Fashoda Incident
imperial territorial disputes between Britain and France in Eastern Africa
The Fashoda Incident, also known as the Fashoda Crisis (French: Crise de Fachoda), was the climax of imperialist territorial disputes between Britain and France in East Africa, occurring between 10 July and 3 November 1898. A French expedition to Fashoda on the White Nile sought to gain control of the Upper Nile river basin and thereby exclude Britain from Sudan. The French party and a British-Egyptian force (outnumbering the French by 10 to 1) met on friendly terms. However, in Europe, it became a war scare. Both empires stood on the verge of war with heated rhetoric on both sides. Under heavy pressure, the French withdrew, ensuring Anglo-Egyptian control over the area.
Background
During the late 19th century, Africa was rapidly being claimed and colonised by European colonial powers. After the 1885 Berlin Conference regarding West Africa, Europe's great powers went after any remaining lands in Africa that were not already under another European nation's influence. This period in African history is usually termed the Scramble for Africa by modern historiography. The principal powers involved in this scramble were Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Portugal, and Spain.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Fashoda Incident” is imperial territorial disputes between Britain and France in Eastern Africa. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Fashoda, Incident and imperial, not as a finished interpretation.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q722699. The Library of Congress control number is sh85047388. Authority coordinates are 9.887, 32.110. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1898 and 1885.
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This entry incorporates text from “Fashoda Incident” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.