taken away to India. Burma was formally annexed by the British on 1 January 1886. The millennium old Burmese monarchy was extinguished. Although it took less than a month to occupy Mandalay, the British spent another 10 years to pacify the rest of the country. Over a year into the annexation, the country was still in chaos. In 1887, a 32,000-strong army led by two major generals and six brigadier generals was dispatched to quell the instabilities, and to annex the hill regions. The Burmese resistance in the low country was hammered down by 1890 but the hill regions proved particularly troublesome for the British. A five-month expedition in 1887–1888 brought cis-Salween Shan states under control as British protectorates. The British were then forced to put down insurgencies all over the region. They finally brought Kengtung into the fold in March 1890, completing the annexation of Shan states. But rebellions broke out again in northern Shan states at Hsenwi, Lashio and Bhamo in 1892. In 1894, the British also had to chase down rebels in the Karenni states, which they had formally annexed since 1892. In the west, it took the British forces 15 months to overcome the Chin resistance before taking Falam in March 1891. But the British had to spend another five difficult years in the unfamiliar hill country to fully suppress the Chin resistance. Finally, in 1896, the British proclaimed the Chin Hills to be a part of Burma. Colonial era The British had used mainly Indian and Gurkha troops to conquer and pacify the country. As a result of their distrust towards the Burmese, the British enforced their rule in the province of Burma mainly with Indian troops later joined by indigenous military units of three indigenous ethnic minorities: the Karen, the Kachin and the Chin. These troops were also used to suppress rebellions in British Burma, such as Saya San's peasant rebellion in 1931. The British administration maintained their distrust of the Burmans until the end of direct colonial rule, and before 1937, with few exceptions, Burmans were not allowed to serve in the military. These recruitment policies led to tensions between the Burmans and the Karen, Kachin and Chin before and after independence. World War I and interwar period At the beginning of World War I, the only indigenous military regiment in the British Indian Army, the 70th Burma Rifles, consisted of three battalions,