Gods and Foolish Grandeur: Battenberg to Mountbatten

Prince Louis of Battenberg, 1909.

Admiral of the Fleet Louis Alexander Mountbatten, 1st Marquess of Milford Haven, GCB, GCVO, KCMG, PC (24 May 1854, Graz – 11 September 1921, London), British naval officer and German nobleman closely related to the British royal family. Born Prince Ludwig Alexander von Battenberg, the eldest son of the morganatic marriage between Prince Alexander of Hesse and by Rhine and Countess Julia von Hauke. He was closely related to many of Europe's royal families, and became especially close with that of Queen Vicoria after her second eldest daughter, Alice, married his cousin Prince Louis of Hesse. At the age of fourteen he joined the Royal Navy and thus became a naturalized British subject. In the coming decades, he gladly welcomed any assignment that would help him acquire the many necessary skills of naval warfare and demonstrate to his superiors his devotion to a naval career, while eschewing any promotion or honor that might give the impression of being undeserved, the result of the influence of his royal connections. After many far-flung postings and increasingly prestigious commands, by 1904, he had risen to the rank of rear admiral.

Prince Louis, 1910.

In 1912, after a naval career lasting more than forty years, he was appointed First Sea Lord, the professional head of the United Kingdom's Royal Navy. With the approach of World War I, together with the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, he took steps to ready the British fleet for the coming conflict. But there had been grumblings about his German heritage for some time, and after the commencement of hostilities, with the rapid rise of anti-German sentiment among the British public, the press, and with resentment even being stirred by others in the Admiralty, Churchill asked for his resignation in October of 1914.

In the summer of 1917, in the thick of war and the height of anti-German feeling, King George V changed the name of the British royal house from Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to Windsor. At the same time, he and all his British relatives relinquished their German titles and styles, and adopted British-sounding surnames. The King compensated his male relatives by creating them British peers. Prince Louis was made Marquess of Milford Haven, Earl of Medina, and Viscount Alderney, and he and his three younger children took on a new surname, transforming Battenberg into a more English-sounding Mountbatten.

Prince Louis, 1909.

Princess Victoria of Battenberg, 1907.

In 1884, Louis had married his first cousin once removed, Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine (Victoria Alberta Elisabeth Mathilde Marie; 5 April 1863 – 24 September 1950). Victoria was the eldest child of Princess Alice, herself the second daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Athe age of fifteen, after the death of two of her siblings, then the death of her mother, Victoria, as the eldest child, assumed the role of mother to the younger children and of companion to her father. She later wrote, "My mother's death was an irreparable loss ... My childhood ended with her death, for I became the eldest and most responsible." Much later she suffered many more family tragedies, including the murder of her two sisters, Empress Alexandra and Grand Duchess Elisabeth, during the Russian Revolution, as well as the air crash of 1937 that devastated the Grand Ducal family of Hesse; she lost her sister-in-law, nephew, granddaughter, and two great-grandsons. Then her elder son died the following year of bone cancer. Through it all, she was the backbone of the family.

Victoria Mountbatten, the Dowager Marchioness of Milford Haven, 1923.

She and Louis had a happy marriage, though with much travel and separation because of his naval career. They had four children:

Alice (Victoria Alice Elizabeth Julia Marie; 25 February 1885 – 5 December 1969), who, in 1903, married Prince Andrew of Greece, with whom she would have four daughters - all would go on to marry German princes - and, later, they would be the parents of the present Duke of Edinburgh. (Born Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark, he adopted the name Mountbatten before his marriage to the future Queen.)

Louise (Louise Alexandra Marie Irene; 13 July 1889 – 7 March 1965), who married, as his second wife, the future King Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden in 1923, and became Queen of Sweden after his accession in 1950.

George, 2nd Marquess of Milford Haven, GCVO (George Louis Victor Henry Serge Mountbatten; 6 December 1892 – 8 April 1938), who married Countess Nadejda Mikhailovna de Torby, morganatic daughter of Grand Duke Michael Mikhailovich in 1916. They had two children before his early death.

Admiral of the Fleet Louis, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma (Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas Mountbatten; 25 June 1900 – 27 August 1979), British Royal Navy officer and statesman, uncle of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and second cousin once removed of Queen Elizabeth II. During the Second World War, he was Supreme Allied Commander, South East Asia Command (1943–1946). He was the last Viceroy of India and the first Governor-General of independent India. He married heiress Edwina Ashley in 1922 and they had two daughters together.