3 November

The Fashoda Incident was the climax of imperial territorial disputes between Britain and France in Eastern Africa, occurring in 1898.

A French expedition to Fashoda on the White Nile river sought to gain control of the Upper Nile river basin and thereby exclude Britain from the Sudan. The two armies met on friendly terms but back in Europe it became a war scare. The British held firm as Britain and France were on the verge of war with heated rhetoric on both sides. Under heavy pressure the French withdrew on this day, securing Anglo-Egyptian control over the area.

It was the last crisis between the two that involved a threat of war (until 1940) and opened the way for closer relations in the Entente cordiale in 1904.