When one draws a line from Cape Town to Cairo (Rhodes' dream) and another line from Dakar to French Somaliland (now Djibouti) by the Red Sea in the Horn (the French ambition), these two lines intersect in eastern South Sudan near the town of Fashoda (present-day Kodok), explaining its strategic importance.
As evidenced by the book's great popularity, the scenario of such an alliance seemed plausible to the British public in 1894; only four years later, Britain and France were indeed on the verge of war during the Fashoda Incident.
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This resulted in the Fashoda Incident, where an expedition led by Jean-Baptiste Marchand was opposed by forces under Lord Kitchener's command.
The Bahr al Jabal passes through Juba, the capital of South Sudan, which is the southernmost navigable point on the Nile river system, and then to Kodok, the site of the 1898 Fashoda Incident that marked an end to the 'Scramble for Africa'.