Fashoda Incident - British Diplomatic Victory

British Diplomatic Victory

In naval terms, the situation was heavily in the United Kingdom’s favour, a fact that French deputies acknowledged in the aftermath of the crisis. Though the French force was larger, the British had them outgunned. The French army was far larger than the British one, but there was little it would have been able to do against Britain without efficient naval support.

This fact was undoubtedly an important one to Théophile Delcassé, the newly appointed French foreign minister. He saw no advantage in a colonial war with the British, especially since he was keen to gain their friendship in case of any future conflict with Germany. He therefore pressed hard for a peaceful resolution of the crisis. The reopening of the Dreyfus Affair had done much to distract French public opinion from events in the Sudan and with people increasingly questioning the wisdom of a war over such a remote part of Africa, the French government quietly ordered its soldiers to withdraw on 3 November.