FACHODA
Kodok today. City located on the upper course of the Nile, in the Sudan. Its forced evacuation by the Marchand mission in 1898 profoundly deteriorated Franco-British relations. , reached Fashoda on July 10, 1898. The following month, Lord Kitchener, who went up the Nile with more than 2,000 men to crush the Mahdists and achieve the junction with Cape Town, was there in turn. Captain Marchand is asked to step aside. But he refuses, declaring that the weakness of his numbers would not make him go back, and refers to his government. It is a casus belli. Unable to send help to its nationals, weakened internally by the heartbreaks of the Dreyfus affair (then at their climax), France had to bow. Delcassé, successor to Hanotaux, gave Marchand, who had meanwhile become commander, the order to evacuate Fashoda (order of November 3, received on November 7). On March 21, 1899, an agreement delivered the entire Nile basin to England. French public opinion is violently shocked by this retreat. The English reappear as the hereditary enemy. This resentment would not be erased by the conclusion of the Entente Cordiale in 1904.