involved in difficulties with England.  The Mission remained eighteen months in Paris, and succeeded in ratifying what the French called a ’Commercial Convention,’ under the terms of which a French Consul was located at Mandalay, who soon gained sufficient ascendancy over King Thebaw to enable him to arrange for the construction of a railway between Mandalay and Tonghu, and the establishment of a French bank at Mandalay, by means of which France would speedily have gained full control over the principal sources of Burmese revenue, and power to exclude British trade from the valley of the Irrawaddy.  In furtherance of these designs, the King picked a quarrel with a British trading company, threatened to cancel their leases for cutting timber, and demanded a fine of ten lakhs of rupees.

The Chief Commissioner proposed arbitration, but this was declined, and the King refusing to modify his action with regard to the trading company, the Viceroy proposed to the Secretary of State for India that an ultimatum[2] should be sent to King Thebaw.

In approving of the ultimatum, Lord Randolph Churchill expressed his opinion that its despatch should be concurrent with the movement of troops and ships to Rangoon, that an answer should be demanded within a specified time, and that if the ultimatum were rejected, an immediate advance on Mandalay should be made.

A force[3] of nearly 10,000 men and 77 guns, under the command of Lieutenant-General Prendergast, was accordingly ordered to be in readiness at Thyetmyo by the 14th November, and as the reply of the Burmese Government was tantamount to a refusal, Prendergast was instructed to advance on Mandalay, with the result which it was my pleasant duty to congratulate him upon in my capacity of Commander-in-Chief of the Army in India.

From Gwalior I went to Delhi to prepare for a Camp of Exercise on a much larger scale than had ever before been held.  Many weak points in the Commissariat and Transport Department having become only too apparent when the mobilization of the two Army Corps had been imminent the previous spring, it was considered necessary to test our readiness for war, and orders for the strength and composition of the force to be manoeuvred had been issued before Sir Donald Stewart left India.

The troops were divided into two Army Corps.  The northern assembled at Umballa, and the southern at Gurgaon, 25 miles from Delhi, the points of concentration being 150 miles apart.

After a fortnight passed in brigade and divisional movements, the opposing forces advanced, and on the 7th January they came into contact on the historic battlefield of Panipat.[4]