The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-09-10
PRINCE IMPERIAL.
Lost His Life in At
RIGA Fighting for
England.
WERE He LIVING TODAY,
His Supporters Might Now
Rally Aaround Him For
Another Revolution.

bloody, for the Beers know how to fight
ana the task of defeating them will be
no holiday performance But as to the
final issue, while it may cost dearly and
be delayed, there should be no doubt
whatever. The terrible blunder of Ma
juba hill taught the British generals a
lesson which will not go unheeded in
the coming campaign, and the hardy
Beers will find that this time they are
up against a different game frorn that
they outplayed so successfully IL years
ago. Kruger and his ntountaineers will
have to fight hard and long, and even
then may have to find an ally. if they
are to save their little nation from de-
struction in the struggle which now
seems unavoidable.
Should this Transvaal war cloud not
roll by without Boer and Briton cross
ing swords it will be the fourth time in
this generation that England has been
at war in South Africa. There was the
Ashantee war in the early '70's, the Zu-
III war in the later years of that decade
and the abortive and costly Boer cam
paign, which ended in the most humil-
iating way FOR England after the disas-
trous engagement on Majuba hill. Of
these wars, the most remarkable was
the Zulu campaign. 1t was so because
OF the prolonged resistance which those
saYages offered to a well-led army of
10000 picked British troops: because of
the terrible massacre of Rorke's Drift
which rivetted the eyes of the world on
the hitherto unnoticed struggle. and
finally because of the fact that in that
campaign the Prince Imperial of
France lost his life, an event that had
far-reaching effect upon the politics of
Europe
The youthful prince was living in re-
tirement at Chislehurst. a beautiful
place in the county of Kent, with his
widowed mother, ex-Empress Eugene.
When the war begun between the Brit
ish and the Zulu king, Cetewayo, filled
with some sort of vague notion that
benefit might result to his shattered
fortunes if he attained military fame,
for which he had no opportunity in his
own land, he sought and obtained a
commission as lieutenant in one of the
English regiments that was bound for
the scene of action. He went out to
South Africa, saw some active service
without getting scratch and won the
esteem and commentator of his broth
er and superior officers for his modest
and --'anly bearing and for his work as
a soldier. But the fates had decreed
against the Prince Imperial. The Zulu
war, under the British flag was des-
tined to be his first and last appearance
in the theatre of war. Wandering one
day away from camp in company with
Capt Carey and a few cavalrymen.
they had ridden some miles, when, all
unconscious Of danger, for the stealthy
enemy was nowhere to be seen, the lit
q ma ri len fOY
the horses browsed quietly near them.
The meal had but just begun when
without a moments warning, the very
air grew black with bowling Zulus as
they swept in from all sides on the iso-
lated band. Carey saw there was Just
one chance, the horses, and he shouted
to the Others to mount and make
dash for their lives. Every man but
the prince succeeded in getting away
His horse bolted in the panic, and be-
fore he colAd be controlled long enough
for the owner to vault into the saddle
the savage horde cut off all escape
Looking back few seconds later, Capt
Carey was Mortified to see that the
young Frenchman had missed his
chance, and was beyond all hope of as
sistance. Sword in hand he could be
seen fighting with desperate pluck
against the overpowering enemy, but
the struggle could have but one ending
and that came quickly. When troops
came galloping out from camp in re-
Spouse to Carey's alarm, the Zulus had
gone, leaving behind them the mangled
remains of the exiled son of the last
emperor of France. Napoleon III. had
died at his Chislehurst home, a few
years before, so in the tragic death of
his only son the hopes of the royalists
OF France were given blow from which
they have never recovered.
Had the Prince Imperial not gone out
to the Zulu war, or, going out, had he
escaped the peris of the campaign am
been permitted to return victorious
officer of a victorious army, and were
his life prolonged to the present there
is great room for doubt as to whether
his exile life in England would be I'M
ending. His personality would be a
mighty factor in the agonizing struggle
that is now torturing France, and
which may yet end in the rending to
pieces of the French republic
AS Captain Carey turned in his saddle
that fatal day in Zululand to see if the
youthful Prince Imperial had gained his
saddle in time and was making good
hrs escape with the rest, he might, had
he been gifted with prophetic vision
have seen the pages of history receive
monmentous turn.
Commenting on the death OF the
Prince Imperial Justin Mccarthy writes
as follows in the History of Our Own
Times":-
Everyone was sorry for the young
gallant life, so uselessly thrown away.
Still more deep was the regret felt for
the position of the bereaved mother.
Hardly has any history a tale more
tragic than hers. So sudden and splen-
did an elevation, so brilliant a career.
so complete a fall, such an accumula-
ton of sorrow, is hardly equalled even
in the story of Marie Antoinette. Now
in the autumn Of her life she was left
absolutely alone. Youth, beauty. i'm
perlal throne, husband, son, all were
gone 1t was natural that considera
tions such as these should throw a
halo Of melancholy romance round the
fate of the young Prince Louis Napo-
leon and should rouse an amount of
sympathy which harsher critics con-
denlned as sentimental, and even as
maudlin. 1t must be admitted that the
poor young prince fell in a quarrel
which was not his, in which he had
neither right nor duty to interfere. and
which he had taken on himself with 4
purely personal and political motive.
Princes I'm exile have many times borne
arms in quarrels not their own. II IL
one of the privileges and one of tho
consultations of exile thus to be enabled
to lend helping hand to foreign
cause. When the Orleanist princes
fought under the flag Of the United
States, they were contending for a
principal dear to the lovers of freedom
in every country in the world; a prin-
cipal which II is the part of a French
man as well as an American to sustain.
But the Zulu war was NOT I'm any aanaa