and the beginnings of British policy. 51 ships in the Blue Nile and the White Nile. If you encounter the French or the Abyssinians in either of them, be careful not to take any action that acknowledges their influence in the course of the Nile." On September 19, Lord Kitchener arrived at Fashoda, where he met Marchand. At that moment, the time came to resolve the issue between France and England. On the evening of September 20, the Egyptian flag was raised there, leaving half a company for its guard, and Kitchener proceeded to Khartoum. Among the statements of the British ministers, Sir Edward Grey said, "We cannot concede the Upper Nile to the French, because the Nile is Egypt and Egypt is the Nile." The matter between France and England escalated to war, and France consulted Russia. The Tsar's government replied that the matter should be settled amicably while preserving the honor of its flag. On October 4, the French government decided to withdraw its troops from Fashoda. On the same evening, a grand celebration was held at the London Town Hall in honor of Lord Kitchener, and the Prime Minister announced the news of Marchand's withdrawal from Fashoda, which was "of no importance in the eyes of the Republican government." On March 21, 1899, Monsieur Cambon, the French ambassador, and Lord Salisbury signed an agreement, the essence of which was that the boundaries of French influence were the mountains separating the Congo River and the Nile River, and French troops withdrew from Bahr el Ghazal. However, this agreement did not affect Egypt's rights, but it did affect France's influence in Wadai, an influence that a French ministry began to dismantle in 1882 and the Haclas ministry completed that dismantling in 1899. If Desaix, one of Napoleon's commanders, had carved his name on the wall of Aswan while pursuing the Mamluks, that name was not that of a British officer who did not know the value of history. The Governor of Sudan did not consider Fashoda important enough to leave that name as a bad memory between the British and the French. However, the British did not wait for France to sign the agreement of March 21, 1899.