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]

Lord Dufferin, whose interest in the efficiency of the army induced
him to come all the way from Calcutta to witness the last two days'
manoeu