FASHODA INCIDENT (1898)

Crisis in which both France and Britain, vying for territory in Africa, claimed control over a Sudanese outpost.

At the end of the nineteenth century, the European powers were competing for control of Africa. As the French extended eastward from the Congo, the British expanded south from Egypt. In July 1898, a French expedition commanded by Captain Jean-Baptiste Marchand arrived at the Sudanese outpost of Fashoda on the Nile, some 400 miles (644 km) south of Khartoum. After British General Herbert Kitchener's victory at Omdurman on 2 September, he proceeded to Fashoda on orders from the British prime minister, Lord Salisbury. He arrived on 19 September and met with Marchand. Kitchener claimed the entire Nile valley for Great Britain, and, after several days, both parties withdrew peacefully. The solution to the conflicting claims was later worked out by diplomats in Britain and France, and it reflected the fact that Britain had an army in Khartoum while France had no appreciable forces in the vicinity. France renounced all rights to the Nile basin and the Sudan in return for a guarantee of its position in West Africa. The Fashoda incident is seen as the high point of Anglo–French tension in Africa.

See also Kitchener, Horatio Herbert.

Bibliography

Eldridge, C. C. Victorian Imperialism. London: Hodder and Staughton, 1978.

Porter, Bernard. The Lion's Share: A Short History of British Imperialism, 1850–1983, 2d edition. London and New York: Longman, 1984.

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