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Immediately after the flag was hoisted, Major Jackson was appointed commandant of the Fashoda district, and left with a garrison of the 11th Soudanese battalion and four guns of Captain Peake's battery. A large quantity of stores of various kinds was landed for their use. Meanwhile E Company of the Cameron Highlanders and the rest of the troops returned on board ship.
"Meanwhile France chipped in with a notification that she was going to occupy Morocco as a compensation for Fashoda, and added a few nasty things about Egypt and other places.
In 103 hours and ten minutes' steaming we reached Fashoda, the government station in the Shillook country, N. lat. 9 degrees 52 minutes, 618 miles by river from Khartoum. This town had been fortified by a wall and flanking towers since I had last visited the White Nile, and it was garrisoned by a regiment of Egyptian soldiers. Ali Bey, the governor, was a remarkably handsome old man, a Kurd.
Fashoda! it was only a point it is true that it synthetised everything. But if we lose the point we abandon nothing of our thesis. To reflect is not to despair on the contrary. The experiences of this world teach us that the sum of our sorrows is not greater than that of our joys.
"I pointed out that your lordship's telegram of the 9th inst., which I had communicated to him at the time, had made him aware that Her Majesty's Government considered that there could be no discussion upon such questions as the right of Egypt to Fashoda."
The censor struck out from my telegrams all allusion to the presence of the French at Fashoda, and I had to wait until I returned to Lower Egypt to transmit the news to London. I openly held that the Fashoda affair should be promptly and fully disclosed to the British public, and I acted upon that conviction.
On 25th September, the day the expedition returned from Fashoda to Omdurman, Mr Rennell Rodd, who during the absence of Lord Cromer in Europe was in charge of affairs in Egypt, telegraphed to Lord Salisbury the following despatch, which had been received from the Sirdar: "I found at Fashoda, whence I have just returned, M. Marchand with 8 officers and 120 men.
"Last year the whole fleet assembled at the dubba in twenty days from Fashoda. "We arrived at the dubba at 5.30 P.M., having been delayed two hours by obstructions and rapids. "January 8. We cut through a horrid accumulation of floating rafts that have filled the open space of last year between the dubba and the mouth of our old channel.
Perhaps it was only to be expected that the French press and politicians would display increased virulence against this country over the Fashoda settlement. But their persistence in that course, and the fact of their present extraordinary naval expenditure, can only mean getting ready for war against Great Britain.
Accordingly, Lord Kitchener ran the risk of grave international complications by advancing upon Fashoda to meet Major Marchand. Fortunately, a temporary agreement was entered upon that the home governments should decide the question at issue, and Lord Kitchener then hoisted the Anglo-Egyptian flag south of the French settlement, and the officers fraternised over glasses of champagne.
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