In 1894 the so-called Dreyfus affair was responsible for a revival of the anti-German feeling, because Dreyfus, who was then a captain in the French army, had been accused and found guilty of selling military secrets to a foreign power which was by everybody considered to have been Germany. However, beyond intensifying the anti-German sentiment nothing resulted, and in May, 1895, France found it possible to join Germany and Russia in demanding from Japan the return of the Liao-Tung peninsula to China. The popular sentiment in France during the South African War was strongly pro-Boer, although the official attitude was one of neutrality. In September, 1896, France arrived at an understanding with Italy concerning the former's desires for political supremacy in Tunis. The next month brought a visit from the newly crowned Czar Nicholas who was received in France with great hospitality. The visit was reciprocated in August, 1897, by President Faure and Europe made up its mind then that France and Russia had become allied. In the next month England, too, as Italy had done before, made arrangements to acknowledge French supremacy in Tunis. In September, 1898, however, it looked for a short time as if England and France were to go to war with each other on account of further French advances in north Africa. In that month Major Marchand with French troops occupied Fashoda, a town located on the upper Nile in territory which England claimed to belong to its own sphere of interest. Lord, then still Sir Herbert, Kitchener, who was Governor General of the Sudan, demanded the withdrawal of the French troops which demand was refused; but a few months afterward the matter was amicably adjusted and the French withdrew from Fashoda. At that time, however, the popular French feeling certainly was not strongly pro-English; for when Major Marchand returned to France in May, 1899, he was received with the most effusive enthusiasm. In February, 1899, President Faure died very suddenly and M. Loubet was elected as his successor. Throughout that year the Dreyfus scandal continued to occupy public opinion in France to the exclusion of almost everything else. A second trial was ordered, but, although Captain Dreyfus was again condemned to ten years' imprisonment, the president pardoned him and in the following year, 1900, the Senate passed a bill as a result of which further criminal prosecutions on account of the Dreyfus affair became impossible.