obvious that the lease to the Congo Free State was intended to exclude France from the Nile by placing the Congo Free State as a barrier across her path. Pressure was brought to bear on King Leopold, from Paris, to renounce the rights acquired under the agreement, and on the 14th of August 1894 King Leopold signed an agreement with France by which, in exchange for France’s acknowledgment of the Mbomu river as his northern frontier, His Majesty renounced all occupation and all exercise of political influence west of 30° E., and north of a line drawn from that meridian to the Nile along 5° 30′ N.
This left the way still open for France to the Nile, and in June 1896 Captain J. Marchand left France with secret instructions to lead an expedition into the Nile valley. On the 1st of March in the following year he left Brazzaville, and began a journey which all but plunged Great Britain and France into war. The difficulties which Captain Marchand had to overcome were mainly those connected with transport. In October 1897 the expedition reached the banks of the Sue, the waters of which eventually flow into the Nile. Here a post was established and the “Faidherbe,” a steamer which had been carried across the Congo-Nile watershed in sections, was put together and launched. On the 1st of May 1898 Marchand started on the final stage of his journey, and reached Fashoda on the 10th of July, having established a chain of posts en route. At Fashoda the French flag was at once raised, and a “treaty” made with the local chief. Meanwhile other expeditions had been concentrating on The French at Fashoda. Fashoda—a mud-flat situated in a swamp, round which for many months raged the angry passions of two great peoples. French expeditions, with a certain amount of assistance from the emperor Menelek of Abyssinia, had been striving to reach the Nile from the east, so as to join hands with Marchand and complete the line of posts into the Abyssinian frontier. In this, however, they were unsuccessful. No better success attended the expedition under Colonel (afterwards Sir) Ronald Macdonald, R.E., sent by the British government from Uganda to anticipate the French in the occupation of the upper Nile. It was from the north that claimants arrived to dispute with the French their right to Fashoda, and all that the occupation of that dismal post implied. In 1896 an Anglo-Egyptian army, under the direction of Sir Herbert (afterwards Lord) Kitchener, had begun to advance southwards for the reconquest of the Egyptian Sudan. On the 2nd of September 1898 Khartum was captured, and the khalifa’s army dispersed. It was then that news reached the Anglo-Egyptian commander, from native sources, that there were white men flying a strange flag at Fashoda. The sirdar at once proceeded in a steamer up the Nile, and courteously but firmly requested Captain Marchand to remove the French flag. On his refusal the Egyptian flag was raised close to the French flag, and the dispute was referred to Europe for adjustment between the British and French governments. A critical situation ensued. Neither government was inclined to give way, and for a time war seemed imminent. Happily Lord Salisbury was able to announce, on the 4th of November, that France was willing to recognize the British claims, and the incident was finally closed on the 21st of March 1899, when an Anglo-French declaration was signed, by the terms of which France withdrew from the Nile valley and accepted a boundary line which satisfied her earlier ambition by uniting the whole of her territories in North, West and Central Africa into a homogeneous whole, while effectually preventing the realization of her dream of a transcontinental empire from west to east. By this declaration it was agreed that the dividing line between the British and French spheres, north of the Congo Free State, should follow the Congo-Nile water-parting up to its intersection with the 11th parallel of north latitude, from which point it was to be “drawn as far as the 15th parallel in such a manner as to separate in principle the kingdom of Wadai from what constituted in 1882 the province of Darfur,” but in no case was it to be drawn west of the 21st degree of east longitude, or east of the 23rd degree. From the 15th parallel the line was continued north and north-west to the intersection of the Tropic of Cancer with 16° E. French influence was to prevail west of this line, British influence to the east. Wadai was thus definitely assigned to France.
When, by the declaration of the 21st of March 1899, France renounced all territorial ambitions in the upper Nile basin, King Leopold revived his claims to the Bahr-el-Ghazal province under the terms of the lease granted by Article 2 of the Anglo-Congolese agreement of 1894. This step he was encouraged to take by the Fate of the Bar-el-Ghazal.assertion of Lord Salisbury, in his capacity as secretary of state for foreign affairs during the negotiations with France concerning Fashoda, that the lease to King Leopold was still in full force. But the assertion was made simply as a declaration of British right to dispose of the territory, and the sovereign of the Congo State found that there was no disposition in Great Britain to allow the Bahr-el-Ghazal to fall into his hands. Long and fruitless negotiations ensued. The king at length (1904) sought to force a settlement by sending armed forces into the province. Diplomatic representations having failed to secure the withdrawal of these forces, the Sudan government issued a proclamation which had the effect of cutting off the Congo stations from communication with the Nile, and finally King Leopold consented to an agreement, signed in London on the 9th of May 1906, whereby the 1894 lease was formally annulled. The Bahr-el-Ghazal thenceforth became undisputedly an integral part of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. King Leopold had, however, by virtue of the 1894 agreement administered the comparatively small portion of the leased area in which his presence was not resented by France. This territory, including part of the west bank of the Nile and known as the Lado Enclave, the 1906 agreement allowed King Leopold to “continue during his reign to occupy.” Provision was made that within six months of the termination of His Majesty’s reign the enclave should be handed over to the Sudan government (see Congo Free State.) In this manner ended the long struggle for supremacy on the upper Nile, Great Britain securing the withdrawal of all European rivals.
The course of events in the southern half of the continent
may now be traced. By the convention of the 14th of February
1885, in which Portugal recognized the sovereignty of
the Congo Free State, and by a further convention
concluded with France in 1886, Portugal secured
recognition of her claim to the territory Portugal’s trans-
African schemes.known as
the Kabinda enclave, lying north of the
Congo, but not to the northern bank of the river. By the same
convention of 1885 Portugal’s claim to the southern bank of
the river as far as Noki (the limit of navigation from the
sea) had been admitted. Thus Portuguese possessions on the
west coast extended from the Congo to the mouth of the Kunene
river. In the interior the boundary with the Free State
was settled as far as the Kwango river, but disputes arose
as to the right to the country of Lunda, otherwise known as
the territory of the Muato Yanvo. On the 25th of May 1891
a treaty was signed at Lisbon, by which this large territory
was divided between Portugal and the Free State. The interior
limits of the Portuguese possessions in Africa south of the
equator gave rise, however, to much more serious discussions
than were involved in the dispute as to the Muato Yanvo’s
kingdom. Portugal, as has been stated, claimed all the
territories between Angola and Mozambique, and she succeeded
in inducing both France and Germany, in 1886, to recognize
the king of Portugal’s “right to exercise his sovereign
and civilizing influence in the territories which separate
the Portuguese possessions of Angola and Mozambique.” The
publication of the treaties containing this declaration,
together with a map showing Portuguese claims extending over
the whole of the Zambezi valley, and over Matabeleland to
the south and the greater part of Lake Nyasa to the north,
immediately provoked a formal protest from the British
government. On the 13th of August 1887 the British charge
d’affaires at Lisbon transmitted to the Portuguese minister
for foreign affairs a memorandum from Lord Salisbury, in
which the latter formally protested “against any claims not
founded on occupation,” and contended that the doctrine of
effective occupation had been admitted in principle
