The Cape to Cairo Red Line
After the British seized Egypt and the Sudan, as well as South Africa and the Boer states, the only remaining block to the creation of a connected string of colonies across Africa from South Africa to Suez were the Belgian Congo and the German colony of East Africa. The dream of connecting all of the British colonies from south to north was known as the red line, based on the practice of British territories and possessions being displayed on international maps in red. It was the long established goal of an English businessman named Cecil Rhodes, who established the Rhodes Scholarship in part in the hope that American scholars would lobby for the United States to rejoin the British Empire.
Rhodes was a racist and a believer that there was one race superior to all others, and that was the Anglo-Saxons. “I contend that we are the first race in the world, and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race,” he wrote in his last will and testament. Rhodes believed that it was the obligation of the Anglo-Saxons, the British, Americans, and Germans, to subjugate the rest of the world and ensure global peace. To help make this vision a reality Rhodes established his scholarship as open to students from British colonies, former British colonies, and Germans.
Rhodes advocated the completion of the Cape to Cairo Railway, which would link the plantations and mines of South Africa with the other British colonies to the north. Unfortunately for Rhodes and other backers of the plan, two obstacles prevented the railway from being completed. German East Africa blocked the advance to the north along the coastal route. The terrain and weather of the Free State of Congo, later the Belgian Congo, prevented the railway from being completed using the inland route. Meanwhile the French African Empire was attempting a similar venture, attempting to build a route across Africa from Senegal to Djibouti. Had the railways been completed, they would have somewhat resembled a cross.
In 1897 the French sent an expedition to establish a protectorate in the Sudan, and explore a route to Ethiopia. The French were also interested in forcing the British to abandon Egypt, the occupation of which by the British they viewed to be illegal (though they had been invited to join in the occupation, which they rejected). The French expedition was confronted by a British joint naval and land expedition at the town of Fashoda, in Sudan. Both commanders decided to remain where they were and wait for instructions from Paris and London. Although the situation at Fashoda remained calm, it set off a flurry of war threats in the British and French capitals.
Level heads prevailed, and the French, wary of potential conflicts with the Germans, decided to back down. The French were also aware of the British military superiority in the region. In spite of the rising nationalism in France the government had no desire to pursue a colonial war with the British Empire. “They have soldiers. We have only arguments,” lamented the Foreign Minister of France. The Royal Navy and the British army mobilized. The French withdrew without conflict and by November the crisis had abated in the capitals of the rival empires. It was the last major colonial dispute between France and England. Neither empire was able to complete their transcontinental railways.