Anglo-Burmese Relations

In the beginning of the 19th century, Burma was a free country and wanted to expand westward. The expansionist urges of the British, fuelled by the lure of the forest resources of Burma, market for British manufactures in Burma and the need to check French ambitions in Burma and the rest of South-East Asia, resulted in three Anglo-Burmese Wars, and in the end, the annexation of Burma into British India in 1885.