 Promoted Lieutenant-Colonel, he was made chief administrator of Timbuktu; he held this position when he met there in 1898 Captain Paul Voulet, commander of the Voulet-Chanoine Mission marching to Lake Chad, whom he provided him with 70 Senegalese Tirailleurs and 20 spahi cavalry (both colonial troops recruited in West Africa).When in April 1899, he knew of the misdemeanors committed by the expedition, orders were given to Klobb assemble a small mission, reach Voulet's column and assume the command of the expedition.Klobb followed the trail left by the "infernal column's" passage; a trail of burned villages and charred corpses.