ABSTRACT
The 1904 agreements were very valuable to Britain. The British had extended their colony of Sierra Leone to include the huge hinterland of the Protectorate in 1896, after a boundary agreement with France the previous year. The Gold Coast was the scene of new wars between the British and the Ashanti in 18956 and again in 1900-1901. Some doubt exists whether the Fashoda crisis hindered or helped a final understanding between Britain and France about colonial matters. The man who became French Foreign Minister in the middle of the crisis, Thophile Delcass, argued that it delayed for some years the reconciliation with England he so much desired. The plight of Italian nationals cut off at Kassala in 1896 gave the British a rather transparent excuse to re-enter the Sudan. In fact there is no doubt that this was part of a carefully conceived strategy by Salisbury to make the Upper Nile safe once and for all.
