A Burmese wonderland; a tale of travel in Lower and ... - Khamkoo

CHAPTER XVII.
A Burmese Military Venture.
We will now examine the modern Burmese soldier,
and mark the steps of his progress since his recent
entry into our Army. The nation is roughly eight
miUion strong : a highly sensitive wayward people,
who require more careful handling than any of the other
races of Burma. Their language is extremely difficult,
and their enrolment as soldiers began late in the war
by which time most of the Burmese-speaking Europeans
who might have officered them were scattered over the
world. After being neglected as soldiers for thirty
years since annexation, Burmans were raised hurriedly
in 1917 and at a critical moment. These were facts
that made the venture a httle difficult at first.
A perfect recruiting system cannot be set up all
at once in the confusion of a war. Burmese recruiting
was unfortunate at the outset. Bad characters were
pushed wholesale out of towns and villages into the
Army. This, in Burmese times, was a recognized way
of recruiting. Now there is no one more incorrigible
than a bad Burman, and no one more ready to turn
the weak points of a situation to his own advantage.
The desertions and general misbehaviour of these
scaliwags gave people who had always deprecated local