THE BURMA KEY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25734, 4 January 1945, Page 4

THE BURMA KEY

STRATEGIC LIFELINE A THOUSAND YEARS’ BATTLE Politically a province of the Indian Empire, geographically a part of Indochina, and traditionally the battleground of ambitious war-lords from neighbouring Bengal, Assam, Tibet, China, Thailand, and Malaya, the vast territory of Burma has for centuries been, like its smaller counterpart Alsace in Europe, the crossroads of conflicting civilisations. With the intensification of the importance in the past three years of the road leading from Burma into Yunnan province, Burma has become to the eastern sphere of the present war what the Rhine territories have become to the western. While major actions are reported daily from the latter arena, a steady and unceasing struggle continues against the Japanese for mastery of Burma, its seaports, and its 700-mile highway into China. Knowledge about .Burma's distant past is conjectural. It is believed that the original inhabitants of its 262,732 square miles were Negritos, the only survivors of which race are now in the Andaman Islands. Of the present population of 15.000,000, most of the Burmans are descendants of Mongolians from Western China and Tibet, with sprinklings from other tribes and races. Turbulent History Successive waves of invaders seem to have spread over the province, bringing with them changes in th,e culture of the natives. Hindu mythology ousted Mongolian traditions, and Buddhism in its turn finally triumphed. Legend and fable give way to concrete personalities in 1054 with the accession of King Anawrahta, who, like William the Conqueror at almost the same time in England, founded a' new dynasty and began a new era of national history.

Barely a decade has passed in the 1000 years of known Burman history when there has not been an invasion or a devastating internal war. Kublai Khan and the Ming and the Manchu dynasties in turn expressed their ambitions respecting parts of Burma. The first contact with Europeans through Portuguese explorers and traders ushered in a further complication for this eastern buffer State. The Portuguese trading empire fell, and the Dutch withdrew, and the French were ejected from India in the eighteenth century, leaving Britain master of India. There followed a series of squabbles with the Burmese rulers, and in 1824 open war was declared. In 1852 the second Burma war occurred, and in 1886, after a third and decisive battle, Burma was annexed in its entirety by Britain, forming the largest singfe province in India.

European influence in Burma formed but another chapter in a tragic sequence of turbulence covering at least 1000 years. Internal feuds and the constant pressure of predatory neighbours have kept the territory in a state of unrest which is being intensified by its being placed in'the limelight of a new world war. After the British annexation considerable material and cultural progress was made in the face of constant antiBritish elements, and in later years by the echo of Gandhi’s non-co-opera-tion movements. In spite of these, Burma’s loyalty to Britain in the Great War was an example to the whole Empire. The Famous Burma Road

The Japanese made rapid strides in their conquest of Burma after their lightning thrust at Pearl Harbour in December, 1941. By May, 1942, they were almost masters of the country, and the Governor, Sir Reginald Dor-man-Smith, and the Prime Minister were forced to retreat to India, where they established a Burma Government. In August of that year a joint. Japan-ese-Burmese system of control was set up by the invaders, and the Japanese endeavoured to reorganise the territory and to propagandise their ideology of Asiatic co-operation, under Tokio’s leadership. At the end of each monsoon season the Allied forces renew with fresh vigour their air and patrol activity in Burma, thus emphasising the strategic importance of the reconquest of the territory. In recent years the imagination of the world has been stirred by the masterly engineering feat of constructing the Burma road, the lifeline betwene Burma’s seaports and China. The road was completed in 1939, and the Japanese seizure of Indochina threw upon it the added burden of transhipping supplies which formerly went into China, through Indochina. After October, 1940, the famous road was the only route open to the sea from the Yunnan province of China, and in February, 1942, the Japanese effectively cut this vital link between Burma and China. Since then some communication has been maintained between India and China by means of the old caravan route through Tibet and the Karakoram Pass. In more recent months the Allies have concentrated on conveying supplies into China by means of aeroplanes operating over the comparatively low mountain ranges in the vicinity of the Burma road. Remaining in control of Burma Is as important to Japan’s dream of dominating Asia as the expulsion of the Japanese is vital to the Allied cause.