Starting from Libreville (in present-day Gabon) in 1897, the Marchand expedition spent 14 arduous months crossing largely uncharted regions of north central Africa. They finally reached the fort of Fashoda on the upper Nile on July 10, 1898 and hoisted the French flag. On September 18, a flotilla of British gunboats led by Horatio Kitchener arrived at Fashoda; Kitchener had just defeated Mahdi forces at The Battle of Omdurman, and was in the process of reconquering the Sudan in the name of the Egyptian Khedive.