The British felt vulnerable on India's western frontier. For this reason they "leased" Quetta (Kueitteh) from its local ruler (1875), which in essence meant their acquisition of dry, mountainous Baluchistan. But they were still possessed by the obsession that Russia wanted to annex Afghanistan. They got wind that the Afghan ruler Sher Ali was friendly to the Russians. Their dander went sky-high when a British delegation was prevented from entering Afghan territory. The British then assembled a 35,000-man Indian army under general Frederick Roberts which quickly secured the Khyber pass, the gateway to Kabul, and occupied Jalalabad and Kandahar (1878). This war, as well as in general the British-Russian rivalry for Central Asia, was called the "great game" by Rudyard Kipling.

Under the chieftain Setawayo (1878-1879), the Zulus resisted the British and even killed some soldiers at Isandhlwana. A company was sent against them and in Rorke (here depicted) Zulus in the thousands were massacred. That blacks could fight so ferociously impressed European minds so much that Zulus were the subject of paintings, tall tales, horror stories, and eventually of films.

The French wanted an African empire that stretched from the Atlantic to the Red Sea. The British wanted one that went from Cairo to Cape Town. The Germans had co-opted part of east Africa, which frustrated the British dream. The French sent a small expedition to a place called Fashoda in the southern Sudan. The British sent Gen. Kitchener, who told the French Col. Marchand where he could go and park his men. At the time (1897), much was made of the Fashoda incident, which in hindsight seems like a storm in a cup of tea.

Charles George "Chinese" Gordon was a distinguished British soldier, though not conventionally within British ranks. He gained fame in helping to suppress the Taiping rebellion, which began in China in 1851 (hence the nickname Chinese), and then as a regular officer he participated in the siege of Beijing and deplored the burning in 1860 of Qialong's westernizing 18th century palace. Gordon undertook one last strictly unofficial mission to rescue the Sudan from the Mahdi. He set himself up in Khartoum, but he had no forces to speak of and was killed by the Sudanese. In this very Eurocentric painting he stands undaunted before his jabbering, over-excited killers.

This painting illustrates the ultimate explanation of European imperialism as the Sudanese army is mowed down at Omdurman by the Maxim guns of Gen. Kitchener's implicit troops.

Italy, like Germany, was a late colonialist power and it was only in 1914 that it subjected Libya against strong native resistance.

The Italians seized Libya after defeating the Ottomans in 1911-1912, but native resistance, led by the Sanusi chieftain Umar al Mukhtar, was tenacious and lasted until 1931. The Libyans were expecting Ottoman help and the Italians here are showering them with leaflets informing them that the Ottoman Empire no longer existed.