငံ၊ စစ်ကိုင်းနိုင်ငံ၊ အင်းဝနိုင်ငံ၊ မက္ခရာနိုင်ငံ၊ ဟံသာဝတီတိုင်းပြည်၊ သထုံတိုင်းပြည်၊ မြောက်ဦးတိုင်းပြည်၊ တိုင်ရှမ်းတိုင်းပြည်၊ လေးမြို့တိုင်းပြည် တို့၏ တပ်မတော် ကိုရည်ညွှန်းခြင်းဖြစ်ပါသည်။

စစ်တပ်ကို မြို့တော်နှင့် နန်းတော်ကို ကာကွယ်သည့် ထောင်ဂဏန်းရှိသော သေးငယ်သော တပ်ငယ်တစ်ခုအဖြစ် ဖွဲ့စည်းထားပြီး ပိုမိုကြီးမားသော စစ်မှုထမ်းအခြေပြု စစ်အတွင်း စစ်တပ်တစ်ခုအဖြစ် ဖွဲ့စည်းထားသည်။ စစ်မှုထမ်းစဉ်ကာလတွင် လူဦးရေအပေါ်အခြေခံ၍ ၎င်းတို့၏တရားစီရင်ပိုင်ခွင့်မှ ကြိုတင်သတ်မှတ်ထားသော လူများကို ၎င်းတို့၏တရားစီရင်ပိုင်ခွင့်ခွဲတမ်းကို ထောက်ပံ့ပေးရန် ဒေသတွင်းအကြီးအကဲများ လိုအပ်သည့် အမူထမ်း စနစ်အပေါ် အခြေခံထားသည်။ စစ်အတွင်း စစ်တပ်တွင် ဆင်တပ်၊ မြင်းတပ်၊ အမြောက်တပ် နှင့် ရေတပ်များ ပါဝင်သည်။

၁၄ ရာစုနှောင်းပိုင်းတွင် တရုတ်နိုင်ငံမှ စတင်မိတ်ဆက်ခဲ့သော သေနတ်များသည် ရာစုနှစ်များစွာကြာမှသာ ဗျူဟာအဖြစ် တဖြည်းဖြည်း ပေါင်းစပ်လာခဲ့သည်။ ပေါ်တူဂီ ကိုက်ညီသော့ခလောက်များ(ယမ်းသေနတ်များ) နှင့် အမြောက်မြား တပ်ဆင်ထားသည့် ပထမဆုံး အထူးကျောက်တုံး(သေနတ်တပ်) နှင့် အမြောက်တပ်များကို ၁၆ ရာစုတွင် ဖွဲ့စည်းခဲ့သည်။ အထူးသေနတ်တပ်များအပြင်တွင်၊ မိမိကိုယ်ကို ခုခံကာကွယ်ခြင်းဆိုင်ရာ အခြေခံဗဟုသုတရှိရန် မျှော်လင့်ထားကြသော ပုံမှန်စစ်သည်များအတွက် တရားဝင်လေ့ကျင့်ရေးအစီအစဉ် မရှိပါ။ ၁၈ ရာစုတွင် ဥရောပအင်အားကြီးနိုင်ငံများကြား နည်းပညာကွာဟချက် ကျယ်ပြန့်လာသည်နှင့်အမျှ စစ်တပ်သည် ပိုမိုခေတ်မီဆန်းပြားသော လက်နက်များကို ရောင်းချရန် ဥရောပသားများ၏ ဆန္ဒအပေါ် မှီခိုနေရသည်။

စစ်တပ်သည် ဘုရင့်နိုင်ငံတော်၏ အိမ်နီးချင်းနိုင်ငံများ၏ တပ်များကို ဆန့်ကျင်ဘက်ထက်ပို၍ ချုပ်ကိုင်ထားသော်လည်း နည်းပညာအရ ပိုမိုအဆင့်မြင့်သော ဥရောပစစ်တပ်များကို ဆန့်ကျင်သည့် စွမ်းဆောင်ရည်မှာ အချိန်နှင့်အမျှ ယိုယွင်းလာသည်။ ၁၇ နှင့် ၁၈ ရာစုများတွင် ပေါ်တူဂီနှင့် ပြင်သစ်ကျူးကျော်မှုများကို အသီးသီး အနိုင်ယူနိုင်ခဲ့သော်လည်း တပ်မတော်သည် ၁၉ ရာစုတွင် အင်္ဂလိပ်တို့၏ တိုးတက်မှုကို မရပ်တန့်နိုင်ဘဲ အင်္ဂလိပ်-မြန်မာ စစ်ပွဲသုံးကြိမ်စလုံး ရှုံးနိမ့်ခဲ့သည်။ ၁၈၈၆ ခုနှစ် ဇန်နဝါရီလ ၁ ရက်နေ့တွင် ဗမာဘုရင်စနစ်(ကုန်းဘောင်မင်းဆက်) နှင့် ၎င်း၏စစ်တပ်လက်ရုံးဖြစ်သော ဗမာ့တပ်မတော်(မြန်မာဘုရင့်တပ်မတော်) ကို ဗြိတိသျှတို့က တရားဝင် ဖျက်သိမ်းခဲ့သည်။

 ယနေ့အချိန်ထိ မြန်မာတို့သည် စစ်အင်အားကို *တပ်မတော်*ဟု သုံးစွဲခေါ်ဝေါ် ကြသည်။

## ဇစ်မြစ်
 in the service of Narapatisithu]]

မြန်မာဘုရင့်တပ်မတော်သည် ၈ ရာစုအလယ်ပိုင်းခန့်တွင် သရေခေတ္တယာနိုင်ငံတော်၏ အစောပိုင်းစစ်တပ်တွင် မူလအစရှိခဲ့သည်။ အစောဆုံး မှတ်တမ်းတင်ထားသော သမိုင်းမှာ ပျူမြို့ဟောင်းများကို ဖျက်ဆီးခဲ့သည့် ၈၃၀ ပြည့်လွန်နှစ်များအတွင်း နန်ဇော၏ စီးနင်းတိုက်ခိုက်မှုနှင့်အတူ ဧရာဝတီမြစ်အထက်ပိုင်း ချိုင့်ဝှမ်းသို့ ဝင်ရောက်ခဲ့သော ဗမာမှ ၈၄၉ ခုနှစ်တွင် ခိုင်ခံ့သော ပုဂံ(တမ္ပဒီပ) ၏ အုတ်မြစ်ဖြစ်သည်။ ရှေးဦးပုဂံစစ်တပ်တွင် စစ်မဖြစ်မီ သို့မဟုတ် စစ်မဖြစ်မီကာလတွင် စုဆောင်းထားသော စစ်မှုထမ်းများ ပါဝင်သည်။ ပုဂံအင်ပါယာကို တည်ထောင်ခဲ့သော အနော်ရထာကဲ့သို့သော ရှေးဘုရင်များသည် နန်းတော်၌ အမြဲတမ်းတပ်များ ရှိသင့်သည်ဟု သမိုင်းပညာရှင်များက ယုံကြည်ကြသော်လည်း မြန်မာရာဇဝင်များတွင် ရပ်တည်နေသော စစ်ဖွဲ့စည်းပုံအကြောင်း ပထမဆုံး အထူးဖော်ပြချက်မှာ ၁၁၇၄ ခုနှစ် နရပတိစည်သူမင်းကြီး နန်းစောင့်တပ်ကို တည်ထောင်သောအခါ- "ကုမ္ပဏီနှစ်ခုသည် အတွင်းနှင့်အပြင်၊ အခြားတစ်ခုနောက်တွင် တစ်တန်းတည်း စောင့်ကြည့်နေကြ၏။" ဟုဆိုထားပါသည်။ နန်းတော်အစောင့်များသည် စစ်ပွဲကာလတွင် အစုလိုက်အပြုံလိုက်စည်းကြပ်သည့် နျူကလိယအဝန်းဖြစ်လာသည်။

## Organization
The Royal Burmese Army was organized into three general tiers: the Palace Guards, the Capital Defense Corps, and the field levies. Only the first two were the standing military. They protected the sovereign and the capital region, and formed the nucleus of the armed forces in wartime. The third, the field levies or conscripts, were usually raised just prior to or during wartime, and provided manpower to resist attacks and project power beyond the boundaries of the empire. Most of the field levy served in the infantry but the men for the elephantry, cavalry, artillery and naval corps were drawn from specific hereditary villages that specialized in respective military skills.

### *Ahmudan* service system
The service to the army was organized according to the *ahmudan* ( ) system. The system, which had been in place since the Pagan era, required local chiefs to supply their predetermined quota of men from their jurisdiction on the basis of population in times of war. The village chiefs responded to mayors who in turn responded to governors and viceroys/sawbwas, who in turn responded to the high king. The quotas were fixed until the 17th century when Restored Toungoo kings instituted variable quotas to take advantage of demographic fluctuations. Some hereditary *ahmudan* villages, particularly those that had descended from European and Muslim corps, specialized in providing more skilled servicemen such as gunners and cannoneers. The selection of conscripts was left to the local headmen. Conscripts could provide a substitute or pay a fee in lieu of service. Conscripts often had to be driven into battle, and the rate of desertion was always high.

### Command
The command structure followed the three-tier organizational structure. The king was the commander-in-chief although in practice most kings appointed a commander-in-chief, usually from the ranks of the royal house or from the top command of the Palace Guards, to lead the campaigns. The Palace Guards were divided into four brigades, each of which resided in barracks outside the palace, and designated by the location in relation to the place: Front, Rear, Left and Right. The captain of each brigade was called *winhmu* (  ). The men generally were gentry, and selected for their trustworthiness.

### Special branches
The infantry was the backbone of the wartime Burmese army, and was supported by special branches—the elephantry, cavalry, artillery, and naval corps. These special branches were formed by the men from certain hereditary villages that provided the men with specialized skills. In a typical Toungoo or Konbaung formation, a 1000-strong infantry regiment was supported by 100 horses and 10 war elephants.

#### Elephantry
The main use of war elephants was to charge the enemy, trampling them and breaking their ranks. Although the elephantry units made up only about one percent of the overall strength, they were a major component of Burmese war strategy throughout the imperial era. The army on the march would bring expert catchers of wild elephants.

#### Cavalry
From the 17th century onward, cavalry troops made up about 10% of a typical regiment. The men of the cavalry were drawn mainly from hereditary villages in Upper Burma. One of the core areas that provided expert horsemen since the early 14th century was Sagaing. The *Sagaing Htaungthin* ( ; lit. "Thousand-strong Regiment of Sagaing") cavalry regiment, founded in 1318 by King Sawyun of Sagaing, was maintained up till the fall of Burmese monarchy. The formation of the regiment consisted of nine squadrons, from each named after the hereditary village.

Later in the 18th and 19th centuries, Manipuri horsemen formed the **Cassay Horse** (), the elite cavalry unit in the Burmese cavalry corps.

#### Artillery
During the 16th century, the Burmese artillery and musketeer corps were originally made up exclusively of foreign (Portuguese and Muslim) mercenaries. But by the mid-17th century, mercenaries, who had proven politically dangerous as well as expensive, virtually had disappeared in favor of cannoneers and matchlockmen in the Burmese military *ahmudan* system. However, the men who replaced the mercenaries were themselves descendants of the mercenaries who had settled in their own hereditary villages in Upper Burma where they practiced their own religion and followed their own customs.

### Strength
#### Standing army
The size of the regular standing army, the Palace Guards and the Capital Defense Corps, was in low thousands only, even in wartime. Even under Bayinnaung, the much celebrated soldier king whose reign was marked by a series of constant military campaigns, the Capital Defense Corps was only about 4000 strong. In 1826, right after the First Anglo-Burmese War, a British envoy reported a capital garrison of 4000 to 5000. In peacetime, the size was even smaller. In 1795, another British envoy found 2000 troops, including about 700 palace guards, at the capital Amarapura.

## Military technology
The main weaponry of the infantry largely consisted of swords, spears and bow and arrows down to the late 19th century although the use of firearms steadily increased starting from the late 14th century. The infantry units were supported by cavalry and elephantry corps. War elephants in particular were the heavily sought after as they were used to charge the enemy, trampling them and breaking their ranks. Elephantry and cavalry units were used in warfare down to the 19th century. Encounters with Burmese war elephants were recorded by the Mongols in their late 13th century invasions of Burma.

### Introduction of firearms
 from Mongol Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368)]]
The introduction of firearms first came to Burma from Ming China in the late 14th century. State-of-the-art Chinese military technology reached northern mainland Southeast Asia by way of Chinese traders and renegade soldiers, who despite the Ming government's prohibition, actively smuggled primitive handguns, gunpowder, cannon and rockets. True metal barreled handguns, first developed in 1288, and metal barreled artillery from the first half of 14th century had also spread. During the same period, Chinese and Arab-style firearms were also in use at the coast.

The lack of firearms was a major factor in the army's lackluster performance against the smaller Shan states in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. The Shans had soon learned to replicate Chinese arms and military techniques, and were able to strengthen their position not only against Ava but also against Ming China itself. Shan states at the Yunnan border (in particular, Mohnyin and Mogaung) were the first soon put this military technology to use. Despite their relatively small size, Mogaung in the 14th century and Mohnyin in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, raided much larger Upper Burma for decades.

However, this early technological advantage of the Shan states vis-a-vis Ava was gradually neutralized by the continued spread of the firearms. By the mid-16th century, the introduction of better firearms from Europe had reversed the positions, and helped Toungoo Dynasty annex all of the Shan states for the first time.

Firearms became a pillar of the new imperial order. Starting with the Hanthawaddy Kingdom, foreign gun makers were encouraged to establish foundries, which were even able to export to neighboring countries. For example, some of the firearms found in Malacca when the Portuguese took it in 1511 came from gun foundries in Lower Burma. Royal artisans produced gunpowder and matchlocks throughout the Toungoo period. Guns were also secured from China and various Tai-Shan realms. By the 17th century, mainland Southeast Asia was "fairly awash with guns of every kind". Expanding maritime trade after mid-18th century, a coincident increase in the quality of European handguns, and the frequency of warfare all contributed to increased integration of firearms. By 1824, on the eve of First Anglo-Burmese War, anywhere from 29 to 89 percent of Konbaung field armies were equipped with guns, with 60 percent a reasonable average.

However, the quality of domestically produced and Chinese firearms perpetually remained inferior to European ones. The court concentrated on procuring coastal imports, which—given the demands of campaigning and the guns' rapid deterioration in tropical conditions—became an endless task. Thus a principal responsibility of coastal governors was to procure firearms through purchases and levies on incoming ships. Royal agents also purchased guns as far afield as India and Aceh; while diplomatic approaches to Europeans typically focused on this issue. King Bodawpaya (r. 1782–1819) obliged Burmese merchants plying the Irrawaddy to supply specified quantities of foreign guns and powder in lieu of cash taxes.

### Widening technology gap with European powers
 musket]]
The quality gap between locally manufactured guns and European arms continued to widen as new rapid advances in technology and mass production in Europe quickly outstripped the pace of developments in Asia. Important developments were the invention of the flintlock musket and mass production of cast-iron cannon in Europe. The flitntlock was much faster, more reliable and more user-friendly than the unwieldy matchlock, which required one hand to hold the barrel, and another to adjust the match and pull the trigger.

By the late 17th century, gunmaking was no longer a relatively simple affair as had been the case with the matchlock but had become an increasingly sophisticated process that required highly skilled individuals and complex machinery. Southeast Asian rulers could no longer depend on Europeans or foreign Asians to produce guns locally that were on par with those manufactured in Europe or European foundries in Asia. The Burmese like other Southeast Asians were dependent on the goodwill of the Europeans for the supply of their guns. The Europeans for their part were loath to provide the Southeast Asians with the means to challenge them. As a result, early Konbaung kings continually sought reliable European arms but rarely received them in quantity they wanted. Or sometimes, they could not pay for them. In the 1780s, the Chinese trade embargo of Burmese cotton greatly limited the crown's ability to pay for more advanced foreign firearms. Bodawpaya had to rely on domestic musket production, which could produce only low-tech matchlocks while the rival Siamese were transitioning to more advanced European and American supplied flintlocks. Still, the flintlock slowly began to replace the less efficient and less powerful matchlock in Burma. The army also began to obtain cast-iron cannon. Not only did the skills of Burmese artillery men compare badly to those of the British ones, Burmese cannon technology was several generations behind. In the First Anglo-Burmese War, the Burmese cannon were mostly old ship guns of diverse caliber, and some of them 200 years old. Some of them were so old that they could be fired no often than once in 20 minutes. When they did, they still fired only non-exploding balls whereas the British troops employed exploding Congreve rockets.

The gap only widened even further after the Second Anglo-Burmese War (1852–1853), after which the British had annexed Lower Burma, and held a stranglehold on arm supplies to a landlocked Upper Burma. In response, the Burmese led by Crown Prince Kanaung instituted a modernization drive that saw the foundation of a gun and munitions foundry and a small artillery factory. But the drive sputtered after the prince's assassination in 1866. An 1867 trade agreement with the British "permitted" the Burmese to import arms but the British refused the Burmese request to import rifles, nonetheless.

## Training
The army maintained a limited regular training regimen for its Palace Guards and Capital Defense Corps but no formal training program for its conscripts.

### Pwe-kyaung system
To train the conscripts, the army relied on the non-state funded *pwe-kyaung* ( ) monastic school system at the local level for the conscripts' basic martial know-how. The *pwe-kyaungs* which, in addition to a religious curriculum, taught secular subjects such as astrology, divination, medicine (including surgery and massage), horse and elephant riding, boxing (*lethwei*) and self defense (*thaing*). This system had been in place since Pagan times. In the lowland Irrawaddy valley but also to a lesser extent in the hill regions, all young men were expected to have received a basic level of (religious) education, and secular education (including martial arts) from their local Buddhist monastery.

### Special units
Nevertheless, the pwe kyaung system was not sufficient to keep up with advances in military technology. In the 17th century, the army provided training in the use of firearms only to professional gun units. The average soldier was expected to fend for himself. Dutch sources record that when Burmese levies were mobilized in times of war, they were required to bring their own gunpowder, flints and provisions. It follows that when these recruits marched off to war with their own gunpowder and flints, they were clearly expected to use the guns that were normally kept under strict guard in a centralized magazine, and released to soldiers only during training or in times of war. Likewise, the Burmese had left the entire Chiang Mai region depopulated and its infrastructure destroyed in the wake of their 1775–1776 war with Siam.

The army also used scorched earth tactics as a means to intimidate the enemy and to secure easier future victories. The ruthless sacks of Martaban in 1541 and Prome in 1542 served to secure the fealty of Lower Burma to the upstart regime of Tabinshwehti of Toungoo. Threatened by Bayinnaung's army of a sack of their capital Ayutthaya, the Siamese duly surrendered in 1564. When the Siamese changed their mind in 1568, the city was brutally sacked in 1569. Two hundred years later, the army's brutal sack of Pegu in 1757 secured the subsequent tribute missions of Chiang Mai, Martaban and Tavoy to Alaungpaya's court. Indeed, the brutal 1767 sack of Ayutthaya has been in a major sore point in the Burmese-Thai relations to the present day.

### Use of firearms
Though firearms had been introduced since the late 14th century, they became integrated into strategy only gradually over many centuries. At first, Burmese shared with other Southeast Asians a tendency to regard guns of imposing appearance as a source of spiritual power, regardless of how well they functioned. A motley assortment of local manufactures, Muslim imports, and French and English rejects defied standardized supply or training. In sharp contrast to Europe, cannon were rarely used for frontal assaults on stone fortifications. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, the army had helped build the largest empire in mainland Southeast Asia on the back of a series of impressive military victories in the previous 70 years. They then ran into the British in present-day northeast India. The army was defeated in all three Anglo-Burmese wars over a six-decade span (1824–1885).

### Against Asian neighbors
Even without counting its sub-par performance against European powers, the army's performance throughout history was uneven. As the main fighting force consisted of poorly trained conscripts, the performance of the army therefore greatly depended on the leadership of experienced commanders. Under poor leadership, the army could not even stop frequent Manipuri raids that terrorized northwest Burma between the 1720s and 1750s. Under good leadership, the same peasant army not only defeated Manipur (1758) but also defeated arch-rival Siam (1767) as well as much larger China (1765–1769). (A similar shift in performance too was seen in Siam. The same Siamese conscript army, having defeated in the two wars in the 1760s by the Burmese, changed its fortunes under good leadership. It stopped the Burmese in the following two decades, and built an empire by swallowing up parts of Laos and Cambodia.)

Even under good military leadership, the army's continued success was not assured because of its heavy reliance on conscript manpower. This reliance had several major weaknesses. First, the size of population was often too small to support the conqueror kings' wartime ambitions. With the size of population even under Toungoo and Konbaung empires only about 2 million, continual warfare was made possible only by gaining more territories and people for the next campaign. The strategy proved unsustainable in the long run both with Toungoo dynasty in the 1580s and 1590s and the Konbaung Dynasty in the 1770s and 1780s. The long running wars of the 16th and 18th centuries greatly depopulated the Irrawaddy valley, and correspondingly reduced their later kings' ability to project power in lands most conscripts had never even heard of. The populace welcomed breaks from warfare such as during the reign of King Thalun (r. 1629–1648) or that of King Singu (r. 1776–1782).

Secondly, the army never effectively solved the problems of transporting and feeding large armies, especially for the long-distance campaigns. Badly planned campaigns saw many conscripts perished even before a single shot was fired. Indeed, the ability to get supplies to the front was one of the most important factors in Burma's centuries long wars with Siam in which each side's sphere of influence was largely determined by the distance and the number of days supplies could be shipped to the front.

Nonetheless, as history clearly shows, the army held more than its own against the armies of the kingdom's neighbors, all of which also faced the same problems to a similar degree. But facing head-on against more technologically advanced European forces would lead to the army's eventual end.

### Against European powers
 on 28 November 1885, Third Anglo-Burmese War]]
The Royal Burmese Army's performance vis-a-vis European forces grew worse as the technology gap grew wider. The fight against European forces was already a challenge even in the relatively low-tech matchlock era. The Burmese victory at Syriam in 1613, which drove out the Portuguese from Burma for good, came after a month's siege. In the flintlock era, mid-18th century, a French-defended Syriam (led by just a few hundred French troops) held out for 14 months before finally captured by Alaungpaya's forces in 1756.

Likewise, the Burmese put up the best fight in the First Anglo-Burmese War (1824–1826), the longest and most expensive war in British Indian history. The campaign cost the British five million to 13 million pounds sterling (roughly 18.5 billion to 48 billion in 2006 US dollars), and 15,000 men. But for the Burmese, it was the beginning of the end of their independence. Not only did they lose their entire western and southern territories by the Treaty of Yandabo, a whole generation of men had been wiped out on the battlefield. After 30 years of growing technology gap, the outcome of Second Anglo-Burmese War (1852) was never in doubt. Lower Burma was lost. Another three decades later, the Third Anglo-Burmese War (1885) lasted less than a month. The entire country was gone.

## The end
After the third and final war, on 1 January 1886, the British formally abolished the millennium old Burmese monarchy and its military arm, the Royal Burmese Army.  One month later, in February 1886, the former kingdom was administered as a mere province of the British Raj. (Burma would become a separate colony only in 1937.) Burmese resistance went on not only in the lowland Irrawaddy valley but also in the surrounding hill regions for another 10 years until 1896.

In a divide-and-rule maneuver, the British enforced their rule in the province of Burma mainly with Indian troops later joined by indigenous military units of three select ethnic minorities: the Karen, the Kachin and the Chin. The Burmans, "the people who had actually conquered by fire and sword half the Southeast Asian mainland", were not allowed to enter military service. (The British temporarily lifted the ban during World War I, raising a Burman battalion and seven Burman companies which served in Egypt, France and Mesopotamia. But after the war, the Burman troops were gradually discharged—most of the Burman companies were discharged between 1923 and 1925 and the last Burman company in 1929.) The British used Indian and ethnic minority dominated troops to ruthlessly put down ethnic majority dominated rebellions such as Saya San's peasant rebellion in 1930–1931. The divide-and-rule policies would lead to long-term negative tensions among the country's ethnic groups. In particular, the policies are said to have rankled deeply in the Burman imagination, "eating away at their sense of pride, and turning the idea of a Burmese army into a central element of the nationalist dream."

The emergence of a nationalist anti-colonialist Japan-backed Burman-dominated army in the 1940s in turn alarmed the ethnic minorities, especially the Karen. Since independence in 1948, the Myanmar Armed Forces, still called the *Tatmadaw* in Burmese in honor of the army of old. But unlike the Royal Burmese Army, in which minorities played a significant role throughout history, the modern Tatmadaw has been heavily dominated by Burmans. The modern Tatmadaw has been fighting one of the world's longest running civil wars ever since.

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ကဏ္ဍ:မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ၏ စစ်သမိုင်း
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