Battle of Rangoon (1852)

Battle context

The fall of Rangoon in April 1852 was one of the decisive early engagements of the Second Anglo-Burmese War. A British expeditionary force under Godwin and Lambert, outnumbered nearly two to one, took control of the city within days, forcing the Burmese army to retreat northward. Rangoon was the capital of the Third Burmese Empire, and its rapid capture shifted the strategic initiative firmly to the British. The city subsequently became the administrative capital of British Burma and remained so until the end of British rule in 1948, making the battle a foundational moment in the territorial consolidation of British India's eastern frontier.