French West Africa with the exception of the Senegalese Communes, the administrative structure of French rule at the lower levels remained constant, based upon the Cercle system. This was the smallest unit of French political administration in French colonial Africa that was headed by a European officer. They might range in size, but French Sudan (modern Mali) consisted of less than a dozen Cercles for most of its existence. Thus, a Cercle Commander might be the absolute authority over hundreds of thousands of Africans. A Cercle consisted of several cantons, each of which in turn consisted of several villages, and was almost universal
Greeks in South Sudan which prompted imperialist Belgian and French missions into Southern Sudan. It may have been in this context that in 1895 a Greek merchant by the name of Grigoris Apostolidis became active in Sambi on the While Nile. He originated from Imvros and after a few years moved on to open a shop Yirol. He got married to a local woman and had two sons with her. Soon after the defeat of the Mahdist regime and the subsequent Fashoda incident in 1898, the British-dominated colonial regime started establishing control in Southern Sudan. At the same time, Greek merchants once again followed