320 KHARTOUM CAMPAIGN.

orders of his Government, which, however, he expected, would not be delayed, it was impossible for him to retire from the place.”

The instructions given by Lord Salisbury, through Lord Cromer, to the Sirdar, have been given elsewhere in this chapter.

On September 11 our Ambassador informed M. Delcassé of the advance of the Sirdar up the Nile, and on the 18th the French Foreign Minister stated further :— “As a matter of fact, there is no Marchand Mission. In 1892 and 1893 M. Liotard was sent to the Upper Ubanghi as Commissioner, with instructions to secure French interests in the northeast. M. Marchand had been appointed one of his subordinates, and received all his orders from M. Liotard. There could be no doubt that for a long time past the whole region of the Bahr-el-Ghazal had been out of the influence of Egypt.”

Sir E. Monson left M. Delcassé in no doubt as to the view Her Majesty’s Government took of the situation. Of the interview referred to, he reports to Lord Salisbury as follows, under date September 22 :— ‘*‘ Although his Excellency made two or three allusions to the reasons for which, in his opinion, the French might consider that the region in question was open to their advance, he himself volunteered the suggestion that discussion between us would be inopportune.

‘‘In this I, of course, concurred, reminding him of the terms of your lordship’s telegram of the gth inst.; but I told him, as emphatically as I could, that I looked upon the situation at Fashoda, if M. Marchand had occupied that town, as very serious, inasmuch as Her Majesty’s Government would certainly not acquiesce in his remaining there, nor would they consent to relinquishing the claims of Egypt to the restoration of all the country latterly subject to the