Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma

Admiral of the Fleet Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, KG, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCIE, GCVO, DSO, PC (25 June 1900 – 27 August 1979) was a British admiral and statesman and an uncle of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. He was the last Viceroy and first Governor-General of independent India, and First Sea Lord, as was his father, Prince Louis of Battenberg. He was assassinated by the Provisional IRA, who planted a bomb in his boat in Donegal Bay, County Sligo in the Republic of Ireland.

Ancestry

Mountbatten was born in Frogmore House, Windsor, in England, as His Serene Highness Prince Louis of Battenberg, although his German styles and titles were dropped in 1917. He was the youngest child and the second son of Prince Louis of Battenberg and his wife Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine.

His maternal grandparents were Ludwig IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine and Princess Alice of the United Kingdom, daughter of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

His siblings were Princess Alice, (mother of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh), Queen Louise of Sweden, and George Mountbatten, 2nd Marquess of Milford Haven.

His father was First Sea Lord at the outbreak of the First World War, but the prevailing extreme anti-German feelings obliged him to resign. In 1917, when the Royal Family stopped using their German names and titles, Prince Louis of Battenberg became Louis Mountbatten, and was created Marquess of Milford Haven. His second son acquired the courtesy style Lord Louis Mountbatten and was known as Lord Louis informally until his death notwithstanding his being granted a viscountcy in recognition of his wartime service in the Far East and an earldom for his role in the transition of India from British dependency to sovereign state. In childhood he visited the Imperial Court of Russia at St Petersburg and became intimate with the doomed Imperial Family; in later life he was called upon authoritatively to rebut claims by pretenders to be the supposedly surviving Grand Duchess Anastasia.

Career

Early career

Mountbatten served in the Royal Navy during the First World War. He accompanied Edward, Prince of Wales on a 1922 royal tour of India (where Edwina Ashley met him and he proposed marriage) and consolidated a firm friendship with the Prince. His relations with the Prince which cooled substantially during the the latter's reign as Edward VIII, particularly in Abdication Crisis of 1936, when Mountbatten's loyalties as between the wider Royal Family and the throne, on the one hand, and the then-King, on the other, were tested: Mountbatten coming down firmly on the side of Prince Albert who was to assume the throne in his brother's place.

Second World War

In the Second World War he commanded the 5th Destroyer Flotilla. His ship, the destroyer HMS Kelly, was famous for many daring exploits. In early May 1940, Mountbatten led a British convoy in through the fog to evacuate the Allied forces participating in the Namsos campaign. His ship was sunk during the Crete Campaign. In 1940 he invented the Mountbatten Pink naval camouflage pigment.

Mountbatten was a favourite of Winston Churchill — though Churchill was famously annoyed with Mountbatten's later role in the independence of India — and in 1941 he replaced Roger Keyes as Chief of Combined Operations. He personally pushed through the disastrous Dieppe Raid (19 August 1942) (which certain elements of the Allied military, notably Field Marshal Montgomery, felt was misconceived from the start). The raid on Dieppe was widely considered to be a disaster, with casualties (including those injured and/or taken prisoner) numbering in the thousands, the great majority of them Canadians.

As a result, at one time Mountbatten was a rather controversial figure in Canada, with the Royal Canadian Legion taking some pains to distance itself from him during his visits there during his later career. The effluxion of time and Mountbatten's later fame in connection with India, particularly towards the end of his life, served to mute these feelings. Nevertheless, the perceived callousness of Mountbatten and other prominent figures towards Canadian forces felt by some served to encourage Canada's increasing distancing of itself from Britain in the postwar years. Despite this, Mountbatten had a Royal Canadian Sea Cadet corps named after him in 1946. RCSCC #134 Admiral Mountbatten is located in Sudbury, Ontario.

In late 1942, Mountbatten proposed Project Habakkuk to Churchill; the Pykrete supercarrier project was never completed. In October 1943, Churchill appointed Mountbatten the Supreme Allied Commander South East Asia Theatre, a post he held until South East Asia Command (SEAC) was disbanded in 1946. During his time as Supreme Allied Commander of the South-East Asia Theatre his command oversaw the recapture of Burma from the Japanese by General William Slim. His diplomatic handling of General "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell, his deputy - and also the officer commanding the American China Burma India Theater - and Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the Chinese Nationalist forces, was as gifted as that of General Eisenhower with General Montgomery and Winston Churchill.

Also during this command, Mountbatten was gifted with a personal aircraft in accordance with his rank - an all-white DC-3 in RAF VIP trim named Sister Anne, which remained his and Lady Mountbatten's personal transport until his retirement from government service.

The Last Viceroy

His experience in the region and in particular his widely-known Labour sympathies led to Clement Attlee appointing him Viceroy of India after the war. In his position as Viceroy, Mountbatten oversaw the granting of independence to the Partitioned India as India and Pakistan (In subsequent years, pre-Independence India has often been referred to as "British India." Prior to Partition and Independence, "British India" referred to those parts of India which were directly administered by the British, as opposed to those portions of pre-Independence India which were under the control of the Indian Princes.)

He developed a strong relationship with the Indian princes who reposed considerable confidence in him, and on the basis of his relationship with the British monarchy persuaded most of them to accede to the new states of India and Pakistan. This was vitally important in the lead-up to Indian independence, though, of course, ultimately they were betrayed when post-Independence India and Pakistan abolished their prerogatives. The major continuing irritant between India and Pakistan has been over their rival claims to the formerly princely state of Kashmir. As a Hindu, the Maharajah, Hari Singh, chose to accede to India despite a majority of Kashmiris being Muslim. Nehru himself was a Kashmiri Hindu and had a strong wish to retain Kashmir for India; as has been well-documented, Mountbatten got on extremely well with Jawaharlal Nehru, the Indian Congress leader, and not at all with Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the leader of the Indian Muslim League and champion of the partitioning of India, a factor that complicated the issue.

With his strong friendship with Nehru and amicable relations with Mahatma Gandhi but inability to work his famous charm on Jinnah, Mountbatten quickly gave up hope of salvaging a unified independent India, becoming resigned to Partition into a post-Independence Pakistan and Bharat (India). After Independence (midnight of 14/15 August 1947, celebrated on the 14th in Pakistan and the 15th in India) he remained in New Delhi for ten months, serving as the first of independent India's two governors general until June 1948 (the monarchy being abolished in 1950 and the office of governor general of India replaced with a non-executive presidency.) Notwithstanding extremely effective self-promotion during his lifetime as to own his part in Indian independence — notably in the television series "The Life and Times of Admiral of the Fleet Lord Mountbatten of Burma", produced by his son-in-law Lord Brabourne, and Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins's rather sensationalised Freedom at Midnight (as to which he was the main informant) — his record is seen as mixed; one view is that he hastened the independence process unduly, forseeing vast disruption and loss of life and not wanting this to occur on the British watch, but thereby actually causing it to occur, especially during the partition of the Punjab but also to a lesser extent, Bengal.

John Kenneth Galbraith, the Canadian-American Harvard economist, who advised governments of India during the 1950s, became an intimate of Nehru and served as the American ambassador from 1961-63, has been a particularly harsh critic of Mountbatten in this regard. The horrific casualties of the partition of the Punjab are luridly described in Collins' and LaPierre's Freedom at Midnight and more latterly in Bapsi Sidhwa's novel Ice Candy Man, made into the film Earth, 1947. In all renderings of the appalling carnage that followed the Partition, Lady Mountbatten is universally praised for her heroic efforts in relieving the misery and to this day she remains a heroine of the Partition period in India.

Career after India

After India, Mountbatten served in the Mediterranean Fleet and as a staff officer in the Admiralty. He took great personal pride and pleasure in serving as First Sea Lord and later as Chief of the Defence Staff for six years (1959-1965), which he also took as reparation for the slur on his father who had been forced to resign as First Sea Lord in 1914 after being falsely accused of pro-German sympathy.

It is claimed that in 1967 Mountbatten attended a private meeting with press baron and MI5 agent Cecil King, and the Government's chief scientific adviser, Solly Zuckerman. King wanted to stage a coup against the then crisis-striken Labour Government of Harold Wilson, and urged Mountbatten to become the leader of a Government of national salvation. Mountbatten apparently considered the idea of heading the coup, but Zuckerman pointed out that it was treason, and the idea came to nothing because of Mountbatten's reluctance to act. House of Commons, Hansard: 10 January 1996 Column 287. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199596/cmhansrd/vo950110/debtext/60110-43.htm Claims of an MI5 plot against Wilson have been investigated a number of times and denied on each occasion. ^*

Mountbatten was appointed the first Lord Lieutenant of the Isle of Wight following that county's creation in 1974. He kept the position until his death.

Mountbatten took great pride in enhancing intercultural understanding and in 1984, with his eldest daughter as the patron, the Mountbatten Internship Programmewas developed to allow young adults the opportunity to enhance their intercultural appreciation and experience by spending time abroad.

Personal life

Marriage

Mountbatten - known to friends and family as "Dickie" - was married on July 18, 1922 to the Hon. Edwina Cynthia Annette Ashley, daughter of Wilfred Ashley, 1st Baron Mount Temple. She was the favourite granddaughter of the Edwardian magnate, Sir Ernest Cassel. There followed a glamorous honeymoon tour of America which famously included a visit with Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin in Hollywood, Chaplin creating a widely-seen home movie "Nice and Easy," featuring the talents of Fairbanks, Pickford, Chaplin and the Mountbattens. They had two daughters: Patricia Mountbatten, 2nd Countess Mountbatten of Burma (born on February 14, 1924), and Lady Pamela Carmen Louise (Hicks) (born on April 19, 1929).

Edwina died at age 58 on February 21, 1960, in Jesselton, North Borneo; as amply documented in the official biography by Philip Ziegler, the marriage had been stormy throughout, with ample adulterous dalliance on both parts. Both husband and wife readily admitted to several affairs, particularly during the 1930s; Edwina's intimacy with Nehru has long been well known; and both Mountbatten daughters have candidly acknowledged that Edwina had a fiery temperament and was not always supportive of Mountbatten when jealousy of his high profile overbore a sense of their having common cause. During the Indian viceroyalty, in particular, Mountbatten's evenings were often given over to assuaging Edwina's feelings of angry resentment. Latterly, A.N. Wilson in his well-regarded After the Victorians: 1901-1953 has asserted on the basis of several documented sources that Mountbatten himself carried on affairs with lovers of both sexes and that he was widely known in the military as "Mountbottom." A small item in Private Eye magazine regarding drunken naval ratings at Mountbatten's London home, and which alluded to Mountbatten's bisexuality, was widely commented upon. Mountbatten's official biographer wrote that he could find nothing to support the allegation, but several eyewitness accounts supporting Private Eye were later published.

Passing of titles to Patricia

Since Mountbatten had no sons, when he was created Viscount on August 23, 1946, then Earl and Baron on October 28, 1947, the Letters Patent were drafted such that the titles would pass to the female line. This was at his firm insistence: his relationship with his elder daughter had always been particularly close and it was his special wish that she succeed to the title in her own right. There was longstanding precedent for such remainders for military commanders, past examples included Lord Nelson and Earl Roberts. It also acknowledged the regard in which he was held by the British Royal Family — although the Sarah Bradford biography of King George VI: The Reluctant King, indicates clearly that the King was not without a degree of droll awareness of his cousin's famous name-dropping as to his Royal connection — as well as to atone for the disservice done to his father. Thus, on his death in 1979 the titles passed to Patricia as he had wished.

Mentorship of Prince of Wales

Mountbatten was a strong influence in the upbringing of his great-nephew, The Prince of Wales, and later as a mentor — "Honorary Grandfather" and "Honorary Grandson," they fondly called each other according to the Jonathan Dimbleby biography of the Prince — though according to both the Ziegler biography of Mountbatten and the Dimbleby biography of the Prince the results may have been mixed: he from time to time strongly upbraided the Prince for showing tendencies towards the idle pleasure-seeking dilletantism of his precedecessor as Prince of Wales, King Edward VIII, later known as the Duke of Windsor, whom Mountbatten had known well in their youth; but he also encouraged the Prince to enjoy the bachelor life while he could and then to marry a young and inexperienced girl so as to ensure a stable married life. No doubt he was thinking of his own youthful and tumultuous marriage to Edwina; of course the Prince's own marriage to Lady Diana Spencer turned out to be even more tumultuous.

Death

On 27 August 1979, while holidaying as usual in his summer home in Mullaghmore, County Sligo in the Republic of Ireland, he was killed by a bomb planted in his boat in Donegal Bay. The Provisional IRA admitted responsibility for the bomb. Others killed at the site were:

The Dowager Baroness Brabourne: his elder daughter's mother-in-law (aged 83).
The Hon. Nicholas Knatchbull, his elder daughter's fourth son (aged 14).
Paul Maxwell: a local boy working as a crew member (aged 15).

The killing of Mountbatten was accompanied by the deaths of eighteen soldiers, belonging to the Parachute Regiment, the same day in the Warrenpoint Ambush in County Down. Mountbatten's assassination was carried out by members of the IRA, many of whom frequented Bundoran, County Donegal, a holiday town not far from Mullaghmore. The murders were strongly condemned in the Republic of Ireland, The President of Ireland, Patrick Hillery, and the Taoiseach (Prime Minister), Jack Lynch, attended a memorial service for Lord Mountbatten of Burma in St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin. On 23 November 1979, Thomas McMahon was sentenced to life in prison for the assassination and murders. McMahon was released in 1998 under the Good Friday AgreementIRA bomb kills Lord Mountbatten — BBC News On This Day.

Mountbatten was buried in Romsey Abbey after a televised funeral in Westminster Abbey which he himself had comprehensively planned.

Titles

His Serene Highness Prince Louis of Battenberg (1900–1917)
Lord Louis Mountbatten (1917–1946)
The Right Honourable The Viscount Mountbatten of Burma (1946–1947)
The Right Honourable The Earl Mountbatten of Burma (1947–1979)

Honours

1937: Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order – GCVO (1920: MVO, 1922: KCVO)
1941: Distinguished Service Order – DSO
1943: Knight of Justice of St John – KJStJ
1946: Knight of the Garter – KG
1947: Knight Grand Commander of the Star of India – GCSI
1947: Knight Grand Commander of the Indian Empire – GCIE
1955: Knight Grand Cross of the Bath – GCB (1943: CB, 1945: KCB}
1956: Grand Commander of the Order of Thiri Thudhamma (Burma)
1965: Member of the Order of Merit – OM

Notes

See also: David Leigh, "The Wilson Plot: The Intelligence Services and the Discrediting of a Prime Minister 1945-1976", London: Heinemann, 1988

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