The Historical Archives of the Italian Geographic Society (Rome) hold the reports written by the Italian officers Aristide Perucca, Tarsillo Barberis and Valentino Molinari during the Burmese military campaign against the Shan, carried out in 1883. In the months preceding the expedition, the Shan – a population settled within the Burmese borders – rebelled against the Konbaung monarchy, which had ruled the Burmese Empire since the Eighteenth century, taking advantage of the weakness caused by the defeats suffered during the two wars fought against the British Raj in the first decades of the Nineteenth century. In an attempt to strengthen their armies, the Burmese summoned from Europe numerous technicians, experts, army and navy officers, who took part in the reformist programmes implemented by the Asian government; in some cases, the instructors followed the local army as military observers, drafting notes and reports on the military tactics employed by the Burmese in territories marked by an impervious orography – with reliefs alternating with valleys covered by dense forests – and by adverse climatic conditions. The essay aims to explore, through the descriptions compiled by Italian officers, the military tactics employed by the Burmese and Shan in the context of the age of imperialism, when the expansion of the European colonial empires allowed the spread of equipment and strategies inspired by the concepts of the western art of war in Asia.