France in the Dual Alliance largely on account of England's opposition to her, and Great Britain had allied herself with Japan because of the fear of Russian aggression in the far East.
Great Britain and France were also still rivals at the end of the nineteenth century. Conflicting ambitions as to certain parts of Africa were the main cause of friction. In 1879 they had intervened jointly in Egypt in the interest of English and French creditors. When a rebellion broke out in 1882, France declined to aid Great Britain in its suppression. The latter was thus left in sole control of the country, though France objected to Britain's position in the province. Later (1898), the Egyptian Sudan was brought under the authority of the English Government. Britain's progress southward conflicted with the ambition of France to expand eastward from the Congo. France desired to control the whole Sudan from the western coast to the Abyssinian region in the east. In furtherance of this plan, Captain Marchand in 1898 led an expedition from the French Congo eastward and took possession of a little island, Fashoda, in the upper Nile region. As Fashoda was in territory that Great Britain had staked off for herself, its occupation by the French aroused great excitement among the English people. General Kitchener was sent
