The Royal Armed Forces 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. The wartime army also consisted of elephantry, cavalry, artillery and naval units. 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 Royal Burmese Army was organized into three general tiers: the Palace Guards, the 

Ahmudan Regiments, and the field levies. Only the first two were the standing military. They protected the sovereign and the capital region, and formed the nucleus of the armed forces in wartime. The third, the field levies or conscripts, were usually raised just prior to or during wartime, and provided manpower to resist attacks and project power beyond the boundaries of the empire. Most of the field levy served in the infantry but the men for the elephantry, cavalry, artillery and naval corps were drawn from specific hereditary villages that specialized in respective military skills. The King and the royal family's personal protection are under the Royal Thwei-thauks or Bloodsworn Guards, who were sworn under a blood oath, hence their name. They are generally made up of royal relatives and the most trusted courtiers. The term sometimes refer to the close companions of the King. The most famous example is the ethnic Mon General Binnya Dala, who was a thwei-thauk of Bayinnaung. Dala describes the men, who had sworn the blood oath as "All [of us], his chosen men, in fact, whether Shans, Mons or Burmans... declared ourselves willing to lay down our lives [for him]." The Bloodsworns were never a permanent military body and their loyalty was personal to the individual king. Whenever a new king reigns, he would form his own bodyguard of Bloodsworn men, usually from his own retainers or relatives. The Guards Division consisted of four brigades, each of which resided in barracks outside the palace, and designated by the location in relation to the place: Front, Rear, Left and Right. The captain of each brigade was called winhmu. The men generally were gentry, and selected for their trustworthiness. Servicemen in the Capital Regiments and the Royal Palace Guards were selected from trusted hereditary ahmudan village located near the capital or the king's ancestral/appanage region. The Guard Regiments were notably for including a large number of non-Burmese in their ranks. In the Konbaung era, the interior Palace was guarded by companies of Laotian, Shan and Northern Thai soldiers. They served in a similar function to the Swiss Guards of European monarchs in the 17th and 18th century. Burmese of European descendants known as the Bayingyi are noted to serve in these regiments as well. Service to the army was organized according to the ahmudan system, which had been in place since the Pagan era. Ahmudan literally means civil service. This required local chiefs to supply their predetermined quota of men from their jurisdiction on the basis of population in times of war. The infantry was the backbone of the wartime Burmese army, and was supported by special branches—the elephantry, cavalry, artillery, and naval corps. These special branches were formed by the men from certain hereditary villages that provided the men with specialized skills. In a typical Toungoo or Konbaung formation, a 1000-strong infantry regiment was supported by 100 horses and 10 war elephants. During the 19th century elephants were still used to carry armed men and artillery; one elephant could carry a battery of eight pieces. The most iconic image of the Burmese royal army is the layered wavy collars that extend to the shoulders worn by officers and officials. The formal attire of the field infantry was minimalist. Ordinary foot soldiers were typically dressed only in thick quilted cotton jackets called taikpon, even in the campaigns that required them to cross thick jungles and high mountains. Their dresses were hardly enough to keep the conscripts warm during the army's punishing, many-week-long marches. The palace guards wore more ostentatious uniforms—Bayinnaung's palace guards wore "golden helmets and splendid dresses"—and rode horses and elephants. Tabinshwehti's cavalry were described to be wearing "curiasses, breastplates, and skirts of mail, as well as lances, swords and gilded shields." Their mounts were "richly caparisoned horses". Western-influenced uniforms became common after the Second Anglo-Burmese War during the reign of King Mindon. Burmese uniforms in the 1860s consisted of green jackets, red striped pasos and red helmets though regular infantry wore civilian white jackets. A European observer described the Burmese cavalry dressed in "red jackets and trousers, a few wearing a red jerkin over these, and still fewer dressed in the full uniform of the cavalry, shoulder-pieces, gilt helmet, with ear-pieces and embroidered jerkin; all had the white saddle-flap and high-peaked pommel and cantle. The men were armed with a spear and a sword each, with the latter being, as a rule, a Burmese dha (sword), but a few had the sword of a European shape with a scabbard of brass or steel." Charney suggests that uniforms were worn only on special occasions as they were provided by the court with a new one being supplied each year. Instead, the soldiers were identified by tattoo marks on the backs of their neck.