 Through Alfred Le Châtelier, Lamy later met Fernand Foureau, with whom he assembled the Foureau-Lamy Mission in 1898, charged, with another two expeditions, the Gentil and Voulet-Chanoine missions, to conquer Chad and unify all French dominions in West Africa.Foureau and Lamy proceeded from Algiers through the Sahara, and met with the other two missions at Kousséri on 21 April 1900.The following day the united French forces confronted Rabih az-Zubayr, a Sudanese warlord who had created an empire in the Chad Basin.