The British and Egyptian governments would not again attempt major intervention until 1896, whereupon the government in Britain was impelled to act by several factors. The Egyptian economy had improved since British administrators commandeered the country's finances. Public sentiment towards Mahdist Sudan had been stoked by several embellished accounts of the Mahdists' savagery and the desire to avenge General Charles Gordon. France, Britain's longtime competitor in the Scramble for Africa, was beginning to encroach upon the Nile river valley, alongside the Belgians. Finally, it was politically advantageous in Europe for Britain to distract the Khalifa from the Italians in Eritrea, who had been made vulnerable by a recent defeat at the hands of Menelik II, Emperor of Ethiopia. The government chose Herbert Horatio Kitchener to lead the new expedition, outfitting him with around ten-thousand soldiers and Britain's latest technology: Maxim guns, heavy artillery, and a small fleet of gunboats.