Burma sends one of her top generals, Thado Thiri Maha Uzana, into Cachar and Jaintia to disperse the rebels in January 1824.

The British send in their own force to meet the Burmese in Cachar, a district of Assam, resulting in the first clashes between the two nations.

The first Anglo Burmese war formally breaks out on March 5, 1824, following border clashes in Arakan.

The British reason for the war is, in addition to expanding British Bengal's sphere of influence, the desire for new markets for British manufacturing.

The British are also anxious to deny the French the use of Burmese harbors and concerned about French influence at the Court of Ava, as the kingdom is still known to them.

British Ambassador Michael Symes's mission has been equipped to gain as much knowledge as possible of the country for future British plans, whereas previous envoys had been concerned principally with trade concessions.

Anglo–French rivalry had already played a role during Alaungpaya's endeavors to unify the kingdom.

The Burmese in these wars are advancing into smaller states not ruled by the British or the subject of expansionary goals by the British before the war began, and the British will be not so much preoccupied by the refugee problem initially as by the threat posed by the French, until further incidents force their hand.

The British, instead of fighting in hard terrain, take the fight to the Burmese mainland.

A British naval force of over ten thousand men (five thousand British soldiers and over five thousand Indian sepoys) enter the harbor of Yangon on May 11, 1824, a, taking the Burmese by surprise.

The Burmese, pursuing a scorched earth policy, leave an empty city behind and choose to fortify positions along an east-west ten-mile arc outside the city.

The British forces led by General Archibald Campbell take up a position inside the Shwedagon Pagoda compound, which is fortified.

The commander in chief of the Burmese army, Maha Bandula, is supported by twelve of the country's best divisions, including one under his personal command, all totaling ten thousand men and five hundred horses.

His general staff includes some of the country's most decorated soldiers, men like the Lord of Salay and the governors of Danyawaddy, Wuntho and Taungoo.

Bandula's plan is to attack the British on two fronts: Chittagong from Arakan in the southeast, and Sylhet from Cachar and Jaintia in the north.

Bandula personally commands the Arakan theater while Uzana commands the Cachar and Jaintia theater.

Early in the war, battle hardened Burmese forces are able to push back the British forces because the Burmese, who have been fighting in the jungles of Manipur and Assam for nearly a decade, are more familiar with the terrain.

Uzana had already defeated the British units in Cachar and Jaintia in January 1824.

In May, about four thousand Burmese forces led by U Sa, Lord Myawaddy, fight their way into Bengal, and defeat British troops at the Battle of Ramu, ten miles east of Cox's Bazar on May 17, 1824.

Sa's column now joins Bandula's column on the march to defeat British forces at Gadawpalin, and goes on to capture Cox's Bazar.

The Burmese success causes extreme panic in Chittagong and ...

...in Calcutta.

Across the eastern Bengal, the European inhabitants form themselves into militia forces, and a large portion of the crews of the East India Company's ships are landed to assist in the defense of Calcutta.

Bandula, not wanting to overstretch, stops U Sa from proceeding to Chittagong.

Had Bandula marched on to Chittagong, which unbeknown to him is lightly held, he could have taken it and the way to Calcutta would have been open.

Were the Burmese able to threaten Calcutta, they could have obtained more favorable terms in the peace negotiations later on.

The British launch attacks on Burmese lines, and by July 1824 have successfully pushed the Burmese towards Kamayut, five miles from Shwedagon.

Burmese efforts to retake Shwedagon in September fail.