Fashoda Incident

(Sept. 18, 1898) Climax, at Fashoda, Egyptian Sudan, of a series of territorial disputes between Britain and France. Britain had sought to extend its empire from Cairo to the Cape of Good Hope, while France had sought to extend its own from Dakar to the Sudan. A French force under Jean-Baptiste Marchand was the first to arrive at a strategically located fort at Fashoda, soon followed by a British force under Lord Kitchener. After a tense standoff the French withdrew, but they continued to press claims to other posts in the region. In March 1899 the French and British agreed that the watershed of the Nile and the Congo rivers should mark the frontier between their spheres of influence.

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