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The French Connection That Contributed to the Fall of a Kingdom

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Synergies Inde n° 7 - 2016 p. 87-98 GERFLINT The French Connection ISSN 1951-6436 that Contributed to the Fall of a Kingdom ISSN en ligne 2260-8060 Sudha Shah Auteur d’essais, Inde [email protected] Reçu le 11-04-2015 / Évalué le 10-10-2015 / Accepté 10-01-2016 La French Connection qui contribua à la chute d’un empire Résumé Vers la fin de 1885, beaucoup d’éléments ont contribué à la chute du royaume de Ava, au nord de la Birmanie. La France et l’Angleterre étaient les grandes forces impérialistes rivales de l’époque et une certaine « French connection » a joué un rôle important dans la décision des Anglais de coloniser ce royaume d’Ava. Mais une rivalité d’un autre ordre a préparé le terrain. A Mandalay, il y avait un triangle amoureux entre un Français, sa femme française et une birmane qui se croyait sa femme aussi. Cette rivalité a déclenché tout un mouvement de forces qui a conduit fatalement à la chute d’une dynastie qui a régné pendant 133 ans en Birmanie. Mots-clés : la Birmanie, la France, le roi Thibaw Abstract In late 1885, although many factors coalesced to bring about the fall of Upper Burma, or the Kingdom of Ava as it was also known, it was the kingdom’s ‘French connection’ that played the most significant role in Britain’s decision to colonize the kingdom. This was a period of blatant imperialism, England and France were two of the most successful empire-builders of the time, and therefore rivalry between the two countries was inevitable. But the course of history is rarely determined by large players alone; it was another rivalry, of a totally different kind, played out in the capital of the Kingdom of Ava, in Mandalay—a love triangle of a Frenchman, his newly acquired French wife and Burmese woman who considered herself to be the Frenchman’s wife—that is rumored to have precipitated the fall of the kingdom. But we need to go back a few years to be able to see the unfolding of the events that led to the deposition of a king and the end of a dynasty that had ruled Burma for 133 years. Keywords: Burma, France, King Thibaw No one expected Thibaw to become the king of the kingdom of Ava—Thibaw himself probably never felt he stood even a chance at it. He was the forty-first son (Desai, 1967 : 2) of King Mindon and an out-of-favour Shan Queen (who had been 87 Synergies Inde n° 7 - 2016 p. 87-98 dispatched to a nunnery for having been “unpardonably intimate” with a monk). A shy and reticent boy, he had not made much of an impression on his father until he passed with great distinction the Patamabyan examination (Shway Yoe, 1910 : 467-8) that followed three years of Buddhist studies. This greatly delighted his deeply devout father who wistfully imagined that his son might be the next Buddha (Mark, 1917: 224)! Although very pleased with Thibaw, King Mindon never seriously considered him to be a possible heir to the throne.(Desai, 1967 : 2) But in September 1878, when the king became seriously ill with dysentery and lay dying, the most powerful of his sixty-three wives, Sinbyumashin, skillfully persuaded her husband’s chief minister, the Kinwun Mingyi, and other ministers to support her choice of Thibaw as the next king (Foucar, 1963 : 86; Desai, 1967 : 2).They supported her because they too saw Thibaw as Sinbyumashin and the rest of the palace saw him, a goodhearted, even-tempered young man easily influenced by those around him—in other words a puppet to be manipulated by them. (Fielding-Hall, 1899 : 38-9)Sinbyumashin was an ambitious woman and in Thibaw she saw the means to an end. As mother of three daughters and no sons, she knew she could never be the mother of a king. But she could be the king’s mother-in-law. Very importantly, she knew that Thibaw was enamoured with her daughter Supayalat, and that the two had been exchanging love-letters1. (Although Supayalat was Thibaw’s half sister, during this period the marriage of close blood relatives was encouraged to continue the purity of the Konbaung dynasty.) King Mindon died on October 1, 1878, and on October 11, 1878 an “oath of allegiance” ceremony was held for Thibaw (Than Tun, 1989: 237-240), after which King Thibaw was known by a plethora of colorfully descriptive titles including “…ruler of the sea and land, lord of the rising sun, …king of all the umbrella bearing chiefs, lord of the mines of gold, silver, rubies, amber...master of many white elephants, the supporter of religion…the sun descended monarch, sovereign of the power of life and death…king of kings, possessor of boundless dominions and supreme wisdom, the arbiter of existence” (ShwayYoe, 1910 : 466). Born on January 1, 1859, Thibaw was under twenty when he became the bearer of all these titles and the king of Ava. His transition from monk to king had happened almost overnight, and he knew absolutely nothing about affairs of state. He had no training or experience in governing, and was completely dependent on the advice of those around him (Fielding-Hall, 1899: 39). This suited Sinbyumashin and the ministers who had put Thibaw on the throne just fine. 88 The French Connection that Contributed to the Fall of a Kingdom There were many princesses, including numerous half sisters of King Thibaw, who were eligible to become one of his four senior queens. But Supayalat used her charm and force of personality to ensure that he married just her and her older sister, and she saw to it that her sister was soon cast aside. King Thibaw, therefore, was the only Konbaung king in history not to have a multitude of queens. This greatly bothered the ministers of the kingdom. One of the ministers (the Taingda Mingyi) advised King Thibaw that kingly pride should compel him to immediately take eight wives (a long held tradition – each point and halfway point of the compass was symbolically represented by a queen2). This could be followed, at a later date, by the many more wives he was entitled to. The Kinwun Mingyi advised the same, for he was acutely aware that multiple wives would necessarily divert and divide the king’s attention, which was so disconcertingly focused on just one woman—awoman the Kinwun Mingyi increasingly distrusted (Jesse, 1981 : 157). By the end of the first year of King Thibaw’s reign, Queen Supayalat’s mother and the ministers who had helped make him king were ably elbowed out of the way by Queen Supayalat, and although the king presided over the Hluttaw (council of state or royal council—today the term is used to refer to the parliament of Burma), although he ceremoniously met visitors and held audiences, it was common knowledge that it was Queen Supayalat who wasthe power behind the throne. Her control and authority was described as dah-htet-te or “as sharp as a razor” (Blackburn, 2000 : 83). Upper Burma was not an easy kingdom to rule. All Konbaung rulers concentrated their attention and energy on governing their capital. People in villages and of the countryside were the primary responsibility of local hereditary chiefs. Various factors including the loss in two Anglo-Burmese wars (in 1824-6 and 1852-3), had led to an erosion of power of the monarchy. There was mounting turmoil and rebellion. Gangs of bandits had taken over many regions of the kingdom, and there was a general break down of law and order leading droves of people to flee the kingdom to British-occupied Lower Burma. Adding to the instability was increasing revolt by Shan chiefs. It had been the custom in the past for the king to take daughters of Shan chiefs as his junior queens thereby cementing ties between the king and the Shan states. With Queen Supayalat dictating that King Thibaw could not take any more wives, this system had to be abandoned (Thant Myint-U, 2001 : 171-6). All this made the kingdom politically unstable, and many felt that King Thibaw ruled only in name outside Mandalay (Foucar, 1963 : 122). Revenues were also a constant source of concern. Many hereditary chiefs took advantage of the political turmoil during King Thibaw’s reign and paid less and less into the royal coffers. The tax base of the kingdom had also greatly diminished 89 Synergies Inde n° 7 - 2016 p. 87-98 after much of country had been lost as a result of the two Anglo-Burmese wars. Compounding the problem was the fact that the kingdom now had to, on and off, increasingly import some staple goods including rice. This was because British- occupied Lower Burma contained the Irrawaddy delta, which was the rice-growing bowl of the region, and the kingdom had had years of bad rainfall. Rice prices kept rising due to increased international demand and this had an inflationary effect on the whole economy, as rice is the staple diet (Thant Myint-U, 2001 : 171, 107, 29, 121, 142-144) or more picturesquely, “wun-sa, food for the womb”(Mi Mi Khaing, 1996 : 86) of the Burmese. To increase revenues, various methods were tried. Royal monopolies and concessions were sold, taxes and various duties were restructured, lotteries were experimented with, and loans were resorted to. But corruption and nepotism was rife and none of these efforts worked to provide a stable, prosperous economy and kingdom.
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