CHAPTER XIII

FASHODA

ON or about September 18, 1898, we found ourselves in the midst of a serious crisis. After the signing of the Niger agreement in June there had been a diplomatic lull, and it seemed as if at length the beginning of an entente on African questions had been reached. Suddenly a new and most unfortunate fact had to be dealt with, viz., that (a French expedition or mission had reached Fashoda, the chief town of the Sudan province of Bahr-el-Ghazal, and hoisted the French flag as a sign of prise de possession. The Sirdar, Sir Herbert Kitchener, had just defeated the Mahdists at the battle of Omdurman, a victory over the only forces barring the recovery of the Egyptian Sudan which placed Bahr-el-Ghazel, a part of that Sudan, at his mercy. Everybody trembled at the idea of what might happen if Captain Marchand defied the victorious general and a conflict ensued. Such a conflict between the Anglo-Egyptian forces and the French expedition seemed, in fact, dangerously probable. Any French officer who had hoisted the French flag at any spot on the globe, I was told rather excitedly, would fight under it till overcome by superior force, and then it would have to be the enemy who hauled it down. If this happened, the prevailing anti-English feeling would be roused to frenzy at such an insult to the flag, and the two countries would be at war within a fortnight. English

merchants in Paris who had goods on consignment on the French railways gave instructions not to discharge them. New orders were held in suspense. Standing orders were not executed. For some days business was almost at a standstill. I was asked hurriedly to publish in an English paper in Paris called the English and American Gazette an article on what would be the position of enemy subjects in France, if war broke out. The common idea among Englishmen was that they would be summarily conducted to the frontier and their belongings seized.) My article, showing that no such dire consequences would result, helped a little to allay the prevalent alarm.

On learning that the officers at Fashoda had arranged matters provisionally and without any sacrifice of life or national dignity on either side, that meanwhile, though the English flag was hoisted, the French flag was still flying at Fashoda and that the final adjustment would take place between the two Governments, the public on both sides of the Channel began to feel more confidence.

The public did not, however, know, and their ignorance was bliss, that the real danger came later on, and that, instead of diminishing, it increased to the day when the French Government gave way. During the negotiations the French Mediterranean fleet was ordered to Cherbourg, and at dead of night, with lights extinguished, passed Gibraltar unperceived by the British authorities. The mayors at the Channel ports were instructed to requisition the churches for hospital work and report on the beds and ambulance available to fit them for immediate service. hundred millions of francs were spent in a few days

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in providing Cherbourg as a naval base with the necessary ammunition and stores. Orders to march were in all the commanding officers' hands, and everything was in readiness for mobilisation, if the French Government should be confronted with an ultimatum. While the French Mediterranean fleet was steaming to Cherbourg, the British Mediterranean fleet, unaware of the whereabouts of the French fleet, steamed to Alexandria and Port Said to keep the Suez Canal open and negative any idea of a French landing in Egypt, which would have been our most vulnerable point, had the course been clear.1 That Portsmouth for a few days was in a state of ferment everybody at the time knew, but ferments at Portsmouth were so frequent that people had almost come to regard them as they do fire-brigade trials. Nobody, in fact, seemed to realise that war was so dangerously

near.

The ultimatum, or what was tantamount to one, did come but wise counsels prevailed, and orders were sent in the beginning of November to Captain Marchand to haul down the flag and come home.

The French yielded, but they felt sore at heart. The crisis had come amid the preoccupations of the Dreyfus affair. That, in spite of the high nervous tension then prevalent among politicians, the danger

1 These facts reached me from different sources in the course of a few years and have not been recorded in those official sources of history we call Blue and Yellow Books. This, however, I may say: Each fact, as I have stated it, was told me by eye-witnesses or actors in the political drama, which was being played behind the scenes, while the public were listening to an angry unofficial discussion in the Press and to most polite "communiqués" from official quarters. In 1902 in a speech at Manchester I stated most of them as above. My statements were given as sensational news in the newspapers. No doubt has ever been expressed as to their accuracy, and I now regard them as historically correct.

of war was averted, is a sign of political wisdom which does infinite credit to the French sense of proportion. The irregular course the crisis ran, the mystery of the attendant circumstances, the inauspicious calm throughout expectant Europe, the sudden collapse after a display of concentrated and determined energy, were all connected with the fact that nothing in international politics can be isolated. Cross traditions and parallel traditions, side issues, domestic and party considerations, tendencies and counter-tendencies of public opinion, temperament of ministers and Parliament, dynastic influences, financial questions, military questions, trade interests, are all and at all moments determining currents and eddies in the policy of a great Power. An individual foreign minister's tendencies, again, are affected by the temperament, prejudices and experience of his subordinates, and, when he places his points before his colleagues at a cabinet council, the more competent he is, the more difficult it must be to detach a question from the multitude of its qualifications and resolve it into a plain issue.

Foreign correspondents of newspapers, and I speak feelingly of their task, do their best to place questions before the public as plain issues, the which is further complicated by "tendential" information supplied to them by Foreign Offices. Foreign ministers make speeches which give just as much information as will show with what judicious and dignified discernment they are presiding over the business of the nation. Then comes the historian, who in a few pages tries to tell the story of years, but he cannot pretend to do more than give an approximate survey of impressions

based on these imperfect sources of information and the different official records of the national transactions. The story of the crisis of the autumn of 1898 is one of the cases in which history will have to be re-written more than once.

In connection with the Fashoda affair, the interdependence of events warrants a close comparison of dates, though the result can at best only be an impression.

On August 2, 1898, Lord Salisbury wrote to Lord Cromer giving him instructions in connection with the possibility of the Sirdar in his progress up the Nile meeting with "French authorities " "who may

be encountered." It would be unreasonable to think that either the British or Egyptian Government was unaware that Marchand's arrival in Bahr-el-Ghazal was overdue in August. The mission had been timed to arrive at Fashoda in November, 1897. The delay was due to a premature fall in the waters of the Bahrel-Ghazal. Marchand arrived, in fact, on July 10 at Fashoda, where he had been firmly entrenched with his 120 men for three months before General Kitchener arrived on September 18. The French Government of course knew. I even remember at the time hearing that we might look out for complications on the Upper Nile before long. It is not likely that between the West African possessions of France and Marchand communications had at any time entirely ceased. Nor is it likely that the French Government, knowing the difficulties which were bound to arise out of a claim by France to prior occupation of Bahr-el-Ghazal, left the Russian Government in ignorance of the situation. Russia had joined France in opposing the application