Most serious of all was the French movement from the Upper Ubanghi district of French Congoland into the Bahr el Ghazal province. The Belgians had already made considerable expeditions in this quarter, and had penetrated as far north as Hofrat-en-Nahas in Southern Darfur. In 1894 they made over their claims to the French. The French Governor of the Upper Ubanghi, M. Liotard, immediately began to lay his plans with great energy and forethought for the solid establishment of French power in the Valley of the Nile. At the end of 1895 he crossed the Congo-Nile watershed, and seized Tembura on the river Sueh, an affluent of the Bahr el Ghazal. He also occupied Dem Zubehr, on the Bahr el Homr. Captain Marchand arrived with reinforcements from France in 1897, and after spending some time in consolidating his position by occupying posts throughout the country, he set out on the final stage of his journey. After great difficulties and some fighting with the dervishes, he reached Fashoda just eight weeks before the fall of Omdurman. The French preparations had not escaped the attention of those responsible for Egypt. As far as the Khalifa was concerned, the advance of the Anglo-British troops might have been delayed for some time; but in view of the French advance it was absolutely necessary for Egypt to reassert her rights in the Soudan emphatically and at once. Immediately after the occupation of Omdurman Lord Kitchener hastened on to Fashoda, and found Marchand already there. The situation was grave. For France it was galling in the extreme to be foiled just in the moment of success, but for Egypt the question was vital. The stake at issue was not the possession of a few acres of swamp, but the control of the summer water-supply. Marchand’s mission was by no means the mere freak of an adventurous traveller, anxious to hoist his country’s flag. It was undertaken as part of a policy skilfully planned and deliberately pursued. It was no mere coincidence that in the previous year the Bonchamps Expedition had set out from Abyssinia, and endeavoured, though vainly, to join hands with Marchand from the east. Firmly based in the Bahr el Ghazal, masters of the Upper Nile Valley, and joining hands with Abyssinia, the French would have been in the end complete masters of the fate of Egypt. If the French had insisted, there must have been war. Happily, they gave way, and by the agreement of 1899 withdrew all their posts in the Bahr el Ghazal. The boundary of the Soudan was fixed along the Nile-Congo watershed.