Controlling the Nile
Because the the location of the Nile was in the middle of everything it was an area ideal for transportation. However this caused a demand for power and control over the Nile. In the 19th century, a war broke out between Egypt and Ethiopia. They fought over who controlled the Red Sea and the upper Nile Basin. In 1876 at the Battle of Gura the Ethiopians defeated the Egyptian army. Living in an area where there’s little rainfall and a dry hot sun, water is a more valuable resource than for those like in the US who don’t have to worry about the water supply. Later on “in the late nineteenth century, since controlling Egypt was the key to Asian wealth and since Egypt depended on the Nile controlling the source of the Nile became a major colonial goal” (Who Owns the Nile? Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia's history - Changing Damn by Andrew Carlson). The French had an idea of building a damn on the White Nile and going on a trip to take control of that area, however others heard about this and set forth to the same area to stop them. The British came to capture Khartoum and the general before they could reach their destination, this caused an agreement to appear between the French and British being designated to the Congo river and White Nile respectively. However as they tried to increase the flow of the White Nile ("thinking that most of the Nile waters came from the equatorial lakes") it revealed that the Europeans did not know much about the Nile. This eventually leads to the Nile Waters Agreement that allowed to the construction of the Suez Canal connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea allowing transportation time to reduce greatly like the Panama Canal.