FRENCH COLONIAL EXPANSION 139 
land’s sphere of influence based on the rights of the Khe- 
dive embraced the whole of the Nile Valley, had been 
carried on for some time by M. Hanotaux and Lord Kim- 
berley. It was now taken up vigorously by M. Delcassé and 
Lord Salisbury. The French claimed that they had never 
concurred in the British claim to all of the Nile Valley; 
that England could not claim lands never effectively occu- 
pied by her; that only Egypt could rightfully assert any 
ownership over the Upper Nile; and that the successful 
revolt of the Sudan separated that country distinctly from 
the Egyptian possessions and gave any nation the right to 
participate in the reconquest and partition of it. T hey as- 
serted, moreover, that Major Marchand was not in charge 
of a “mission” sent out by the French Government to seize 
the Upper Nile district, but an “envoyé de la civilisation” 
sent out by M. Liotard to assist in putting an end to the 
frightful disturbances and misrule of the Dervishes. They 
were pleased with the successes of Lord Kitchener and very 
desirous of avoiding any serious difficulty with England; 
but they would not enter upon negotiations until they had 
received Marchand’s official report, and then only on a basis 
of an equitable division of Bahr-el-Ghazal. 
The British consistently and firmly refused to discuss the 
matter seriously until Marchand should be recalled from the 
Upper Nile. They asserted that Kitchener’s conquest of the 
Sudan revived all the earlier titles of the Khedive of Egypt 
to the control of these lands which had been in his possession 
since the early days of the nineteenth century; that “effec- 
tive occupation” was a vague and ill-defined term that could 
not be applied in Central Africa as it is used in Europe; and 
{ Correspondence in Arch. Dip., 1898, vol. mn, pt. 4, pp. 22-72. M. 
Gabriel Hanotaux published in 1909 a little book entitled F achoda, which 
contains an able and accurate account of the whole episode, from the French 
point of view,