Introduction

Abstract

In the spring of the year 1898 the long rivalry of Britain and France in West Africa reached a dangerous climax. The West African crisis was but one aspect of an extensive Anglo-French contest for colonial possessions which characterized the final decade of the nineteenth century. Competition for dominion went on relentlessly in the Nile Valley, along the banks of the Mekong in Southeast Asia, and within the territories of the Niger River Bend. The Upper Nile dispute dwarfed all others; and ultimately the inability of Britain and France to settle this question through diplomatic negotations was to lead to the confrontation at Fashoda. Simultaneously, however, a more obscure struggle was in process, namely the contest for possession of the thousand mile stretch of the Middle Niger.