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The new KLR650 meets a dead French Prince! (29 Dec 07) Napoleon Bonaparte’s great-nephew, the French Prince Imperial, might have lived to become Emperor of France if he’d waged war against the Zulus on a Kawasaki KLR 650 instead of a horse. GAVIN FOSTER learns from history and visits the site of his demise - on two wheels.
If I’d arrived at that dusty spot about near Nqutu shortly after tea-time on 1 June 1879 on the new KLR650 – or any other motorcycle, come to think of it – I could undoubtedly have swapped it for a title and a large chunk of French real estate. The problem is that I’d have then been the one lying naked in the dirt, clutching a scrap of leather and pierced by some seventeen assegais, while young Louis Napoleon disappeared in a roar and a cloud of dust. The Prince Imperial’s mother was the Empress Eugenie, and his godparents were His Holiness the Pope and Her Majesty the Queen of Sweden, but the Zulus weren’t impressed by titles. When his horse galloped away without the twenty-three-year-old after they launched their surprise attack on him and his escort at a supposedly abandoned kraal in Zululand, they didn’t ask for his autograph. They killed him with their short stabbing-spears, while the remnants of his escort galloped over the horizon, headed by their commanding officer, Lieutenant Carey.
The Prince and his mother, Empress Eugenie, had lived in exile in England for eight years after his father, Napoleon III, lost his little war against Prussia, thus provoking France into taking the Republican route in 1870. Being an ambitious little chappie determined to become as revered as his heroic great-uncle, the original Napoleon Bonaparte, so he could reclaim France, Louis enrolled at the British Royal Military Academy at Woolwich as an officer cadet, and, after passing out 7th in a class of 34, hung around on the fringes of the British army. When the Zulu War of 1879 broke out he contrived to come out to South Africa as an observer, wearing British uniform, on the understanding that his role was unofficial and he’d be kept well away from any danger. What happened next dominated world headlines for months. Think Prince William trotting off to Iraq as an observer with the US Marines. Think of some bearded guerrilla sawing off his head on pay television while the marine corps flees in disarray…
I’ve always wanted to visit the site of the ambush, but not on horseback. My choice of steed was the 2008 Kawasaki KLR650, and my riding companion was hard-riding Linton Jennings on his brand new KTM 990 Adventure S. I’d arranged to fetch Kawasaki’s demo from The Motorcycle Centre in Pietermaritzburg on the Thursday afternoon, which meant I could step straight off my own 2006 KLR onto the new one and draw direct comparisons between the two.
From Maritzburg we headed up the N3 to Howick, where we ducked off in search of dirt roads. On the highway it immediately became clear that the new KLR was much smoother than the old, and also much more stable at speed. The earlier bikes tend to settle into a slow front-end weave at 150km/h + that never threatens to get dangerous, but always lets you know that the machine wasn’t really designed to be ridden at such velocities. Cruising at 150 was more comfortable on the ’08 bike, and the big single motor felt less stressed than the older bike’s although the gearing is much the same. The instrumentation is also much more modern, and the seat a fraction wider and softer. Brakes – ah, brakes! At last the KLR has decent stoppers, with the wavy disk and new callipers doing a grand job up front. On the downside, at high cruising speeds both rear-view mirrors time and again rotated backwards within a few minutes of resetting them, an irritating trait that has never surfaced on my old model.
From Howick we followed a curious mish-mash of gravel and partly tarred roads through Curries Post and Mount West – the provincial administration should either tar them again or grade them back to dirt, preferably the latter. The repeated transition from tar to pothole to loose gravel and back is unpredictable and sometimes dangerous. If we can be charged for having unroadworthy bikes, surely the swine that feed off our taxes could be sued for having unbikeworthy roads? Anyway, the KLR’s upgraded suspension did a fine job of ironing out all but the worst of the obstacles the NPA threw our way.
Just past Mooi River we turned off to the east along a lovely dirt road that took us towards Middelrus at 130 km/h, before swinging north again to pop out of the bush at Weenen. Apart from the occasional car and the odd pedestrian, you don’t see much in the way of life in this neck of the woods, and could be just about anywhere in Africa. From Weenen it was but a short blast along the R74 to Colenso, where the British forces took a brutal hiding from the Boers twenty years after the Prince Imperial passed through.
I usually stop at the Battlefields Hotel for a quick one when I pass that way, and the gloomy pub in the bowels of the building never disappoints in terms of the characters that congregate there. This time it was an interesting Afrikaans barmaid with some fascinating yarns about her conversion to Islam, the periods of incarceration enjoyed by her current and ex-lovers, and details of her own time in the slammer. I could see Linton’s eyes glazing over, so we hightailed it out of there and on to Ladysmith. Those 30-odd kilometres in the dusk were the most enjoyable on tarmac of the entire trip, probably because of the mood more than the road itself. If the new KLR’s faster than the old it’s not that noticeable, with 155 – 175 km/h coming up on the speedometer, and my GPS recording a highest genuine speed of 165 on a downhill section.
After spending the night at the Royal Hotel in Ladysmith we set off after breakfast for Dundee, and thence east to Nqutu via Rorke’s Drift. The dirt road is treacherous in places here, with loose pebbles allowing the bikes to squirm all over the place, but we survived to roll into Nqutu just before lunchtime, and thence to the scene of all the drama 128 years ago.
The Prince chose a desolate part of Africa to die, near the Tshotshosi River, about 20 km northeast of Nqutu. There are a few huts nearby, and, under the trees alongside the donga where he fell, a fenced in area with a couple of whitewashed monuments. Four men died there that day – two British troopers, the Prince Imperial, and an African guide whose name is not recorded. Only two are buried there – the Prince was embalmed and returned to his England, and nobody marked the final resting place of the dead guide.
The party of nine had set off to reconnoitre a campsite for the main body of the army, and stopped at a deserted kraal to make tea. Although Lieutenant Carey was ostensibly in charge, he deferred to the Prince, and at the behest of Louis the party lingered much too long. As they prepared to mount their horses, after basking in the sun for about an hour, a volley of shots rang out and a score of Zulu warriors charged out of the long grass. When the Prince tried to vault onto his horse it reared up and the saddle strap snapped, leaving him unmounted and alone, armed only with a revolver. The Zulus later reported that he fought bravely, plucking an assegai from his thigh and striking out at the foe with it when his revolver was empty.
The next day the British returned to the scene and found the dead Prince lying on his back, naked except for a single sock, with 18 assegai wounds, all to the front of his body. Or so they reported, but after abandoning him to his gory fate they’d be unlikely to further provoke the French by implying anything else, now, would they? Lieutenant Carey – who received belated notification of his promotion to Captain just days later – was subsequently court-martialled for cowardice and found guilty, but the conviction was reversed and he returned to the service, only to die of peritonitis in India a couple of years later – rumour falsely had it that he’d been kicked by a horse.
It took the Prince and his escort nearly an hour to attract their crowd of Zulus, but we were surrounded by a bigger mob within minutes. Thankfully, there were no weapons on display – just outstretched hands and a visitors’ book. After treating both appropriately we set off back to Dundee for the night and then to Durbs, sticking to the tar from Nqutu onwards in the interests of making good time.
All in all we covered about 850 km, more than a third of them on dirt. Both bikes did what was asked of them without missing a beat, and the KLR used just under seven litres of fuel per 100km, giving it a range of over 300 km when ridden hard, and probably 400+ when treated respectfully. How does the bike compare with the old one? It’s smoother, it’s got better lights and suspension, it handles better, and the brakes are a 200% improvement. On the downside, those self-adjusting mirrors simply drove me nuts, but that’s a minor gripe. There’s simply nothing else available at remotely near the asking price of R48 995 that can cope with long distances across Africa as well as the KLR.
FIRST PUBLISHED IN 2WHEELS MAGAZINE - DEC 2007 / JAN 2008
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