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# In 1879 the only legitimate son of the former French Emperor Napoleon III, Louis-Napoléon, more often called Napoleon-Eugène in Russia, was killed by Zulu warriors, thrown from his horse and abandoned by the escort that galloped off…
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/v-1879-godu-edinstvennyi-zakonnyi-syn-byvshego-frantsuzskogo-imperatora-napoleona-iii-lui-napoleon-chashche-nazyvaemyi-v-rossii-napoleon-ezhen-byl-ubit-zulusskimi-voinami-sbroshennyi-ko/
- Published: 2021-06-03T08:38:47.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T05:41:05.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Monarchies, Society, People

The circumstances of his death remain somewhat unclear: there are reports that the British troopers, in effect assigned to the prince as a guard, were nearby but did not open fire on the Zulus, who were armed with spears and had no armour of any kind. Moreover, the sortie in which he took part had been judged safe, since the territory had been cleared earlier, and before that the commander-in-chief, Lord Chelmsford, had not permitted Napoleon-Eugène to find himself in any risky situation and, in effect, to fight at all, lest anything should go wrong.

The death of the 22-year-old heir was a serious blow to the prospects of a Bonapartist restoration.

After the war the Zulu king wrote to the Empress Eugénie with condolences and assurances of her son's courage, for he had fought to the last in an unequal battle, and added that had his warriors known who stood before them, they would have taken him alive. Though it is sometimes said that Lieutenant Bonaparte joined the British army precisely in an attempt to escape his mother's pressure.

Officially, however, it is held that Louis-Napoléon wished to serve in the British army for the sake of military experience, and thus became the first of the Bonapartes to fall in battle, albeit in a foreign uniform. In doing so he continued, incidentally, a curious pattern: neither Napoleon I nor Napoleon III died or was buried in French uniform; the first wore a white Austrian one, the third a red English one.

Yet one should not see some irony of fate in the fact that the Bonaparte heir died fighting for England: under Napoleon III a stable Anglo-French understanding was reached, and for almost his entire life, both on the throne and in exile, pro-Napoleonic sentiment flourished in Britain; by and large, the English were no longer enemies of the French or of the Bonapartes.

And yes, of course, everything might have turned out differently had he heeded the words of his great-uncle: never trust Albion...