FRANCE. 



281 



Bahr el Ghazal to the Nile at Pashoda. The right 

 bank of the Nile opposite Pashoda, through several 

 degrees of latitude, was claimed by the Negus Mene- 

 lek as a part of Ethiopia. The Anglo-Egyptian oper- 

 ations for the reconquest of the Soudan, begun in 

 1896, were intended to forestall the French and pre- 

 vent these missions advancing secretly from the 

 French Congo, and also French adventurers acting 

 in conjunction with the Abyssinians from getting a 

 foothold in the Nile valley. In 1895 Sir Edward 

 Grey, Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs in Lord 

 Rosebery's Cabinet, declared in the House of Com- 

 mons that Great Britain would consider the invasion 

 of the Nile valley by another power as an unfriendly 

 act. M. Hanotaux, the French Foreign Minister, 

 in a diplomatic note, traversed this assumption that 

 the abandoned provinces of Egypt were British by 

 pre-emption. In 1897 Lord Salisbury formally re- 

 affirmed the position taken by Sir Edward Grey. 

 In negotiations with respect to the valley of the 

 Niger and the regions north and east of Lake Chad, 

 Sir Edmund Monson, British ambassador at Paris, 

 told M. llanotaux that in the event of a road being 

 opened up from Lake Chad to the Nile, Great Brit- 

 ain must not be understood to admit that any other 

 European power had any claim to occupy any part 

 of the valley of the Nile, and the French minister, 

 iu his reply, demurred to the British position once 

 more and repeated his reservations as to the Nile, 

 to which the British Government had made no reply. 



Capt. Marchand established posts in the Bahr el 

 Ghazal region in 1896 and 1897 among the Dunkas, 

 and in 1898 descended to Meshra er Rek. and thence 

 to the left bank of the Nile, making a treaty with 

 the Mek of the Shilluks and raising the French flag 

 over the Government building at Fashoda on July 

 10, two months previous to Sir Herbert Kitchener's 

 victory over the Khalifa at Omdurman (see EGYPT). 

 A detachment of the retreating dervishes attacked 

 him there, on Aug. 25, with a gunboat, and, being 

 repelled, turned back to get re-enforcements, but 

 was broken up by the sirdar as he was ascending the 

 Nile in gunboats to oust any French or Abyssinian 

 forces that might have established themselves on 

 the Xile banks. When the Anglo-Egyptians ap- 

 proached, Capt. Marchand sent a message to the sir- 

 dar to inform him that he had occupied, by order 

 of the French Government, the Bahr el Ghazal as 

 far as Meshra er Rek and the confluence of the 

 Bahr el Ghazal with the Bahr el Djebel, as well as 

 the Shilluk country on the left bank of the White 

 Nile as far as Fashoda. At their meeting on Sept. 

 19 the sirdar informed Capt. Marchand that the 

 presence of the French at Fashoda and in the valley 

 of the Nile was regarded by the British Government 

 as a direct violation of the rights of Egypt and of 

 Great Britain, and asked him if he was prepared to 

 resist the occupation of the Mudirieh. Capt. Mar- 

 chand replied that he would die at his post before 

 retiring from his position or hauling down his flag 

 without orders from his Government. The Egyptiiin 

 flag was hoisted on the old fort near by, after Capt. 

 Marchand had said that he could no't resist this. 

 Sir Herbert Kitchener then returned north, leaving 

 Jackson Bey as commandant with a battalion of in- 

 fantry and a gunboat, which was ordered to ascend 

 the Bahr el Ghazal and establish posts in the di- 

 rection of Meshra er Rek. The Shilluks, who had 

 taken service under Capt. Marchand, went over to 

 the Egyptians, and their Mek repudiated his treaty, 

 saying that he had made it supposing Capt. Mar- 

 chand to be an officer of the Egyptian Government. 



After the dervish rout at Omdurman, M. Del- 

 casse, expecting that the Anglo-Egyptians would 

 find Capt. Marchand on the Nile, deprecated a col- 

 lision between the forces on the spot and expressed 

 a desire for an amicable settlement of all causes of 





difference by means of a frank discussion between 

 the two governments. Capt. Marchand had been 

 instructed to act merely as a herald of civilization 

 and not to assume the decision of questions of right 

 or take any steps likely to produce a local conflict. 

 The Marquis of Salisbury replied that by the mili- 

 tary events all the territories which were subject to 

 the Khalifa had passed by right of conquest to the 

 British and Egyptian governments, and that he did 

 not consider this right open to discussion. On Sept. 

 18 M. Delcasse asked if the British Government con- 

 sidered that Capt. Marchand had no right to be at 

 Fashoda, and when SirE. Monson reminded him of 

 the warning that any incursion into the upper Nile 

 basin would be considered an unfriendly act, he 

 said that there was no Marchand mission, that M. 

 Liotard had been instructed to secure French in- 

 terests in the northeast two or three years previous 

 to Sir Edward Grey's declaration, and under his 

 direction Capt. Marchand had gone to occupy the 

 regions recognized as French in the Franco-Congo- 

 lese convention. If Lord Salisbury's theory of con- 

 quest were admitted, Fashoda had been conquered 

 from the Mahdi by the French before the capture 

 of Khartoum by the sirdar. That the Soudan was 

 abandoned by Egypt was admitted by the English 

 when they conquered for themselves Unyoro in the 

 Equatorial Province and sanctioned the occupation 

 of Kassala by the Italians and of Lado by the Bel- 

 gians. In order to prove that the French position 

 on the upper Nile was not equivalent de jure to her 

 own, England would have to show a mandate from 

 the Sultan for the occupation of the Soudan. The 

 British ambassador told M. Delcasse that the situ- 

 ation on the Nile was dangerous and that the Brit- 

 ish Government would consent to no compromise. 

 The French minister said that if the two govern- 

 ments discussed the matter calmly with a sincere 

 desire to avoid a conflict there could be no doubt 

 that a peaceable and satisfactory solution would be 

 found. After receiving the sirdar's report of the 

 meeting at Fashoda the British Government de- 

 manded the instant recall of Capt. Marchand.. The 

 French minister, after consulting with his col- 

 leagues, said on Sept. 27 that he was ready to con- 

 tinue the discussion in a conciliatory spirit, that he 

 must not be asked for the impossible ; the French 

 Government wished to communicate with Major 

 Marchand and receive his report before taking any 

 action. Lord Salisbury said the British Govern- 

 ment could not refuse to transmit a dispatch to a 

 French explorer in a difficult position, and laid 

 down as the British view that the region where he 

 was found, whether in times of Egyptian or of der- 

 vish dominion, had never been without an owner and 

 that his expedition with an escort of 100 Senegalese 

 troops had no political effect, nor could any political 

 significance be attached to it. M. Delcasse asked if 

 the dervish dominion was placed on the same foot- 

 ing as the Egyptian and if it was vindicated in op- 

 position to French occupation. The British am- 

 bassador replied that whatever title the Khalifa- 

 possessed had passed to the conqueror, and that an 

 occupation by a secret expedition of a handful of 

 men who would have been destroyed but for the 

 timely arrival of the Egyptian gunboats could give 

 no title. When Sir Edward Monson remarked that 

 in going toward the Nile after the German and 

 Italian recognition of the British sphere of influ- 

 ence. France could not be unaware that she was 

 advancing to a conflict with England, M. Delcasse 

 refused to believe that Lord Salisbury would admit 

 the idea of a conflict over such an incident, and re- 

 called the fact that the French enterprise went back 

 to an epoch when England had done nothing and 

 said nothing indicating an intention to reconquer 

 the Egyptian Soudan, which it had itself obliged 



