144 Egypt
spicacity and determination. A barrier was built against
French expansion eastward towards the Nile by leasing,
in the name of the Khedive, the Bahr-el-Ghazal province
to the Congo Free State and Belgium. In return, a zone
fifteen miles wide was obtained along the frontier be-
tween the Congo Free State and German East Africa for
the future railway and telegraph (Convention of May 12,
1894). This scheme was, however, scuppered by a
temporary coalition of France and Germany. Germany
forced Belgium to realign the Free State frontier and re-
pudiate the railway concession (Convention of August
14, 1894), while France pushed an expedition into the
Bahr-el-Ghazal (February, 1896). This French effort to
extend its North African Empire into Equatoria was
countered by our Sudan expedition. A collision became
inevitable between the Anglo-Egyptian penetration press-
ing southward and the French Senegalese forces pushing
eastward. When Kitchener, hurrying on by steamer
from Khartum, reached Fashoda on the Upper Nile
(September 19, 1898), expecting to join hands with
Major Macdonald and a small British expedition from
Uganda, he found installed there instead Major
Marchand and a French expedition from the Oubanghy.
The expedition of Marchand, forcing a way through
the forests and swamps of unknown equatorial Africa,
and fighting as he went the Dervish power in a region
where it had not before been challenged, was a tour de
force unequalled even in French exploration. While his
arrival on the Nile a few weeks before Kitchener was a
coup de foudre such as even French diplomacy can
scarcely parallel. But British imperialism had no intention
of letting such a claim-jumping adventurer snatch its
hard-won hinterland and cloud the roseate dawn of an
All-Red Africa. By a rupture with France and a