The Fashoda affair (1898)

06The Fashoda affair (1898)

Its background

• Its essence: England, France and Italy divided the areas of southern Sudan and east Africa after the Egyptian army's withdrawal from the Sudan (1884) in the wake of the Mahdist revolt.
• Within the colonial race for Africa the powers occupied African areas:
  • England: Uganda and the southern part of Egypt's Equatoria province;
  • Italy: Eritrea and part of Somalia;
  • France: Tajoura and Djibouti.
• France objected to the penetration of the English colonial tide into the heart of Africa, so it sent an expedition to occupy Fashoda, high on the White Nile near its junction with the Sobat River, arriving in July 1898.
• England protested on Egypt's behalf, treating Fashoda as Egyptian land, and sent a military expedition that arrived in September 1898.
• Matters stopped at an unarmed confrontation: the French forces withdrew after diplomatic contacts (December 1898).

Its results for Khedive Abbas

• The Khedive and the nationalists had believed France occupied Fashoda to reopen the Egyptian question and force England to discuss evacuation; when France gave way, despair spread, and Abbas was the first to give in, settling for conciliation.
• First manifestation of conciliation: signing the Condominium agreement on the Sudan between Egypt and England (January 1899), whose first article fixed latitude 22° north as the line separating Egypt from the Sudan — Sudan to the south, Egypt to the north. England had arranged it so as to face France and others directly in its own name, as Egypt's partner in governing the Sudan.
• Second manifestation: his visit to London in 1900.
• The conciliation ended in a policy of accord between Abbas and Gorst, the British Agent who succeeded Cromer (1907–1911).

Its results for Mustafa Kamil

• He realised the impossibility of relying on Khedive Abbas to oppose the English, and did not despair — his famous saying being "There is no despair while there is life, and no life while there is despair".
• He intensified activity to awaken consciousness, nurture national feeling and make people aware of the occupation's danger and the crime of cooperating with it.
• He founded the newspaper "Al-Liwa" (The Standard) in 1900 to voice evacuation, and called for establishing a constitution.
• He relied more on the Ottoman State to face the English within the Islamic League movement, and issued a weekly paper called "The Islamic World" (1905).
• Through his skill as a lawyer he succeeded in alerting the public conscience to Egypt's right to independence and the evacuation of British forces — but the policy of international shared interests and the accord between the nominal authority (the Khedive) and the real authority (the English) eclipsed that conscience and shattered the awareness.