Louis Mountbatten

Viceroy and governor-general of India (1947-1948)

• Born: June 25, 1900
• Birthplace: Frogmore House, Windsor, England
• Died: August 27, 1979
• Place of death: Off Mullaghmore, on Donegal Bay, Ireland

A naval hero and military leader during World War II, the last viceroy of imperial India, and the first and only governor-general of an independent India, Mountbatten was a figure of great achievement, the most enduringly significant of which was perhaps the example of leadership he provided for his nephew and surrogate son Prince Philip, duke of Edinburgh, and for his great-nephew and surrogate grandson Charles, prince of Wales.

Early Life

His Serene Highness, Prince Louis of Battenberg (christened Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas), the great-grandson of Queen Victoria, was the youngest of four children. His mother was the queen’s favorite granddaughter, Princess Victoria of Hesse, later the Marchioness of Milford Haven. His father was Prince Louis of Battenberg, a German prince who chose England as his adopted country. At that time a captain in the Royal Navy, through concerted effort he rose to its apex as First Sea Lord. Related to most of Europe’s royal families, Mountbatten, or Dickie as he became familiarly known during his childhood, spent his early years in close association with many of their members. Especially memorable were his summer holidays at Heilegenberg with his aunt and uncle, Czarina Alexandra and Czar Nicholas II, and their children. Indeed, he claimed to have fallen in love with his female Romanov cousins and intended to marry the ill-fated Grand Duchess Maria. The young prince was deeply influenced during his youth and throughout much of his life by his exceptional mother, who herself was broadly socialistic in instincts and convictions, and who trained her son to work amicably and effectively with those of conflicting political convictions. This training was to be of immense value to him later, especially in his activities in preparing India for independence. His mother took charge of his education early in his youth. Indeed, Mountbatten was educated primarily at home, although he later attended Osborne Naval Training College, the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, and, briefly, Christ’s College, Cambridge. Although the elder Prince Louis remained a rather distant and aloof figure to the young boy, he nevertheless was held in a position of near idolatrous regard and was to influence his son profoundly in his choice of career and in his obsessive concern with the rehabilitation of his family’s name and honor.

The halcyon days of young Mountbatten’s youth were suddenly interrupted with the outbreak of World War I in the summer of 1914. The war had an unanticipated and permanent impact on Mountbatten. The hysterically paranoid fringe of the British public, regarding anything German as suspect, lobbied successfully for his father’s resignation as commander of the Royal Navy. This event broke the father emotionally and convinced the son of the necessity that he succeed his father as First Sea Lord to rehabilitate and enhance his family’s name and honor. At a time when the royal family sought to minimize its German connections with the adoption of the surname of Windsor, the Battenbergs anglicized theirs to Mountbatten. Lord Mountbatten became so obsessed with his anglicized name that he encouraged his nephew and surrogate son Prince Philip to take his name and eventually succeeded in the addition of his surname to that of Windsor for the children of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip.

His father’s example and his own inclinations led Mountbatten to a naval career, and during World War I, he saw naval action in the North Sea, attaining the rank of sub-lieutenant. Following the war, Mountbatten attended Christ’s College, Cambridge, and engaged in a whirlwind of social activities in Cambridge, London, and in the great houses of Great Britain. By this time, he had acquired the striking handsomeness, aristocratic mien, and approachability and engaging personality that he retained throughout his life. Unfortunately, those attractive qualities were often diminished by an irritating vanity, undoubtedly caused by the indulgences of his youth. In 1920 and 1921, he accompanied his cousin the Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII) on two extensive empire tours on HMS Renown. During the trips, a close friendship was cemented between the young men that survived the Abdication Crisis of 1936. The second tour was most momentous since it included a four-month sojourn in India, the jewel in the British imperial crown. Mountbatten often claimed that three of his lifelong loves resulted from this stay in India. One was India itself; another was polo, a passion that he instilled in his nephew, Prince Philip, and in his great-nephew Prince Charles. The third was his future wife, Edwina.

Shortly before the beginning of the second tour, in July, 1921, Mountbatten met Edwina Ashley, the granddaughter and sole heir of Sir Ernest Cassel, an enormously wealthy international banker. Edwina had the wit, beauty, and youthful energy that complemented Mountbatten’s aristocratic bearing, decisiveness, ambition, and competitiveness. She and Mountbatten’s mother shared a variety of interests; each enjoyed a superior intelligence and pragmatic outlook, and, although born into families with a conservative outlook, they shared broadly socialistic views about domestic and world problems. Penniless (her grandfather had died leaving her as sole heir, but with the stipulation that she was to receive only three hundred pounds a year until she was twenty-one or until she married), she borrowed one hundred pounds from a relative, booked passage on the cheapest ship she could find, and sailed to India, under conditions of considerable discomfort and privation, to see Mountbatten, with whom she had corresponded throughout his tour with the Prince of Wales. Arriving in Bombay with almost no funds, the future vicereine traveled by land to Delhi, where the young couple became engaged. They were married on July 18, 1922, almost exactly a year after their first meeting, with the Prince of Wales serving as best man. The Wedding of the Century, as it was hailed by the tabloids, was followed by a six-month honeymoon in Europe and the United States.

Life’s Work

The effect of the marriage on Mountbatten was threefold. The match brought him not only supreme happiness but also a personal fortune and extensive property holdings that allowed him to indulge his expensive tastes and gave him the free time and financial security to advance his naval career. Most important, Mountbatten acquired a partner who offered him indispensable aid and advice in the various assignments that he later accepted and who enhanced his reputation as well as her own through her untiring services to humanitarian causes, especially, though by no means exclusively, during World War II and as the last vicereine of India. Although she, with her husband, indulged her appetite for pleasure, especially during the first decade of her marriage, and although this marriage was unconventional (Edwina was rumored to have had numerous extramarital affairs, notably with India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, to which Mountbatten inexplicably did not object), Edwina had a deep commitment to using her energy, talents, and wealth for humanitarian purposes and helped to associate the Mountbatten name with causes of social concern. She traveled constantly, especially during the last two decades of her life, often suffering from pain and nearly total exhaustion, and in her travels developed a sincere empathy with the problems of the world’s poor, injured, suffering, and dispossessed that was often translated into direct action. Although the rigors of travel and service contributed to her early death, she helped to establish for herself and her husband a deep affection in Great Britain and throughout the former British Empire, especially in India.

During the 1920’s and 1930’s, Mountbatten continued to advance in his naval career and build a family. Ever anxious to emulate his father’s career, Mountbatten was happiest and proudest following his appointment in 1927 to Great Britain’s prestigious Mediterranean Fleet. Stationed in Malta, where he had visited his father many years earlier, he and Edwina both enjoyed the possibilities for service and activity afforded them. Their first of two daughters, Patricia (later Countess Mountbatten of Burma), was born in 1924; a second daughter, Pamela (later Lady Pamela Hicks) was born in 1929. Unknowingly, Mountbatten’s most significant achievement during this time was his assumption of partial responsibility for the rearing of his nephew Prince Philip of Greece, the future duke of Edinburgh. Prince Philip, the youngest of several children of Mountbatten’s sister, Princess Alice of Greece, and Prince Andrew of Greece, had become an exile in his infancy when his parents escaped a revolution in Greece in 1922. By 1926, his emotionally unstable mother and passive father had drifted apart. Philip’s siblings were old enough to function independently, but Philip, only five years of age, was turned over to relatives, namely to Mountbatten, his mother, and his brother, George. Initially, George assumed the greatest responsibility, but when George died in 1938, Mountbatten assumed full responsibility, and he and Edwina treated Philip as the son they never had. Philip was to reciprocate with unbounded filial loyalty, respect, and affection. Mountbatten instilled in Philip a sense of commitment and an approachability that have contributed to his popularity as a member of the royal family. Mountbatten naturally took great pride in Prince Philip’s marriage to Princess Elizabeth and in the birth of their children, especially Prince Charles. Because of Prince Philip’s close attachment to his uncle, who became a surrogate father and whose name he adopted, the young Prince of Wales also came to regard his great-uncle and godfather as a surrogate grandfather, confidant, and adviser. All three remained extremely close until Mountbatten’s death, and Mountbatten has been credited with shaping their character and style, especially that of the Prince of Wales, who has impressed all with his curiosity, intelligence, and gregariousness.

Mountbatten became a figure of international prominence during World War II. His early wartime exploits became widely known primarily because of his friend Noël Coward’s internationally proclaimed film In Which We Serve (1942), which, though fictional, was based on Mountbatten’s command of the destroyer Kelly, which was sunk during the Battle of Crete in the Mediterranean on May 23, 1941. The men Mountbatten commanded on the Kelly revered him. Indeed, the Reunion Association, which has remained active, is the only one of its type run by the survivors of a destroyed ship’s company. A favorite of Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who also sought to please King George VI by utilizing the services of his cousin, Mountbatten served between 1941 and 1943 as chief of Combined Operations and member of the British Chiefs of Staff. He worked as an intermediary between Churchill and President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who also liked him and respected his opinions. Thus, Mountbatten helped to achieve harmony in war between the two allies. The disastrous Dieppe raid of August 19, 1942, which Mountbatten played a major role in preparing, was the low point of his wartime career. The high point was his appointment, under Churchill’s auspices, as supreme allied commander for Southeast Asia in August, 1943. Thus began a two-year period that was to prove for Mountbatten one of the most strenuous but rewarding of his life. Under Mountbatten’s leadership, Burma and Malaya were won back from the Japanese. Mountbatten’s services in Southeast Asia culminated in his acceptance of the formal Japanese surrender on September 5, 1945. Mountbatten’s wartime experiences in Asia bred in him a lifelong hatred of the Japanese. Indeed, Japan was the only major nation intentionally not invited to Mountbatten’s funeral, excluded from a list he had prepared before his death.

In March, 1947, Mountbatten undertook what he personally regarded as his greatest achievement: his service as the last viceroy of India for the purpose of effecting a transfer of power from Great Britain to an independent Indian government. Although Mountbatten was politically identified with Conservative prime minister Churchill, it was Churchill’s successor, Labour Party prime minister Clement Attlee, who convinced Mountbatten to assume this thankless task despite Churchill’s disapproval. Mountbatten accepted it only with the understanding that he would enjoy plenipotentiary powers in dealing with the Congress Party, led by Nehru; its rival Muslim League, led by Mohammed Ali Jinnah; and the scores of princes and maharajahs bound to Great Britain by treaties. Originally setting a deadline of fourteen months for completing the negotiations necessary for independence, Mountbatten succeeded in arranging a transfer of power in less than five. On August 15, 1947, India became an independent nation, which Mountbatten served for ten months as governor-general.

The price of independence, however, was high. It had been achieved quickly only by accession to Jinnah’s demand for the partition of India and the creation of an independent Muslim nation, Pakistan . The immediate tragedy was the uprooting of thousands of people on both sides of the border and the starvation and massacres that followed. The long-term effect was the creation of an Indian-Pakistani enmity that continues to plague the region. Although Mountbatten and many others have regarded his work as the last viceroy as his greatest achievement, others have disagreed. Churchill felt that India had been scuttled by Mountbatten’s transfer of power, and others have come to believe that Mountbatten’s actions were hasty and reckless, although, in fairness to Mountbatten, these assessments are the products of hindsight, and Mountbatten had good reason to believe that his quick actions would avert bloodshed rather than cause it. Perhaps testimony to his labors and to his respect for the nationalist aspirations of imperially dominated peoples is the fact that Lord and Lady Mountbatten continued until their deaths to be held in nearly reverential regard by Indian leaders and by the Indian people in general.

Following several years of additional service in the Royal Navy and a series of promotions, Mountbatten finally attained the summit of his naval career in April, 1955, with his appointment as First Sea Lord, and shortly after as Admiral of the Fleet. Finally, he had attained the rank for which he had worked since his youth. The family name had been fully vindicated. In his new position, which he held for three years, Mountbatten thoroughly modernized the Royal Navy. After serving as chief of the United Kingdom Defence Staff and chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, he retired in 1965. The remaining years of his life were devoted to membership in various organizations, to an active role as the first president of the International Council of United World Colleges, to appearances at various official functions, to the preparation of a television series on his career, to serving as an adviser to various members of the royal family, especially to Prince Charles, and to spending time with his daughters and their families (Edwina died in 1960 while visiting Borneo). On August 27, 1979, Mountbatten was assassinated by the Provisional Irish Republican Army. He, along with one of his grandsons, a neighbor boy, and the Dowager Lady Brabourne, the mother-in-law of Mountbatten’s daughter Patricia, were killed when a gelignite bomb exploded the family’s twenty-nine-foot converted fishing boat, Shadow V, soon after they had left the harbor of the village of Mullaghmore, near the family retreat, Classiebawn Castle, County Sligo, Ireland, not far from the Ulster border. The worldwide respect and affection that he had won were reflected in the size of Mountbatten’s funeral at Westminster Abbey and in the international media coverage of the event. In those countries of his best-known achievements, expressions of sympathy were notable. In Rangoon, a line of mourners filed through the British Embassy for four days to sign a book in tribute to Mountbatten. In New Delhi, every shop and office was closed and a week’s state mourning was declared.

Significance

Louis Mountbatten played a vital role in world affairs for more than four decades. His tangible achievements are clear, including, especially, his role in Southeast Asia in World War II, his labors in India in 1947, and his modernization of the Royal Navy and the other armed services. Of equal importance, however, are his less tangible contributions. Although Mountbatten had his faults, not the least of which were excessive vanity and ambition, his many virtues far outweighed them. His vanity was balanced by his ability to admit his errors, his ambition by his achievements and by his sincere warmheartedness. Loyal, courteous, genuinely friendly, tolerant, and respectful of the views of others, and always energetic and enthusiastic in his myriad undertakings, he was the paragon of enlightened modern aristocracy. He also intuitively realized that to survive and flourish in the twentieth century, royalty must serve its subjects and command their respect within the constraints of constitutional government. He rewarded the British people and the peoples of Great Britain’s former empire with a life of service for the privileges they had allowed him to enjoy. Perhaps his most enduring contribution will prove to be the example of leadership he provided for Prince Philip and especially for Prince Charles. The intense popularity of the British royal family and the institution of the monarchy in the late twentieth century is to a not insignificant degree, though by no means exclusively, the product of the examples set by Lord and Lady Mountbatten.

Bibliography

Campbell-Johnson, Alan. Mission with Mountbatten. London: Robert Hale, 1951. A superb firsthand account of Mountbatten’s tenure as India’s last viceroy and its first and only governor-general by his press attaché in 1947-1948.

Collins, Larry, and Dominique Lapierre. Freedom at Midnight. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1975. An outstanding popular history of the final year in the struggle for Indian independence from Great Britain, an event in which Mountbatten, as the last viceroy, played a role of major significance. This volume benefits especially from more than thirty hours of taped interviews of Mountbatten by the authors and his extensive collection of documents and papers that he made accessible to them.

Hough, Richard. Edwina: Countess Mountbatten of Burma. New York: William Morrow, 1984. One in a series of books by the author on the Mountbatten family. This is an ideal companion volume to Hough’s biography of Mountbatten, although Lady Mountbatten’s greatness was achieved through her own endeavors and not simply as a by-product of her marriage.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Mountbatten. New York: Random House, 1981. First published in the United Kingdom on the anniversary of Mountbatten’s death, this volume was nearly completed while Mountbatten lived. As a result of his longtime association with the author, who had previously been selected by Mountbatten to prepare a joint biography of his parents (The Mountbattens, 1975) Mountbatten himself served as a source of much of the information in this volume. Nevertheless, Hough has maintained his objectivity and produced a balanced, complete biography of this extraordinary personality.

Masson, Madeleine. Edwina: The Biography of the Countess Mountbatten of Burma. London: Robert Hale, 1958. A well-written, useful account of the woman whose sincere and active concern for the plight of the powerless complemented her husband’s talent as a political compromiser.

Springhall, John. “Moutbatten Versus the Generals: British Military Rule of Singapore, 1945-1946.” Journal of Contemporary History 36, no. 4 (October, 2001): 635. Describes the establishment of the British Military Administration led by Mountbatten after Japan surrendered Malaya and Singapore in 1945.

Swinson, Arthur. Mountbatten. New York: Ballantine Books, 1971. A useful account on the subject in the War Leader Books series.

Terraine, John. The Life and Times of Lord Mountbatten. London: Hutchinson, 1968. Reprint. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1980. An unusual volume: Not truly a biography, it is based on a twelve-part television series in which Mountbatten actively participated and is primarily a compilation of Mountbatten’s own observations about himself and others given continuity with transitional passages by Terraine.

Ziegler, Philip. Mountbatten. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985. The official biography of the subject and the product of Ziegler’s unrestricted access to Mountbatten’s personal archives, perhaps the most important private archives of the twentieth century in Great Britain. Although massive in length, this volume is eminently readable, balanced, and well organized.