| Royal Armed Forces | |
|---|---|
| တပ်မတော် Tatmadaw | |
 | |
| Active | 849–1885 |
| Country |  Kingdom of Burma |
| Branch | Royal Bloodsworn Guard Guards Brigade Ahmudan Regiments Artillery Corps Elephantry Corps Cavalry Regiments Infantry Regiments Navy |
| Type | Army, Navy |
| Role | Military force |
| Size | 70,000 men at its height |
| Engagements | Mongol invasions Forty Years' War Toungoo–Hanthawaddy War Burmese–Siamese wars Konbaung–Hanthawaddy War Sino-Burmese War Anglo-Burmese Wars |
| Commanders | |
| Notable commanders | Kyansittha, Minye Kyawswa, Bayinnaung, Binnya Dala, Smim Payu, Saw Lagun Ein, Alaungpaya, Maha Nawrahta, Pierre de Milard, Maha Thiha Thura, Maha Bandula, Myawaddy Mingyi U Sa |
The Royal Armed Forces (Burmese: တပ်မတော်,[note 1] [taʔmədɔ̀]) were the armed forces of the Burmese monarchy from the 9th to 19th centuries. It refers to the military forces of the Pagan Kingdom, the Kingdom of Ava, the Hanthawaddy Kingdom, the Toungoo dynasty and the Konbaung dynasty in chronological order. The army was one of the major armed forces of Southeast Asia until it was defeated by the British over a six-decade span in the 19th century.
The army was organised into a small standing army of a few thousand, which defended the capital and the palace, and a much larger conscript-based wartime army. Conscription was based on the ahmudan system, which required local chiefs to supply their predetermined quota of men from their jurisdiction on the basis of population in times of war.[1] The wartime army also consisted of elephantry, cavalry, artillery and naval units.
Firearms, first introduced from China in the late 14th century, became integrated into strategy only gradually over many centuries. The first special musket and artillery units, equipped with Portuguese matchlocks and cannon, were formed in the 16th century. Outside the special firearm units, there was no formal training program for the regular conscripts, who were expected to have a basic knowledge of self-defense, and how to operate the musket on their own. As the technological gap between European powers widened in the 18th century, the army was dependent on Europeans' willingness to sell more sophisticated weaponry.[2]
While the army held more than its own against the armies of the kingdom's neighbors, its performance against more technologically advanced European armies deteriorated over time. It defeated the Portuguese and French intrusions in the 17th and 18th centuries respectively but the army could not stop the advance of the British in the 19th century, losing all three Anglo-Burmese Wars. On 1 January 1886, the millennium-old Burmese monarchy and its military arm, the Royal Burmese Armed Forces, were formally abolished by the British.
The Burmese name Tatmadaw is still the official name for today's armed forces as well in the Burmese names of their opponents such as the People's Defence Force which name is pronounced Pyithu Karkweyay Tatmadaw (ပြည်သူ့ကာကွယ်ရေးတပ်မတော်).
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