Prince Imperial Artillery Officer

What if the Prince Imperial had followed up his formal training at Woolwich with entering a career as an artillery officer in the British Army?

He seems to have had the skills and training and it meshes well with his Great Uncle's career.

He would then not have been killed by Zulus in South Africa. Could he have had a later role in France? One could also imagine British Colonel Bonaparte in the South African War or British General Bonaparte arriving in France with the BEF?

IIRC his Great Uncle's father wanted young Napoleon to join the Royal Navy, being an anti-French pro-British Corsican nationalist.
 
He wouldn't come with the BEF or at least probably not. By the law of exile of 1886 which, if anything, would be voted on sooner if he had lived, heads of former reigning families were forbidden to live in France. That meant the Bonapartes as well as the Bourbons and Orléans. It was not rescinded until 1950 which is probably out of his natural timespan without the meeting with the Zulus. One Orleanist, Henri count of Paris, tried to join the French or English forces for WWII but was turned down by both governments before being allowed into the Foreign Legion.

Plus, you have to admit that, while sad, his death is also the ultimate irony of the fate of the Bonaparte family: frightening Europe for decades, clawing back their way into power from insignificance and two of them dying in Africa, one on a nearly desert island and the other because his foot got tangled in stirrups and learning the very hard way that spears can beat guns if there are enough of them. From nobodies to ultimate terror to laughing stock, isn't it the perfect bookends? You know, like Napoléon Ier inspired the romantics and gave them aspirations of glory and Napoléon III and his son inspired Offenbach and his delightful opéra-bouffes about delusions of grandeur.
 
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