Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Mountbatten, Louis Alexander
MOUNTBATTEN, LOUIS ALEXANDER, first Marquess of Milford Haven, formerly styled Prince Louis Alexander of Battenberg (1854–1921), admiral of the fleet, the eldest son of Prince Alexander of Hesse (a younger son of Louis II, Grand Duke of Hesse-Darmstadt) by his wife, Countess Julia Theresa von Haucke, was born at Gratz, Austria, 24 May 1854. The friendship between his mother and Princess Alice, daughter of Queen Victoria and consort of Prince Frederick of Hesse (afterwards Grand Duke Louis IV), led to Prince Louis settling in this country as a boy; and, having become naturalized as a British subject, he entered the royal navy as a cadet in 1868. In 1869 he was rated midshipman, and joined the Royal Alfred, flagship of Vice-Admiral (Sir) Edward Fanshawe on the North America and West Indies station. When the Admiralty took over the Serapis in 1874 for the visit of the Prince of Wales to India, Prince Louis, then sub-lieutenant, was selected to serve as one of the complement of officers. He already gave promise of distinction. His sympathies were entirely British, and Queen Victoria watched his career with almost motherly interest. His abilities as a linguist proved of no slight advantage to him in later life. At the conclusion of the Indian tour he was promoted to lieutenant, and served in the Inconstant during the Egyptian War, taking part in the bombardment of Alexandria (11 July 1882). He subsequently landed with the naval brigade, in command of a Gatling gun battery, for the occupation of Alexandria. After a period of service in the royal yacht, he was promoted to commander in 1885.
At this period the defence policy of this country was undergoing a gradual readjustment in accordance with the theories of what became known as ‘the blue-water school’, and Prince Louis was selected by the Admiralty to act as naval adviser to the inspector-general of fortifications, with a view to co-ordinating naval and military ideas. He took up this appointment in 1892, having been promoted captain in the preceding year, and held it until October 1894. In February 1894 he was chosen to act as joint secretary of the naval and military committee on defence, which afterwards was developed into the committee of imperial defence. During these years he applied himself seriously to the study of the defence problem in its naval and military aspects and was peculiarly well qualified when, in 1900, he was made assistant-director of naval intelligence. After a short period of service in the Mediterranean, he returned to the Admiralty in 1902 as director of naval intelligence, and retained that position until 1905, having been promoted to rear-admiral in 1904.
By this time Prince Louis, who in 1884 had married his cousin, Princess Victoria, daughter of Louis IV of Hesse-Darmstadt and Princess Alice, was regarded throughout the service as an officer who had established his fitness for high command at sea. On leaving the Admiralty in 1905 he hoisted his flag in the Drake as rear-admiral commanding the second cruiser squadron. In these circumstances he began his career as an admiral at sea, and that he was to exercise no slight influence upon the training of the British navy soon became apparent. After two years in the second cruiser squadron, his selection as second in command of the fleet in the Mediterranean met with general approval in the navy. In the meantime Lord Fisher [q.v.] had become the dominating figure at the Admiralty, and it was no matter of surprise when in 1908 Prince Louis was directed to move his flag into the Atlantic fleet as commander-in-chief. After two years in that command he was appointed vice-admiral commanding the third and fourth divisions of the newly constituted home fleets, and from thence in December 1911 he returned to the Admiralty as second sea lord. 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.
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, as he subsequently explained in a published letter, ‘directed the secretary, as a first step, to send an Admiralty order by telegraph to the commander-in-chief of the home fleets at Portland to the effect that no ship was to leave that anchorage until further orders’. 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. The prompt initiative which Prince Louis had exhibited in this emergency did not shield him from attack in subsequent months on account of his ‘German origin’. On 29 October, as the final act of patriotism in his long and distinguished naval career, he resigned his position as first sea lord. He lived to see the complete triumph of the naval weapon which he had helped to forge, dying on 11 September 1921 in his chambers at Half Moon Street, Piccadilly, at the age of sixty-seven.
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.
Prince Louis, who was of a commanding presence and possessed great charm of manner, looked the beau-ideal of the British naval officer, and took throughout his life a keen interest in British naval history. He was particularly interested in the Navy Records Society and was the first president of the Society of Nautical Research. He was also associated with Admiral Sir Percy Scott in the invention of the cone signalling apparatus, and introduced into the service an instrument to enable the complicated calculations, which are necessary before certain tactical manœuvres can be carried out, to be resolved mechanically.
A portrait of Prince Louis is included in Sir A. S. Cope's picture ‘Some Sea Officers of the Great War’, painted in 1921, which is in the National Portrait Gallery.
[Private information; personal knowledge.]