European interest in Africa has generally grown…

European interest in Africa has generally grown during the nineteenth century.

By 1887 France, motivated by the search for wealth, had driven inland from its settlements on central Africa's west coast to claim the territory of Ubangi-Chari (present-day Central African Republic).

It claims this area as a zone of French influence, and within two years it occupies part of what is now southern Chad.

In the early 1890s, French military expeditions sent to Chad encounter the forces of Rabih Fadlallah, who conducts slave raids (razzias) in southern Chad throughout the 1890s and has sacked the settlements of Kanem-Borno, Bagirmi, and Wadai.

After years of indecisive engagements, French forces finally will defeat Rabih az-Zubayr at the Battle of Kousseri in 1900.