Louis Alexander Mountbatten, First Marquess of Milford Haven

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Admiral of the Fleet the Marquess of Milford Haven, as an Admiral.
Photograph: © National Portrait Gallery, London.

Admiral of the Fleet THE MOST HONOURABLE Louis Alexander Mountbatten, First Marquess of Milford Haven (formerly His Serene Highness Prince Louis of Battenberg), G.C.B., G.C.V.O., K.C.M.G., P.C. (24 May, 1854 – 11 September, 1921) was an officer of the Royal Navy.

Life & Career

Battenberg was naturalised and became a British subject on 30 September, 1868, under the provisions of the Aliens Act, 1844, (7 & 8 Vict. c. 66.).[1]

Following the Prince of Wales's tour to India, Battenberg was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant with seniority of 15 May, 1876.[2]

Battenberg was appointed to the frigate Inconstant on 24 August, 1880, soon to become flag ship of Rear-Admiral The Earl of Clanwilliam's Detached Squadron for Detached Service.[3]

He was appointed an Ordinary Member of the Second Class, or Knight Commander, in the Civil Division of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath (K.C.B.) on 29 April, 1884.[4]

He was promoted to the rank of Commander on 30 August, 1885.

Battenberg was appointed an Additional Member of the Civil Division of the First Class, or Knight Grand Cross, of the Order of the Bath (G.C.B.) on 21 June, 1887.[5]

Captain

Battenberg was promoted to the rank of Captain on 31 December, 1891.[6] He left Scout on 10 February and went on Half Pay. He was appointed in command of the second class protected cruiser Andromache in the annual manœuvres from 21 July to 10 September before returning to Half Pay. On 23 November he was appointed Naval Adviser to the Inspector-General of Fortifications, which position he held until 15 October, 1894.[7]

He was appointed in command of the cruiser Cambrian on the Mediterranean Station on 16 October, 1894, and was superseded in her on 8 April, 1897.[8]

On 1 January, 1897, Battenberg was appointed an Honorary Naval Aide-de-Camp to Queen Victoria.[9] He was appointed in command of the battleship Majestic in the Channel Squadron on 7 June, 1897.[10]

On 28 June, 1899 Battenberg handed command of the Majestic over to Captain George Le C. Egerton.[11] On the same day he was appointed an Assistant Director of Naval Intelligence (A.D.N.I.) in the Naval Intelligence Department (N.I.D.) at the Admiralty.

He was appointed a Personal Naval Aide-de-Camp to King Edward VII on 25 February, 1901.[12] He was superseded as A.D.N.I. on 6 May. The Board of Admiralty put on record its "high appreciation of the zealous & able manner in which he carried out the duties in connection with the Mobn [Mobilisation] Section of the N.I.D."

On 10 September, Battenberg commissioned the battleship Implacable at Devonport for service in the Mediterranean.[13] During the illness and subsequent death of the Second-in-Command of the fleet, Rear-Admiral Burges Watson, Battenberg was appointed Commodore, Second Class on 24 September, 1902 until a successor arrived.[14] The Captain of H.M.S. Juno, David Beatty, wrote to his wife:

Our Admiral has gone sick and so we have been placed under the command of Prince Louis of Battenberg who is one of the Captains out here, in fact the senior one and supposed to be the most capable man. He is awfully nice, but frightfully pompous and heavy in hand, but I think otherwise he is alright.[15]

Battenberg was superseded in command of Implacable on 29 October, and on the same day was appointed to H.M.S. President while he made his way home from the Mediterranean. On 15 November he was appointed Director of Naval Intelligence (D.N.I.).[16]

Director of Naval Intelligence

Battenberg returned to the Admiralty in 1902 as Director of Naval Intelligence. He was appointed Director only after the sudden death of the successor designate, Rear-Admiral Burges Watson, and the disqualification of the alternative, Captain Henry May.[17] He succeeded Rear-Admiral Custance on 15 November, 1902.[18]

On 11 October, 1903, Battenberg wrote to Cyprian Bridge, the Commander-in-Chief on the China Station, "My work seems to grow steadily — the D.N.I. is requisitioned by every department, even outside the Admiralty & not much of my waking life is devoted to other matters."[19]

Referring to a naval staff, Battenberg wrote, "The machinery, in the shape of the (miscalled) Intelligence Department, is there; it requires enlarging and strengthening and above all it requires someone at its head of sufficient power and influence."[20]

Battenberg was not always as perspicacious as he would have liked to be. On 4 February, 1904, Captain (later Admiral Sir) George F. King-Hall noted: "Battenberg assured me that there would be no war between Russia and Japan."[21] Suffice it to say, four days later the Japanese launched a surprise attack on the Russian fleet at Port Arthur.

On 30 May Battenberg was unanimously elected an Elder Brother of the Corporation of Trinity House.[22] In June he was appointed Chairman of the Council of the Royal United Services Institution in succession to General Lord Methuen.[23]

On 1 July Battenberg was promoted to the rank of Rear-Admiral.[24]

Rear-Admiral

Battenberg joined King Edward at Marienbad in August, 1904, where the sovereign was taking the cure. The King sent Prince Louis, as his Personal Aide-de-Camp[25] to be present as his representative at the christening of the Tsar's son on 24 August, 1894 in the Peterhof Palace.[26] On the 26th, he and Prince Henry of Prussia of the Imperial German Navy lunched with Grand Duke Vladimir, before being seen off on their respective journeys home at the train station by the Tsar, all the Grand Dukes and the Ambassadors of Germany and Britain.[27] During his visit to Russia, Battenberg had been ordered, in his own words:

1. To present a letter to the Emperor which combined a request to give me an opportunity of speaking with His Majesty on the relations between the two countries. 2. To arrange for a meeting with Count Lamsdorff [Minister for Foreign Affairs] to whom I was to give a personal message from the King to the effect that His Majesty felt every confidence in the Count's sincere desire to help restoring the friendly relations between England and Russia.[28]

As D.N.I., Fisher and Battenberg evidently did not get on well. In 1909 he wrote to an unknown correspondent, "J.F. [John Fisher] has always claimed that the First Sea Lord is the Chief of the Staff and that the D.N.I. is his head Clerk. That was one if not the principal reason, why I was sent to sea so soon after J.F.'s advent."[29] On 2 January, 1905, he was appointed away from the Admiralty, with Their Lordships' thanks, as Rear-Admiral Commanding the Second Cruiser Squadron.[30]

On 24 February, 1907, he was appointed to succeed Vice-Admiral Francis C. B. Bridgeman as Second-in-Command in the Mediterranean, with the Acting Rank of Vice-Admiral. From 23 February to 27 March he held temporary command of the Mediterranean Fleet.[31]In a letter to Tweedmouth Battenberg referred to:

The fact of your giving me a Vice Adls' appointment is the very best reply to my detractors."[32]

This clearly wasn't so, as Vice-Admiral Hedworth Lambton, who had been offered the position of second-in-command in the Mediterranean the year before, made clear to Tweedmouth:

I realise that that Princes even if only "Made in Germany" must be provided.[33]

Battenberg was confirmed in the rank of Vice-Admiral on 30 June, 1908, vice Henderson.[34]

On the occasion of the King's birthday Battenberg was appointed an Ordinary Member of the Second Class, or Knight Commander, in the Military Division of the Order of the Bath (K.C.B.) on 25 June, 1909.[35]

Second Sea Lord

The First Sea Lord, Sir Francis Bridgeman, later conceded in a letter of 13 November, 1914, that Battenberg used "well chosen language" and could "write voluminously", but damned his understanding as "superficial" and believed him "utterly deficient in technical knowledge."[36]

Battenberg's Flag Captain during the 1912 manœuvres, Captain (later Admiral of the Fleet Sir) Henry F. Oliver, later wrote: "Prince Louis was a big man and had a big man's appetite. At breakfast he began on porridge then fish, then eggs and bacon or a meat dish, then a large plate of cold ham, then hot muffins or crumpets and then a lot of toast, butter and jam and finish on fruit. His meal would have fed an Officers['] mess."[37]

First Sea Lord

Battenberg wrote to Churchill, "I think I may truthfully say that at this moment no-one has any clear idea how the Commander-in-Chief, whereever he maybe in the line, is to effectively command such a fleet."[38]

Mr. Winston Churchill had become First lord in that year, and he selected Prince Louis as first sea lord a year later on the retirement of Sir Francis Bridgeman. This selection was probably unwise on grounds of political expediency, in view of the circumstances of Prince Louis's birth, and of the threatening situation which was developing abroad. Battenberg was confirmed in the rank of Admiral on 13 July, 1912, vice Atkinson-Willes.[39]

In July 1914 a test mobilization of the naval reserves was carried out, and the ships were due to disperse, after carrying out exercises in the English Channel, at the moment when relations between this country and Germany had become strained. Owing to the illness of his wife, Mr. Churchill was absent from the Admiralty during the critical week-end (25–27 July) when it had to be decided whether the fleet should be dispersed and the reserve ships demobilized, in accordance with the plans already made, or whether preliminary steps should be taken to place the squadrons at their various war stations. This decision rested with the first sea lord. After a telephone conversation with the first lord at Cromer, Prince Louis, sent a telegram to Sir George Callaghan:

No ships of First Fleet or Flotillas are to leave Portland until further orders. Acknowledge.

Churchill later acknowledged in a letter to Battenberg of 19 October that, "The first step which secured the timely concentration of the Fleet was taken by you."[40] War had not then been declared, but the prevision of the first sea lord ensured that when it became inevitable the navy should be in a state of readiness. Political events moved rapidly. At four o'clock on the morning of 3 August the mobilization of the navy had been completed.

Resignation

On 29 October Battenberg submitted his resignation to Churchill:

Dear Mr Churchill
I have lately been driven to the painful conclusion that at this juncture my birth and parentage have the effect of impairing in some respects my usefulness on the Board of Admiralty. In these circumstances I feel it to be my duty as a loyal subject of his Majesty, to resign the office of First Sea Lord, hoping thereby to facilitate the task of the administration of the the great Service, to which I have devoted my life, and to ease the burden laid on H.M. Ministers.[41]

The Director of Naval Ordnance, Captain (later Admiral Sir) Morgan Singer, later wrote: "Prince Louis of Battenberg left the Admlty in Oct.. 14 much to everyone's relief; he had not been a success, was entirely in Churchill's hands, the latter doing exactly as he liked." The Assistant Director of Torpedoes, Captain (later Admiral) Philip W. Dumas, confided in his diary at the time: "PL has been a failure."[42] The Admiral Commanding, Orkneys and Shetlands, Admiral The Honourable Sir Stanley Colville, wrote to Hamilton, the Second Sea Lord, that, "As regards P. Louis of course all that about his being a spy is 'rot', but from all one has heard & knows it is pretty well self evident he had become a nonentity & a simple tool in W.C's hand."[43]

Upon the issue of his resignation, Milford Haven's Naval Assistant, Captain Tufton Beamish, later wrote to Sir Richard Webb:

In my years of really intimate work with P.L., and in all the time since 1914, I cannot say that I have had a particle of proof that any officer in the Service deliberately intrigued against him on the grounds of birth or nationality.

I am confident that P.L. was not hounded out by our senior officers, and I feel it is due to them that they should be acquitted of so mean an attitude.

I received (as P.L.'s assistant in 1914) many anonymous letters, mostly trivial, but 'straws': he received many himself and mentioned them to me.

For years before 1914 he realized and stated to me that if war came his position would be made very hard if not untenable, and that two peaks were for him unattainable; first—and the most desired—C.-in-C. in War, and second First Sea Lord. Never by hint of any kind did he let one think that our Service would prevent his cherished hopes maturing.

The cause of P.L.'s resignation was public hysteria and outcry directed at political leaders and fostered by the Press (a non-existent power in any previous war of importance) with its limitiess devices for propaganda.[44]

With the coming of peace, tribute was paid to the services which he had rendered the country, by his promotion to the rank of admiral of the fleet. In July 1917, by the request of the King, Prince Louis relinquished the style and title of serene highness and prince, assumed for himself and his descendants the surname of Mountbatten, and was raised to the peerage of the United Kingdom as Marquess of Milford Haven, Earl of Medina, and Viscount Alderney. He left two sons and two daughters, and was succeeded in the marquessate by his elder son, George Louis, Earl of Medina.

Retirement

On 5 November, 1914, Battenberg was sworn of His Majesty's Privy Council.[45] Through an Order in Council of 23 December, Battenberg was granted, "whilst he is on half pay during the period of the war, the special rate of half pay of two thousand pounds a year."[46]

Battenberg arranged with the Second Sea Lord, Sir Frederick T. Hamilton, that his second son Prince Louis (later Earl Mountbatten of Burma) should go to Lion when he left the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, and specifically not New Zealand, in which Prince George was serving.[47]

He was placed on the Retired List at his own request on 1 January, 1919.[48]

He was appointed an Ordinary Member of the First Class, or Knight Grand Cross, in the Military Division of the Order of the Bath (G.C.B.) on 1 January, 1921.[49] On 4 August he was specially promoted by Order in Council to the rank of Admiral of the Fleet on the Retired List, for which his past services "would have fully qualified him."[50]

On the night of 18 September Milford Haven's body was removed from the private chapel at Buckingham Palace to the Chapel Royal, St. James's. At 11:30 on the 19th the cortège formed up at Marlborough Gate, and proceeded down the Mall, through Admiralty Arch, down Whitehall to Westminster Abbey. The honorary pall bearers were Admirals of the Fleet Sir Arthur D. Fanshawe, Sir William H. May, Earl Beatty, Sir Henry B. Jackson, Sir Cecil Burney, Bart., Sir F. C. Doveton Sturdee, Bart., Admiral Sir Francis C. B. Bridgeman, and Major-General Herbert Blumberg, R.M.L.I.[51]

Footnotes

  1. The National Archives. ADM 196/38. f. 59.
  2. The London Gazette: no. 24326. p. 2982. 16 May, 1876.
  3. The Navy List (June, 1881). p. 218.
  4. The London Gazette: no. 25348. p. 1928. 29 April, 1884.
  5. The London Gazette: no. 25712. p. 3364. 21 June, 1887.
  6. The London Gazette: no. 26239. p. 3. 1 January, 1892.
  7. The National Archives. ADM 196/38. f. 59.
  8. The National Archives. ADM 196/38. f. 59.
  9. The London Gazette: no. 26809. p. 3. 1 January, 1897.
  10. The National Archives. ADM 196/38. f. 59.
  11. "Naval & Military Intelligence" (Official Appointments and Notices). The Times. Monday, 26 June, 1899. Issue 35865, col A, p. 14.
  12. The London Gazette: no. 27289. p. 1417. 26 February, 1901.
  13. "Naval & Military Intelligence" (Official Appointments and Notices). The Times. Wednesday, 11 September, 1901. Issue 36557, col C, p. 8.
  14. "Naval & Military Intelligence" (Official Appointments and Notices). The Times. Monday, 29 September, 1902. Issue 36885, col B, p. 8.
  15. Letter of 20 September, 1902. National Maritime Museum. BTY/17/9/88-93. Reproduced in the Beatty Papers. I. p. 11.
  16. The National Archives. ADM 196/38. f. 59.
  17. Lambert. "Strategic Command and Control for Maneuver Warfare". The Journal of Military History. p. 364.
  18. "Naval & Military Intelligence" (Official Appointments and Notices). The Times. Saturday, 15 November, 1902. Issue 36926, col D, p. 12.
  19. Quoted in Hough. Louis and Victoria. p. 192.
  20. Cookridge. From Battenberg to Mountbatten. p. 139.
  21. King-Hall diary entry for 4 February, 1904.
  22. "Trinity House" (News). The Times. Tuesday, 31 May, 1904. Issue 37408, col A, p. 10.
  23. "Naval & Military Intelligence" (Official Appointments and Notices). The Times. Thursday, 16 June, 1904. Issue 37422, col C, p. 10.
  24. The London Gazette: no. 27692. p. 4259. 5 July, 1904.
  25. Hough. Louis and Victoria. p. 186.
  26. "Christening if the Cesarevitch" (News). The Times. Thursday, 25 August, 1904. Issue 37482, col D, p. 3.
  27. "News in Brief" (News in Brief). The Times. Saturday, 27 August, 1904. Issue 37484, col D, p. 3.
  28. Quoted in Hough. Louis and Victoria. p. 186.
  29. The National Archives. CAB 1/31. f. 79.
  30. The National Archives. ADM 196/38. f. 15.
  31. ADM 196/38. f. 15.
  32. Letter of 26 January, 1907. Tweedmouth Papers. National Museum of the Royal Navy, Portsmouth. MSS 254/598.
  33. Letter of 10 May, 1907. Tweedmouth Papers. National Museum of the Royal Navy, Portsmouth. MSS 254/614.
  34. The London Gazette: no. 28156. p. 4940. 7 July, 1908.
  35. The London Gazette: (Supplement) no. 28263. p. 4853. 25 June, 1909.
  36. Bridgeman to Sandars. Sandars MSS 767. Quoted in Ross. p. 180.
  37. Oliver. II. f. 81.
  38. Letter of 10 July, 1912. The National Archives. CAB 1/33. Quoted in Lambert. Sir John Fisher's Naval Revolution. p. 252.
  39. The London Gazette: no. 28627. p. 5182. 16 July, 1912.
  40. Gilbert. Winston S. Churchill. Volume III Companion Part I. p. 1.
  41. Copy in ADM 196/38. f. 16.
  42. Diary entry for 31 October, 1914. Liddle Collection. University of Leeds. RNMN/Dumas/16a in Box 7.
  43. Colville to Hamilton. Letter of 10 November, 1914. Hamilton Papers. National Maritime Museum. HTN/117/A.
  44. "'Prince Louis of Battenberg'". The Naval Review. p. 814.
  45. The London Gazette: no. 28965. p. 9011. 6 November, 1914.
  46. The London Gazette: no. 29019. p. 11047. 25 December, 1914.
  47. Letters of 25 September, 1915, and 6 October, 1915. Hamilton Papers. National Maritime Museum. HTN/117/A.
  48. The London Gazette: no. 31104. p. 199. 3 January, 1919.
  49. The London Gazette: (Supplement) no. 32178. p. 4. 1 January, 1921.
  50. Copy of Order in Council of 19 August, 1921. Enclosed in ADM 196/38. f. 47.
  51. "Funeral of Lord Milford Haven" (Deaths). The Times. Tuesday, 20 September, 1921. Issue 42830, col E, p. 13.

Bibliography

  • "Lord Milford Haven" (Obituaries). The Times. Monday, 12 September, 1921. Issue 42823, col C, p. 8.
  • 'S.'. (November, 1934). "'Prince Louis of Battenberg'". The Naval Review XXII (4): pp. 810–814.
  • Hattendorf, John B. (1995). Murfett, Malcolm H.. ed. The First Sea Lords: From Fisher to Mountbatten. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers. ISBN 0-275-94231-7.
  • Hough, Richard (1974). Louis & Victoria: The First Mountbattens. London: Hutchinson. ISBN 0-09-121160-3.
  • Kerr, Mark (1934). Prince Louis of Battenberg: Admiral of the Fleet. London: Longmans, Green and Co..
  • Seligmann, Matthew (2008). "Prince Louis of Battenberg: The Advantages and Disadvantages of being a Serene Highness in the Royal Navy" in Urbach, Karina. Royal Kinship: Anglo-German Family Networks, 1815-1918. München: K. G. Saur Verlag. ISBN 978-3-598-23003-5.

Papers

  • Papers in the possession of Special Collections, University of Southampton.

Service Records


Naval Appointments
Preceded by
Reginald N. Custance
Director of Naval Intelligence
1902 – 1905
Succeeded by
Charles L. Ottley

Preceded by
New Command
Rear-Admiral Commanding,
Second Cruiser Squadron

1905 – 1907
Succeeded by
Charles H. Adair

Preceded by
Francis C. B. Bridgeman
Second-in-Command,
Mediterranean

1907 – 1908
Succeeded by
George A. Callaghan

Preceded by
The Hon. Sir Assheton Gore Curzon-Howe
Commander-in-Chief,
Atlantic Fleet

1908 – 1910
Succeeded by
Sir John R. Jellicoe
As Vice-Admiral Commanding

Preceded by
George Neville
Vice-Admiral Commanding,
Third and Fourth Divisions,
Home Fleet

1911
Succeeded by
Frederick T. Hamilton

Preceded by
Sir George Le C. Egerton
Second Sea Lord
1911 – 1912
Succeeded by
Sir John R. Jellicoe

Preceded by
Sir Francis C. B. Bridgeman
First Sea Lord
1912 – 1914
Succeeded by
The Lord Fisher

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