The Death of an Empire
On the first of June, 1879, the Crown Prince of the French Empire, Prince Eugène Louis Napoléon Bonaparte, received orders from Lord Chelmsford and joined a reconnaissance party led by Lieutenant Jahleel Carey, riding out to scout near the Mayake River in the Zulu Kingdom.
“This is only a routine patrol, Your Highness. You may put your mind entirely at ease.”
Louis Napoléon himself had received Queen Victoria’s personal assurance that the Zulu expedition carried no real danger, so he relaxed and traded jokes with the soldiers.
“Would you care for some coffee?”
Knowing the special favor the British royal family showed the prince, Lieutenant Carey took pains to win his goodwill.
“Gladly.”
The British had found no trace of Zulu warriors, and the tension among them had largely drained away. Carey ordered a rest without even posting sentries.
While the warm fragrance of coffee brushed the Englishmen’s noses, Zulu soldiers who had spotted the patrol early and crept close finished readying their attack, assegais glinting sharp in the light.
“Show these white-faced invaders that the Zulu are not so easily cowed!”
Roughly forty Zulu warriors burst from the grass with a roar, and the scouting party dissolved into panic.
“E-enemy!”
“Mount up, all of you!”
Facing a Zulu force with only eight men was unthinkable; every man scrambled into the saddle and fled. Lieutenant Carey, who ought to have taken command, paid Louis no mind and bolted with the rest of his troopers.
“W-wait! Take me with you!”
In desperation the prince flung himself onto his horse, but luck had already deserted him more thoroughly than the men who had fled first.
A flung assegai startled the animal. It reared and bucked; Louis tumbled hard to the ground.
“N-no—”
The face of his beautiful fiancée, Princess Beatrice, flashed through his mind. Ignoring the shock of the fall, he drew his revolver and tried to fight, but it was useless. Assegais found him almost at once and he crumpled.
Even as he staggered, the prince had refused to yield. The Zulu warriors respected that courage.
“Compared with those cowards who ran, this one is a brave warrior. Show him a warrior’s honor.”
They ignored Louis’s despairing cries and drove their spears into every part of his body.
“It does the dead no good to leave attachments to this world. Sever them.”
Even after death they stabbed him eighteen more times—perfectly proper conduct under the martial customs of the Zulu people. They stripped the corpse of its clothes yet left the silver necklace and medals they regarded as amulets.
The following day a British search party found Louis’s mutilated body.
That a prince had died was calamity enough; that his corpse had been desecrated sent Britain and the whole of European society into uproar.
“This is an insult hurled by savages at civilized men! Kill every filthy barbarian!”
So profound was the shock that conspiracy theories flourished in France claiming the British themselves had murdered the Crown Prince. The Germans, while offering the expected sympathy that a white prince of a fellow European nation had been so brutally slain, privately rejoiced that the shadow of Napoleon had at last been erased. With Louis Napoléon’s death the chance of a Bonapartist restoration vanished completely; Germans told themselves they need no longer tremble at Napoleon’s ghost.
Waldemar found their thinking laughable.
The Germans have no idea that a Third Republic burning for revenge is a thousand times more dangerous than some antiquated Napoleonic pretender.
Freed by Louis’s death from any fear of royalist challenges—the Bourbons and Bonapartes had even been discussing a joint claim of succession—the Third Republic was no longer the fractured opponent of old.
It will take the Germans a long time to understand that the newborn Third Republic is a far more terrifying adversary than the moth-eaten Bonapartist empire ever was.
Waldemar tapped the telegram against his desk. Using Louis Napoléon’s death as the pretext, the German government in Berlin eased its pressure on France and pivoted instead toward containing Russia, whose tensions with Germany had been rising. Bismarck’s diplomatic reorientation effectively left the door open for French expansion.
Viewed in that light, the failures of German diplomacy before the Great War could not be laid solely at Wilhelm II’s door; Bismarck and the entire German foreign policy of the era shared the blame.
Of course, the situation is not entirely bad.
Germany’s new policy of checking Russia was certain to please the English gentlemen who had long enjoyed their Great Game with the Russian bear. In fact, from the Congress of Berlin until the death of Emperor Friedrich, Britain and Germany would enjoy something very close to an alliance.
Waldemar decided to give that current a push. If he ever hoped to seize the Congo under the German name, British support would be indispensable. He therefore pestered the Crown Princess to visit Britain and offer formal condolences for Louis Napoléon.
Victoria, Princess Royal, looked at her son in mild surprise when he urged attendance at the funeral.
“Baldi, I understand you are thinking of Aunt Beatrice’s feelings, but Prince Louis was never actually married to her.”
Even though everyone knew Beatrice and Louis had been lovers, once one of them was dead the relationship could only be denied.
“I know. I simply want to attend the funeral for Aunt Beatrice’s sake.”
Victoria, who doted on her youngest sister seventeen years her junior, nodded reluctantly.
“If that is how you feel, Baldi, then let us do what we can to preserve your aunt’s dignity.”
“Thank you, Mother.”
Waldemar felt a twinge of guilt at using his aunt’s tragedy to secure a diplomatic visit, yet he saw no other way to keep from being dragged passively by events.
I’m sorry, Aunt.
The conscience-stricken thought was almost unnecessary; even without his prompting the German royals had already intended to attend.
“Father is going to the funeral?”
“Yes. Your father was on friendly terms with Prince Louis.”
On the twelfth of July, 1879, the funeral of Louis Napoléon drew a great throng of royalty from Britain, Germany, Austria, Belgium and elsewhere. Princess Beatrice herself did not appear, but everyone understood the absence was meant to avoid gossip. She had already laid a wreath and a cross upon the coffin at a private ceremony beforehand, making her grief plain.
To silence earlier French accusations of British responsibility, the English had prepared a magnificent escort of honor. From the start of the procession to St Mary’s Church, the Royal Horse Artillery, the Royal Artillery, and the 5th Royal Irish Lancers took part in a splendid ceremonial parade.
Saluting guns fired throughout; church bells tolled without cease. At last the coffin bearing Louis’s remains reached St Mary’s. High Catholic clergy, British government officials, foreign diplomats and foreign princes packed every seat until there was scarcely room to sit.
Throughout the funeral Mass, Waldemar remained motionless, watching the priests.
“Baldi, are you very tired?”
He shook his head at his mother’s anxious glance.
“Not particularly.”
When it suited him Waldemar could still play the child; on an occasion such as this he had no intention of doing so. He met the occasional glances of other mourners with perfect composure. Among them were Frenchmen.
Bonapartists?
Yet the roster of attendees proved disappointingly thin. Apart from Empress Eugénie, present as kin, and Prince Napoléon-Jérôme Bonaparte, a fifth cousin of the late prince, almost no one of real weight had come.
Even counting Victor Duruy, who once served as Minister of Education under the Second Empire, that is about the best of them.
Waldemar sighed after receiving the list from his attendant. He had known the Bonapartist cause was finished with Louis Napoléon’s death, but he had never imagined it would look this threadbare.
When the papal message of condolence had been read and the long Mass finally ended, Louis was laid to rest in the churchyard of St Mary’s beside his father, Napoleon III. Waldemar stared fixedly at the two graves until the Crown Princess asked softly,
“Baldi, what are you looking at so intently?”
“The death of an empire.”
Victoria felt a complicated stir of emotion at her son’s answer. She knew as well as anyone that no empire lasts forever; Rome itself had proved the point. A sudden anxiety rose in her; she forced a calm expression to drive it down.
“Baldi, Germany will never come to that. Your grandmother would never allow it.”
A grandmother who adored her German grandchildren, yes. But what would happen once calculating Uncle Edward or Cousin George sat on the throne? What if they set blood-ties with the German court aside and put national interest first? Or if dear Willy shattered every family relationship himself?
Waldemar did not place absolute trust in the maternal relatives who doted on him.
Mother, what our family can truly rely on is not Britain. Only ourselves—and the money in our hands.
He swallowed the words he had been about to speak.