Fashoda incident

During the late 19th Century, Africa was rapidly being occupied by European colonial powers. This period in African history is usually called the Scramble for Africa[?]. The two major powers involved in this scramble were the United Kingdom and France.

It came to pass that the French thrust into the African interior was mainly from West Africa (modern day Senegal) eastward, through the Sahel along the southern border of the Sahara, a territory covering modern day Senegal, Mali, Niger, and Chad. Their ultimate aim was to have an uninterrupted link between the Niger river and the Nile, hence controlling all trade to and from the Sahel region, by virtue of their existing control over the Caravan routes through the Sahara.

The British, on the other hand, wanted to link their possesions in Southern Africa[?] (modern South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Zambia), with their territories in East Africa (modern Kenya), and these two areas with the Nile basin. Sudan (which in those days included modern day Uganda) was obviously key to the fullfilment of these ambitions, especially since Egypt was already under British control. This 'red line' through Africa is made most famous by Cecil Rhodes.

When one draws a line from Cape Town to Cairo (Rhodes' dream), and one from Dakar to the Horn (the French ambition), these two lines intersect somewhere in eastern Sudan. That's where Fashoda is.

(I'm going to explain what happened in 1898 to make this little desert town the center of a major international crisis)