CHIN LUSHAI EXPEDITION, BURMA, 1890
2nd-Lieutenant Francis Alexander Kingslake Foster, King's Own Scottish Borderers
St. Swithun's, Sandy, Bedfordshire
The Man
Francis Alexander Foster was born in Pimlico, on Belgrave Road, in 1867, and educated at Harrow. His father, Edward John Foster, was a solicitor at the Inns of Court, member of a noted Bedfordshire family who had prospered as merchants in Biggleswade. Francis' grandfather, Edward's father, John Nathaniel Foster, lived in Sandy Place in Sandy. An early-18th Century mansion, now Grade II listed, the house can still be seen should you decide to visit Sandye Place Middle School.
Francis was a lieutenant in the King's Own Scottish Borderers when his battalion, stationed in Burma, was attached to an expedition into the Chin Hills, the range of mountains which can be traced running down from Assam along what is now the Bangla Desh - Burma border. In the late 19th Century the hills were the haunt of a number of tribes of the Mizo, or Zomi, people, whose raiding had become a major concern to the British controlling the lands around.
The Background
Just naming these tribes is awkward, as indicated by my saying "Mizo or Zomi"; the two are synonymous, both meaning "Zo's people" or "Zo's man" - it just depends on whether you use "Mi" as a prefix or a suffix. They are also referred to by a range of other names, with Chin being the most common, that were used by those outside but not by the tribesmen themselves. Some sources will refer to a group by the name of their village, or by the name of their chief, nomenclatures which reflect the nature of the tribes' social structure. Whereas elsewhere in the world Britain encountered native opposition which had identifiable leaders, that did not apply to the Chin Hills. Each village was independent under the leadership of its chief, and although some chiefs were clearly more influential than others they did not rule as such, and individual village chiefs did not necessarily follow them.
The hill tribes' society was heavily based on the use of slaves for domestic and agricultural tasks, with slave women used as members of harems, and traditionally they had raided outside their areas to supplement their supply, so by the time the British arrived in Eastern India such raids were established practice. The British arrival, however, altered the dynamics in two major ways.
Firstly the British presence introduced guns into the equation. Spears and knives continued to be the tribes' main weapons, but guns became prized as major status symbols, almost as prized as the heads that the warriors also collected. Secondly, as the British moved further east from India into Assam, they recognised that the tea plant was indigenous to the area, and that the region would therefore be ideal for tea estates, so from 1855 they began to establish tea plantations. Assam was north-west of the tribal territory, but had often been raided in the past, and with their large imported labour force the tea estates proved tempting targets.
Rather naively, or perhaps cynically, the British thought that the estates were protected by a border agreement that they had signed with a leading tribal chief, but no other chiefs had recognised the agreement, and he did not speak for them, so throughout the 1860s a number of raids took place in Assam, with labourers killed and abducted. In January 1871 one particular raid forced an active British response, as it involved the killing of a British planter named James Winchester, and the kidnapping of his six year-old daughter, Mary. A punitive expedition was launched into territory that the British had never ventured into before, and in January 1872 Mary was recovered (although from contemporary reports she was apparently reluctant to return, rather like John Wayne's niece in The Searchers). The strength of the British incursion, which also involved the burning of villages and crops, quietened the tribes on the western side of the hills for a decade, but in the 1880s the situation worsened again.
In 1884-84 a famine hit the Chin-Lushai hills, combining with (or contributing to) a decline in the tribes' rubber trade, which was their only reliable way of gaining income. A return to raiding, which had never really ceased in Burma to the east, therefore became attractive. Then in November 1885 the British victory in the Third Anglo-Burmese War led to Britain's annexation of Burma, and meant that the tribes' territories were now virtually surrounded by British-controlled land - so raiding was certain to become an issue again.
The Prelude
For the next few years minor forays took place, and in response the British decided to survey a road route into the hills, which would open the way for the establishment of a British presence, and eventually British control in the area. In February 1888 the survey party, led by a Lieutenant Stewart of the Leinster Regiment, was attacked. Stewart, his two British troops and a sepoy were killed. Stewart's body was taken, as were the heads of the other three.
No immediate action was taken, and the following 18 months saw a number of raids, with villages destroyed and their inhabitants killed and captured. The tribes must have thought that the British had no appetite for a fight with them, but the Indian Government had not been inactive; it was just biding its time.
The Campaign
The logistical difficulties the British faced should not be underestimated. The hills covered an area of over twenty-five thousand square miles, rising to nearly nine thousand feet, with no roads, only tracks. They were virtually unexplored, and the monsoon season between May and November made any military excursions in those months untenable. It is not surprising, therefore, that it took a while for the British response to be formulated, but when it did it was quite formidable.
In the Autumn of 1889 the Indian Government authorised a three-pronged force, to be known as the Chin-Lushai Expedition. The main objective was to pacify the tribes, but at the same time, and as part of the pacification process, the forces were to construct an East-West road through the hills, and create a series of military posts, thus establishing a permanent British presence in the region. A more immediate and, to the troops involved, personal motive was to avenge the killing of Lieutenant Stewart and his party, and to recover the weapons and heads taken when they were killed.
The largest part of the force, known as the Lushai or Chittagong Field Force, under Brigadier-General Tregear of the Bengal Infantry, consisted of three thousand, four hundred Gurkha and Indian troops, including sappers to build the road. This force advanced from Lunghei, west of the hills, and moved against the western tribes. Meanwhile two columns approached from the east. The Southern Column, also called the Chin or Gangaw Column, consisted of Indian troops and artillery, sappers, and five hundred men of the King's Own Scottish Borderers, under Brigadier-General Symons. The Northern, or Fort White, Column, operated from Fort White, a purpose-built garrison post near what is now Tiddim. It consisted of Gurkhas, sappers, Military Police, and four hundred men of the 1st Battalion the Cheshire Regiment, and was under the command of either Colonel Skinner or Skene (sources disagree). These two columns were to unite and take action against the eastern tribes.
Although the forces met with some resistance as they progressed the Expedition's aims were generally met fairly easily. The location of Lieutenant Stewart's body was soon identified, and it and his gun retrieved from the grave of the tribal chief responsible for the attack. The missing heads were recovered soon after. The tribes, with their fragmented structure, could not mount an effective co-ordinated opposition, and most capitulated when confronted. A few British troops were killed in various ambushes conducted during road-building operations, but the vast majority of casualties were down to disease. It is fair to say, therefore, that men like Francis Foster, Lieutenant Palmer of the Royal Engineers (killed on December 7th when his working party was attacked), 2nd-Lieutenant Michel of the Norfolk Regiment (killed on 4th May when his convoy was ambushed), and the handful of unnamed privates and sepoys slain during the sporadic fighting, were all unlucky to be victims of conflict. Foster's death was even more ironic, in that he would have thought he was perfectly safe.
The Action
On January 9th Foster's force was camped at a place known then as Taungtek (I have been unable to locate this place), having accepted the formal surrender of the local Yokwa chiefs at their nearby village of Lamtok (again, unlocated). Foster went out walking with two comrades, a Lieutenant Pratt of his own regiment, the Scottish Borderers, and Surgeon-Major Burke of the Medical Service. About a mile and a half out of the camp the three were fired upon. Pratt drew his revolver and chased the assailants, who fled. When Pratt returned he found Burke bent over the body of Foster, who had been shot through the back of the head, dying instantly. The killers were later identified as a group from a village called Thetta, who had had no part of the surrender negotiated by the Yokwa, so that the attack was, from the Thetta men's point of view, totally justified. Foster's body was taken back to the camp, and buried there, although there is a cemetery about a mile north of Tiddim, called The White Cemetery, which houses the graves of a number of the British casualties of the campaign, and it is possible that his body was later reburied there.
Aftermath
By the end of May the campaign was over. The road had been built, the forts erected and garrisoned, and the tribes seemed, on the whole, to be subdued. Unfortunately the British then tried to force the tribesmen to work for them as coolies or labourers, and that did not go down well. Within a year hostilities had recommenced, and the army had to go back into the hills, and do it all over again - only it would prove to be a bit more difficult this time.
IN LOVING MEMORY OF FRANCIS ALEXANDER KINGLAKE FOSTER 2ND LT. KOSB ONLY SON OF EDWARD JOHN FOSTER & MARY HIS WIFE HE WAS SHOT BY THE ENEMY FEB 12 1890 WHILE ON ACTIVE SERVICE WITH HIS REGIMENT ON THE CHIN LUSHAI EXPEDITION UPPER BURMA IN THE 23RD YEAR OF HIS AGE HIS BODY RESTS IN TAUNGTEK ON THE CHIN HILLS "UNTIL THE DAY BREAKS AND THE SHADOWS FLEE AWAY"
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Francis Alexander Foster was born in Pimlico, on Belgrave Road, in 1867, and educated at Harrow. His father, Edward John Foster, was a solicitor at the Inns of Court, member of a noted Bedfordshire family who had prospered as merchants in Biggleswade. Francis' grandfather, Edward's father, John Nathaniel Foster, lived in Sandy Place in Sandy. An early-18th Century mansion, now Grade II listed, the house can still be seen should you decide to visit Sandye Place Middle School.
Francis was a lieutenant in the King's Own Scottish Borderers when his battalion, stationed in Burma, was attached to an expedition into the Chin Hills, the range of mountains which can be traced running down from Assam along what is now the Bangla Desh - Burma border. In the late 19th Century the hills were the haunt of a number of tribes of the Mizo, or Zomi, people, whose raiding had become a major concern to the British controlling the lands around.
The Background
Just naming these tribes is awkward, as indicated by my saying "Mizo or Zomi"; the two are synonymous, both meaning "Zo's people" or "Zo's man" - it just depends on whether you use "Mi" as a prefix or a suffix. They are also referred to by a range of other names, with Chin being the most common, that were used by those outside but not by the tribesmen themselves. Some sources will refer to a group by the name of their village, or by the name of their chief, nomenclatures which reflect the nature of the tribes' social structure. Whereas elsewhere in the world Britain encountered native opposition which had identifiable leaders, that did not apply to the Chin Hills. Each village was independent under the leadership of its chief, and although some chiefs were clearly more influential than others they did not rule as such, and individual village chiefs did not necessarily follow them.
The hill tribes' society was heavily based on the use of slaves for domestic and agricultural tasks, with slave women used as members of harems, and traditionally they had raided outside their areas to supplement their supply, so by the time the British arrived in Eastern India such raids were established practice. The British arrival, however, altered the dynamics in two major ways.
Firstly the British presence introduced guns into the equation. Spears and knives continued to be the tribes' main weapons, but guns became prized as major status symbols, almost as prized as the heads that the warriors also collected. Secondly, as the British moved further east from India into Assam, they recognised that the tea plant was indigenous to the area, and that the region would therefore be ideal for tea estates, so from 1855 they began to establish tea plantations. Assam was north-west of the tribal territory, but had often been raided in the past, and with their large imported labour force the tea estates proved tempting targets.
Rather naively, or perhaps cynically, the British thought that the estates were protected by a border agreement that they had signed with a leading tribal chief, but no other chiefs had recognised the agreement, and he did not speak for them, so throughout the 1860s a number of raids took place in Assam, with labourers killed and abducted. In January 1871 one particular raid forced an active British response, as it involved the killing of a British planter named James Winchester, and the kidnapping of his six year-old daughter, Mary. A punitive expedition was launched into territory that the British had never ventured into before, and in January 1872 Mary was recovered (although from contemporary reports she was apparently reluctant to return, rather like John Wayne's niece in The Searchers). The strength of the British incursion, which also involved the burning of villages and crops, quietened the tribes on the western side of the hills for a decade, but in the 1880s the situation worsened again.
In 1884-84 a famine hit the Chin-Lushai hills, combining with (or contributing to) a decline in the tribes' rubber trade, which was their only reliable way of gaining income. A return to raiding, which had never really ceased in Burma to the east, therefore became attractive. Then in November 1885 the British victory in the Third Anglo-Burmese War led to Britain's annexation of Burma, and meant that the tribes' territories were now virtually surrounded by British-controlled land - so raiding was certain to become an issue again.
The Prelude
For the next few years minor forays took place, and in response the British decided to survey a road route into the hills, which would open the way for the establishment of a British presence, and eventually British control in the area. In February 1888 the survey party, led by a Lieutenant Stewart of the Leinster Regiment, was attacked. Stewart, his two British troops and a sepoy were killed. Stewart's body was taken, as were the heads of the other three.
No immediate action was taken, and the following 18 months saw a number of raids, with villages destroyed and their inhabitants killed and captured. The tribes must have thought that the British had no appetite for a fight with them, but the Indian Government had not been inactive; it was just biding its time.
The Campaign
The logistical difficulties the British faced should not be underestimated. The hills covered an area of over twenty-five thousand square miles, rising to nearly nine thousand feet, with no roads, only tracks. They were virtually unexplored, and the monsoon season between May and November made any military excursions in those months untenable. It is not surprising, therefore, that it took a while for the British response to be formulated, but when it did it was quite formidable.
In the Autumn of 1889 the Indian Government authorised a three-pronged force, to be known as the Chin-Lushai Expedition. The main objective was to pacify the tribes, but at the same time, and as part of the pacification process, the forces were to construct an East-West road through the hills, and create a series of military posts, thus establishing a permanent British presence in the region. A more immediate and, to the troops involved, personal motive was to avenge the killing of Lieutenant Stewart and his party, and to recover the weapons and heads taken when they were killed.
The largest part of the force, known as the Lushai or Chittagong Field Force, under Brigadier-General Tregear of the Bengal Infantry, consisted of three thousand, four hundred Gurkha and Indian troops, including sappers to build the road. This force advanced from Lunghei, west of the hills, and moved against the western tribes. Meanwhile two columns approached from the east. The Southern Column, also called the Chin or Gangaw Column, consisted of Indian troops and artillery, sappers, and five hundred men of the King's Own Scottish Borderers, under Brigadier-General Symons. The Northern, or Fort White, Column, operated from Fort White, a purpose-built garrison post near what is now Tiddim. It consisted of Gurkhas, sappers, Military Police, and four hundred men of the 1st Battalion the Cheshire Regiment, and was under the command of either Colonel Skinner or Skene (sources disagree). These two columns were to unite and take action against the eastern tribes.
Although the forces met with some resistance as they progressed the Expedition's aims were generally met fairly easily. The location of Lieutenant Stewart's body was soon identified, and it and his gun retrieved from the grave of the tribal chief responsible for the attack. The missing heads were recovered soon after. The tribes, with their fragmented structure, could not mount an effective co-ordinated opposition, and most capitulated when confronted. A few British troops were killed in various ambushes conducted during road-building operations, but the vast majority of casualties were down to disease. It is fair to say, therefore, that men like Francis Foster, Lieutenant Palmer of the Royal Engineers (killed on December 7th when his working party was attacked), 2nd-Lieutenant Michel of the Norfolk Regiment (killed on 4th May when his convoy was ambushed), and the handful of unnamed privates and sepoys slain during the sporadic fighting, were all unlucky to be victims of conflict. Foster's death was even more ironic, in that he would have thought he was perfectly safe.
The Action
On January 9th Foster's force was camped at a place known then as Taungtek (I have been unable to locate this place), having accepted the formal surrender of the local Yokwa chiefs at their nearby village of Lamtok (again, unlocated). Foster went out walking with two comrades, a Lieutenant Pratt of his own regiment, the Scottish Borderers, and Surgeon-Major Burke of the Medical Service. About a mile and a half out of the camp the three were fired upon. Pratt drew his revolver and chased the assailants, who fled. When Pratt returned he found Burke bent over the body of Foster, who had been shot through the back of the head, dying instantly. The killers were later identified as a group from a village called Thetta, who had had no part of the surrender negotiated by the Yokwa, so that the attack was, from the Thetta men's point of view, totally justified. Foster's body was taken back to the camp, and buried there, although there is a cemetery about a mile north of Tiddim, called The White Cemetery, which houses the graves of a number of the British casualties of the campaign, and it is possible that his body was later reburied there.
Aftermath
By the end of May the campaign was over. The road had been built, the forts erected and garrisoned, and the tribes seemed, on the whole, to be subdued. Unfortunately the British then tried to force the tribesmen to work for them as coolies or labourers, and that did not go down well. Within a year hostilities had recommenced, and the army had to go back into the hills, and do it all over again - only it would prove to be a bit more difficult this time.
IN LOVING MEMORY OF FRANCIS ALEXANDER KINGLAKE FOSTER 2ND LT. KOSB ONLY SON OF EDWARD JOHN FOSTER & MARY HIS WIFE HE WAS SHOT BY THE ENEMY FEB 12 1890 WHILE ON ACTIVE SERVICE WITH HIS REGIMENT ON THE CHIN LUSHAI EXPEDITION UPPER BURMA IN THE 23RD YEAR OF HIS AGE HIS BODY RESTS IN TAUNGTEK ON THE CHIN HILLS "UNTIL THE DAY BREAKS AND THE SHADOWS FLEE AWAY"
COMMENT ON THIS STORY ON FACEBOOK
Sources
Photos
Chin Hills National park - http://www.asiantrailtours.com
Military
Online
http://archive.org/stream/chinhillsahisto01tuckgoog/chinhillsahisto01tuckgoog_djvu.txt - this is an online version of a book: The Chin Hills - a history of the people, our dealings with them, their customs and manners, and a Gazeteer of their country" by Bertram Carey and H.N Tuch (Rangoon)
http://archive.org/stream/historyofthefron035444mbp/historyofthefron035444mbp_djvu.txt
http://oudl.osmania.ac.in/bitstream/handle/OUDL/11945/214741_Chin_Lushai_Land.pdf?sequence=2 - this is an online edition of a book: Chin Lushai Land by Surgeon-Lieutenant-Colonel A. S. Reid
http://wiki.fibis.orghttp://www.rootschat.com
http://www.victorianwars.comhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_rule_in_Burmahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_White,_Burma
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Winchester_(Zoluti)
http://www.zogam.org
Print-based
'Mizo Chiefs and the Chiefdom' - Suhas Chatterjee, M.D. Publications, 1995
Genealogy
www.ancestry.co.uk
http://www.bedfordshire.gov.uk/CommunityAndLiving/ArchivesAndRecordOffice/CommunityArchives/Sandy/SandyePlaceMiddleSchool.aspx
http://www.biggleswadehistory.org.uk/Families/Foster.htm
http://www.rothschildfostertrust.com/john_foster/introduction/
http://www.victorianresearch.org/atcl/show_author.php?aid=2290 - brief notes on authoress Edith Cuthell, Lt. Foster's aunt
© Jonathan Dewhirst January 2014
Photos
Chin Hills National park - http://www.asiantrailtours.com
Military
Online
http://archive.org/stream/chinhillsahisto01tuckgoog/chinhillsahisto01tuckgoog_djvu.txt - this is an online version of a book: The Chin Hills - a history of the people, our dealings with them, their customs and manners, and a Gazeteer of their country" by Bertram Carey and H.N Tuch (Rangoon)
http://archive.org/stream/historyofthefron035444mbp/historyofthefron035444mbp_djvu.txt
http://oudl.osmania.ac.in/bitstream/handle/OUDL/11945/214741_Chin_Lushai_Land.pdf?sequence=2 - this is an online edition of a book: Chin Lushai Land by Surgeon-Lieutenant-Colonel A. S. Reid
http://wiki.fibis.orghttp://www.rootschat.com
http://www.victorianwars.comhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_rule_in_Burmahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_White,_Burma
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Winchester_(Zoluti)
http://www.zogam.org
Print-based
'Mizo Chiefs and the Chiefdom' - Suhas Chatterjee, M.D. Publications, 1995
Genealogy
www.ancestry.co.uk
http://www.bedfordshire.gov.uk/CommunityAndLiving/ArchivesAndRecordOffice/CommunityArchives/Sandy/SandyePlaceMiddleSchool.aspx
http://www.biggleswadehistory.org.uk/Families/Foster.htm
http://www.rothschildfostertrust.com/john_foster/introduction/
http://www.victorianresearch.org/atcl/show_author.php?aid=2290 - brief notes on authoress Edith Cuthell, Lt. Foster's aunt
© Jonathan Dewhirst January 2014
