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'''Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma''' (
June 25,
1900–
August 27,
1979 was a
British 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.
His full style was: ''
Admiral of the Fleet The Right Honourable Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, 1st Viscount Mountbatten of Burma, 1st Baron Romsey,
KG,
GCB,
OM,
GCSI,
GCIE,
GCVO,
DSO,
PC,
FRS''.
==Ancestry==
He was born in
Windsor Castle, in
England, as ''His Serene Highness Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas, Prince of Battenberg'', although his
German styles and titles were dropped in
1917. He was the second son of
Prince Louis of Battenberg and a great-grandson of
Queen Victoria.
Mountbatten's father is said to have had a youthful affair with the actress
Lillie Langtry and to have been the father of
Jeanne Marie Langtry Malcolm.
1).
Louis Battenberg was
First Sea Lord at the outbreak of
World War I extreme anti-German feelings obliged him to resign. In
1917 when the Royal Family stopped using their Germanic names and titles he became Louis Mountbatten, Marquess of Milford Haven. His second son took the courtesy title '''Lord Louis''' and was known by that title informally until his death.
==Career==
Mountbatten served in the navy during the
First World War, and in the
Second World War he commanded the 5th destroyer flotilla and was later Supreme Allied Commander in South-East Asia. His experience in the region led to his being appointed
Viceroy of India after the war. In his position as Viceroy, Mountbatten oversaw the granting of independence to both
India and
Pakistan. He was familiarly known to British people as "Lord Louis", and was given the title "Earl Mountbatten of Burma" in recognition of his service in the Far East.
In
1940 he invented the
Mountbatten Pink naval camouflage pigment. He was a favourite of
Winston Churchill and in
1941 he replaced
Roger Keyes as Chief of
Combined Operations. He personally pushed through the disastrous
Dieppe Raid (
August 19,
1942) which led to the deaths of thousands of Canadian troops; a defeat Mountbatten tried to blame squarely on their commanding officer but which was largely the result of his botched planning.
Field Marshal Montgomery felt the campaign misconceived from the start.
He took great personal pride and pleasure in serving as
Chief of the Defence Staff for six years (
1959 -
1965), which he also took as reparation for the slur on his father who was forced to resign as
First Sea Lord in
1914.
==Marriage and descendants==
Mountbatten - known to friends and family as "Dickie" - was a strong influence in the upbringing of his great-nephew,
Prince Charles, Prince of Wales. He was married on
July 18,
1922 to Hon.
Edwina Cynthia Annette Ashley, daughter of
Wilfred Ashley, 1st
Baron Mount Temple. Lady Mountbatten reportedly had affairs with Indian prime minister
Jawaharlal Nehru and American actor-singer
Paul Robeson. Mountbatten, too, indulged in affairs, yet he and Edwina remained devoted to each other until her death on
February 21,
1960 in
Jesselton,
North Borneo. They had two children:
Patricia Mountbatten, 2nd Countess Mountbatten of Burma (born
February 14,
1924), and
Lady Pamela Carmen Louise (born
April 19,
1929).
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 to recognise his wartime service, and the regard he was held by the British Royal Family, as well as to atone for the disservice done to his father. Thus, on his death, the titles passed to Patricia.
==Death==
On
August 27,
1979, while holidaying as usual in his summer home in
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. Other victims of the assassination were:
*'''The Lady Brabourne''': his elder daughter's mother-in-law (aged 82).
*'''The Hon. Nicholas Timothy Charles Knatchbull''': (
18 November 1964-
27 August 1979), the son of John Ulick Knatchbull, 7th Baron Brabourne, (1924-) and his wife Patricia Mountbatten (Countess Mountbatten of Burma) (b. 1924), twin brother of Timothy Knatchbull.
*'''Paul Maxwell''': a local boy working as a crew member (aged 15).
The killing of Mountbatten, and the accompanying murder of eighteen soldiers the same day in a bombing in
Northern Ireland led to public outrage in Ireland. The
President of Ireland,
Patrick Hillery, and the
Taoiseach (prime minister)
Jack Lynch both attended a memorial service for Lord Mountbatten in
St. Patrick's Cathedral in
Dublin. On
November 23,
1979,
Thomas McMahon was sentenced to life in prison for the assassination.
==Note==
1It is often assumed (on the basis of Mountbatten's acknowledgement) that Louis Battenberg was the father of Jeanne-Marie. It appears that he paid support money for her in some regard - or Lillie was paid off at any rate. A recent biography of Lillie suggested that the father was really one Arthur Jones and that it was simply more profitable to blame Louis. In any case, given her mother's promiscuity it is difficult to be certain who Jeanne-Marie's father was.
==Further reading==
*''Mountbatten: the official biography'', by
Philip Ziegler (Collins, 1985)
*''Eminent Churchillians'', by
Andrew Roberts (Phoenix Press, 1994). The author states that it "makes the case for the impeachment of the last Viceroy of India, on the grounds that his cheating over the India-Pakistan frontier and his headlong rush towards partition led to around one million deaths in
Punjab and the
North-West Frontier in 1947-48".
{| border="2" align="center"
|-
|width="30%" align="center"|Preceded by:
'''
The Viscount Wavell'''
|width="40%" align="center"|'''
Governor-General of India'''
1947-1948
|width="30%" align="center"|Followed by:
'''
Chakravarti Rajagopalchari'''
|}
{| border="2" align="center"
|-
|width = "30%" align ="center"|Preceded by:
'''New Creation'''
|width = "40%" align ="center"|'''
Earl Mountbatten of Burma'''
|width = "30%" align ="center"|Followed by:
'''
Patricia Mountbatten'''
|}
fr:Louis Mountbatten
he:לואי מאונטבטן
pl:Louis Mountbatten
sv:Lord Mountbatten
