France, Mission Marchand, 1899, a silver medal by J.-B. Daniel-Dupuis, bust of Marianne right, rev. mission marchand de l’atlantique à la mer rouge 1897-1899, 50mm. Very fine, rare £50-100

The Marchand mission was an expedition undertaken by the French emissary Jean-Baptiste Marchand (1863-1934) and 150 followers to counter British expansionism in N.E. Africa. Sent to Africa in 1897 to establish French control of the headwaters of the White Nile, Marchand led a heroic 14-month trek from Brazzaville through uncharted terrain to secure the area around the isolated Fashoda fort as a French protectorate. Arriving in July 1898, he resisted initial dervish attacks but a week later a powerful flotilla of British gunboats, commanded by Lord Kitchener, sailed up to the fort. Fresh from defeating the Mahdi at Omdurman, Kitchener, in the process of reconquering the Sudan in the name of the Khedive, insisted on Britain’s right to Fashoda. The stand-off, known as the Fashoda Incident, lasted until October 1898 when Theophile Delcassé, the French foreign minister, negotiated a peaceful settlement and his government ordered Marchand's withdrawal. Six months later both countries agreed that the source of the Nile and Congo rivers should mark the frontier between their spheres of influence. The medals were given to Marchand’s followers at the end of the mission