330 THE SECRET OF SAHARA: KUFARA 



this zawia remained a centre of opposition until it was taken in 

 January, 1902. 



By this open aggression Sidi el Mahdi apparently pledged 

 himself to a definite campaign against France, yet he had no reg- 

 ular army. His policy was to unite the tribes against the Chris- 

 tian, himself supplying arms, ammunition and money. Borku was 

 virtually under liis rule. He had a wazir in Wadai and zawias in 

 Nigeria and the Cameroons. 



Mohammed es Sunni, one of the most famous Senussi ekhwan, 

 who had undertaken many missionary journeys in tlie Sudan and 

 West Africa, was adviser to the Sultan of Wadai, for whom he 

 had obtained the financial support of the Tripolitaniau merchants. 



The sudden death of the Mahdi, however, on June 1st, 1002, 

 removed the motive force of the order. As his sons were then 

 minors at school at Jaghabub, his nephew Bayed Ahmed es Sherif 

 was nominated as his successor. 



The new Sheikh es Senussi remained at Ghiru, from where he 

 continued to oppose the French advance, till a bad defeat in De- 

 cember, 1902, decided him to retire to Kufara. 



For some years he moved his headquarters between this oasis 

 and Jaghabub so that he was able to keep in touch with his north- 

 ern zawias without relinquishing the hold gained by the Mahdi on 

 the negroid races of the south. 



Since the Anglo-French Treaty of 1904 ceded the Zinder-Chad 

 route to France, the advance of the latter power has inevitably 

 involved the ebb of the Senussi influence throughout the occupied 

 districts. 



The Ulad Suleiman tribes, who had been among the strongest 

 adherents of the Mahdi, submitted in 1905. 



The following year Bilma was occupied in spite of determined 

 attacks by Tuaregs and Kufara Arabs. 



In March, 1907, the principal zawia in Borku, Ain Malakka, 

 was captured and its sheikh, Sidi el Barrani, the virtual ruler of 

 Borku, killed. 



In June, 1909, Abeshe, the capital of Wadai, was entered. 



Turkish troops occupied Tibesti in May, 1910, and Borku in 

 September, 1911, but were recalled at the outbreak of the Turco- 

 Italian war in 1912, leaving the Senussi free to continue the prop- 

 aganda that was finally put an end to by the French advance into 

 Tibesti and Borku, in the winter of 1913-1914. 



Meanwhile, Cyrenaica and Tripoh having been acknowledged 



