British Admirals of the Fleet

by T A Heathcote

  From April to October 1879 Battenberg was again with the Prince of Wales in the royal yacht Osborne, under command of Captain Lord Charles Beresford. He declined the offer of further employment in this ship and went on half-pay. In February 1880, accompanying members of his family to a banquet at St Petersburg, he narrowly escaped death when a bomb, intended for his uncle the Emperor of Russia, exploded shortly before the Imperial party arrived. After returning to London he began a brief affaire with Lily Langtry, a former mistress of the Prince of Wales. When Mrs Langtry became pregnant, Battenberg made appropriate financial provision for their child, a daughter, who was brought up as a member of a noble Scottish family. In August 1880 he was appointed to the frigate Inconstant in the Flying Squadron commanded by the Earl of Clanwilliam [50] and went round the world under sail. The same squadron included the corvette Bacchante, carrying the Prince of Wales’s two eldest sons, Prince Albert Victor and Prince George [64]. When the squadron reached Gibraltar at the end of August 1882 Inconstant was detached to join the Mediterranean Fleet for operations against an Egyptian nationalist uprising led by Colonel Arabi (‘Urbi) Pasha. Battenberg landed at Alexandria with a battery of Gatling guns in the force sent to protect the Khedive of Egypt, but was not engaged in combat. After returning to Portsmouth in October 1882 he went on half-pay and joined his family at Darmstadt, Hesse. In September 1883 he was appointed to the royal yacht Victoria and Albert.

  In April 1884, at Darmstadt, he married his distant cousin Princess Victoria of Hesse, daughter of the Grand Duke Louis IV and Grand Duchess Alice (Queen Victoria’s daughter). They later had a family of two sons and two daughters, one of whom married in 1903 Prince Andrew of Greece and later became the mother of Philip, Duke of Edinburgh [99]. Further marriage links between the Battenbergs and the British Royal Family were established in July 1885 when Princess Beatrice married Battenberg’s younger brother, Prince Henry. Battenberg was promoted to commander on leaving Victoria and Albert on 30 August 1885 and went on half-pay, with intervals of training at Portsmouth in the gunnery school Excellent and the torpedo school Vernon.

  In July 1887 Battenberg was appointed commander of the armoured ship Dreadnought in the Mediterranean, with his wife’s distant cousin, Prince George of Wales, later George V [64], as one of his lieutenants. This led to an outcry in Parliament and the popular Press on the grounds that a German princeling was being selected over the heads of many better-qualified British officers. For the rest of his career his detractors asserted that his advancement was due to his royal connections, while his admirers claimed that he achieved it by his own merit. He returned to half-pay in January 1889. Meanwhile, in 1888, another of his wife’s sisters married Prince Henry of Prussia [62], brother of the German Emperor William II [47]. Battenberg was given command in October 1889 of the cruiser Scout, in which he served in the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. He left this ship on promotion to captain on 31 December 1891 and spent most of the following year on half-pay before going to the War Office as naval adviser to the Inspector General of Fortifications. In October 1894 he was appointed to the light cruiser Cambrian in the Mediterranean. The extent to which senior officers sought his views led some of his contemporaries to attribute this to his position in Court circles and criticism began to be voiced about his German connections, which seemed all the closer because he never lost his German accent. The death of Prince Henry of Battenberg on active service with the British Army in West Africa in 1896 made no difference to these critics, who included Lord Charles Beresford and the Honourable Hedworth Lambton, later Sir Hedworth Meux [66].

  From 1897 to June 1899 Battenberg commanded the battleship Majestic, flagship in the Channel Squadron, and then became Assistant Director of Naval Intelligence at the Admiralty. He was beside Edward VII at Windsor when the Royal Horse Artillery gun team pulling the cortege in Queen Victoria’s funeral procession broke a trace and threatened to disrupt the solemnity of the occasion. Battenberg, with the King’s approval, ordered a route-lining party of seamen to take the place of the team, so instituting the custom followed in all subsequent Royal funerals. In September 1901, after a few months on half-pay, he was appointed commodore, 2nd class, with command of the battleship Implacable in the Mediterranean Fleet under Sir John Fisher [58]. He returned to the Admiralty in November 1902 to become Director of Naval Intelligence. There he renewed his association with Fisher, who became second naval lord in the Board of Admiralty in February 1904 and First Sea Lord in October 1904. He spoke highly of Fisher’s professional ability and took the same view of Beresford, despite the latter’s continued personal hostility towards him, and blamed Fisher rather than Beresford for starting the feud that split the officers of the Navy into rival factions. Nevertheless, he opposed Fisher’s decision to transfer eight battleships from the Channel Fleet to a new Home Fleet, on the grounds that, if hostilities with Germany began before the Home Fleet’s reserve element was mobilized, they would be faced by sixteen efficient German battleships under his brother-in-law, Prince Henry of Prussia.

  Battenberg returned to sea in February 1905, as acting rear-admiral in command of the Second Cruiser Squadron in the Atlantic Fleet, with his flag in the cruiser Drake. With his promotion confirmed on 1 July 1904, he was sent with his cruisers on a series of official visits, including Canada (where Fisher’s decision to close the North America station had been taken badly) and the USA. On 24 February 1907 he became acting vice-admiral and second-in-command of the Mediterranean Fleet, with his flag in the battleship Venerable. In August 1907 he shifted his flag to the battleship Prince of Wales and remained in this ship when he was promoted to vice-admiral and became C-in-C of the Atlantic Fleet from 30 June 1908 to December 1910. In March 1911 he was given command of the Third and Fourth Divisions of the Home Fleet. The German naval attaché reported on him as an officer who “unites a seaman’s judgement, based on long experience in the best commands, with the inborn German thoroughness of a systematic worker”.

  In December 1911 the newly appointed First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, made Battenberg Second Sea Lord. As this was only a few months after the Agadir crisis had threatened to lead to war between Germany and the United Kingdom, this decision led to renewed criticism of his German birth. One newspaper, under the headline “Bulldog breed or Dachshund”, declared that it was a heavy strain to put on any German “to give him the key to our defences”. Churchill’s selection was based on recommendations from Fisher, who spoke highly of Battenberg’s administrative ability and also of his enthusiasm for the creation of a naval staff organization, which Churchill had been appointed to introduce. Fisher also said that to appoint someone of German birth might show the pacifist wing of the ruling Liberal party that the Cabinet was not bent on war with Germany, though “in reality, he is more English than the English”. Lord Selborne, who had been First Lord of the Admiralty from 1900 to 1905, told Churchill that “a better Englishman does not exist”. Sir Francis Bridgeman, who became First Sea Lord November 1911, was not an admirer of Battenberg, but Churchill found Battenberg easier to work with than Bridgeman. In December 1912 Bridgeman was made to retire, ostensibly on medical grounds, and Battenberg was appointed in his place.

  As First Sea Lord, Battenberg accepted Churchill’s view that the First Lord should no longer be primus inter pares among the Lords of the Admiralty, but instead act as Minister for the Navy, with the Sea Lords acting as his professional advisers. When Churchill attempted to go beyond this by interfering in professional questions, Battenberg used his diplomatic skill to restrain him and so avoided any open breach between Churchill and the other members of the Board. In the summer of 1914, for reasons of economy, the annual fleet manoeuvres were replaced by a trial mobilization. The end of this exercise coincided with the assassination by Serb nationalists of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, at Sarajevo, Bosnia. With Churchill and the rest of the Cabinet out of London for the weekend, Battenberg ordered the fleet not to disperse as planne
d, but to remain at readiness. After the commencement of hostilities with Germany on 4 August 1914, Churchill threw himself into every aspect of naval operations, often drafting orders in person, confident that his policy was identical with that of the First Sea Lord, who mostly initialled them with the words “I concur”. Nevertheless, a series of naval disasters in the opening months of the war shook public confidence in the Admiralty.

  In the prevailing mood of anti-German hysteria, Battenberg’s German birth again became an issue. He himself had long felt that his position would be difficult in the event of a war with Germany. The newspapers clamoured for his removal and rumours spread that he had been put in the Tower of London for betraying naval secrets. The Cabinet had no doubts about his loyalty, but was less sure of his ability to cope with the hyperactive Churchill, whose own position as First Lord was being called into question. Battenberg decided that he could no longer continue in office and resigned at the end of October 1914. His decision was widely regretted within the Navy, where he was generally well liked. Anti-German feeling grew even stronger as the war continued. In July 1917 George V decided to disclaim his German names and titles and told his relatives to do likewise. The Battenbergs accordingly anglicized their name to Mountbatten. From 14 to 17 July 1917 Prince Louis of Battenberg was briefly known as Sir Louis Mountbatten (he had been awarded the KCMG in 1905), after which he accepted a peerage as Marquess of Milford Haven, a title last previously held by George II before his accession in 1727. At the time of Battenberg’s resignation there had been a suggestion that, after the end of the conflict with Germany, he would be offered another appointment. When that time came he was close to reaching his retirement age, and so retired voluntarily on 1 January 1919. A proposal for his promotion to Admiral of the Fleet on the retired list was widely welcomed as compensation for his having been driven to resign in 1914 and he was accordingly promoted on 4 August 1921. He died suddenly at his London home, Half Moon Street, Piccadilly, on 11 September 1921 and was buried at Whippingham, Isle of Wight. His elder son, Lieutenant-Commander the Earl of Medina, a veteran of Heligoland, the Dogger Bank and Jutland, succeeded to his peerage, and his younger son, Lord Louis Mountbatten [102], was later created Earl Mountbatten of Burma.

  MOUNTBATTEN

  Lord LOUIS FRANCIS ALBERT VICTOR NICHOLAS, 1st

  Earl Mountbatten of Burma, KG, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCIE,

  GCVO, DSO (1900–1979) [102]

  Prince Louis of Battenberg was born at Frogmore House, Windsor, on 25 June 1900, the younger son in a family of four children of Admiral Prince Louis of Battenberg [74] and his wife, Princess Victoria of Hesse, a granddaughter of Queen Victoria. He became a cadet at the Royal Naval College, Osborne, in May 1913, and was there when his father resigned office as First Sea Lord after the outbreak of the First World War, in response to popular disquiet at his German connections. He felt bitter at the wrong he considered that his father had suffered and the episode intensified his ambition to rise eventually to take his place. After going on to the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, he was appointed in July 1916 as a midshipman in the battle-cruiser Lion, flagship of the Battle-cruiser Fleet. He was present at a minor action on 19 August 1916 and transferred to the battleship Queen Elizabeth in February 1917. In June 1917 his father renounced his German titles and took the surname Mountbatten, before being granted a peerage as Marquess of Milford Haven. Prince Louis (“Dickie” to his intimates, and, later, “Tricky Dickie” to his rivals) then became Lord Louis Mountbatten. He spent two months on detachment to the submarine K6 and in October 1918 joined the patrol boat P31 where he was promoted to sub-lieutenant on 15 January 1919. In October 1919 he was one of the young naval officers sent to complete their education at a university and went up to Christ’s College, Cambridge, where he was elected to the committee of the Cambridge Union and gained a reputation for holding radical opinions.

  In March 1920 Mountbatten joined the battle-cruiser Renown to accompany the Prince of Wales [84] during his visit to Australia. He established a friendship with the Prince, his distant cousin, and, after passing out first on his promotion course in March 1921, and commanding a platoon of stokers on strike-breaking duty, joined the battle-cruiser Repulse to accompany the Prince on his tour to India and Japan in the winter of 1921–22. He had already become close to the well-connected Edwina Ashley, who in 1921 became a millionairess on the death of her grandfather, Sir Ernest Cassel. She visited the Viceroy and Governor-General of India, Lord Reading, at the time of the Prince of Wales’s tour and, while there, accepted Mountbatten’s proposal. They were married soon after Mountbatten’s return home in 1922, with the Prince of Wales acting as best man, and later had a family of two daughters. In subsequent years the question of his wife’s infidelity, as well as Mountbatten’s own, became the subject of widespread comment.

  In January 1923 Mountbatten joined the battleship Revenge in the Mediterranean Fleet. He returned home in August 1924 and spent the next two years as a student at the signals school, Portsmouth, and the Royal Naval Staff College, Greenwich. In 1926 he was appointed to the battleship Centurion in the Reserve Fleet and in January 1927 became assistant to the Fleet Signals Officer in the Mediterranean. He was promoted lieutenant-commander on 15 April 1928, with appointment to the instructional staff of the signals school at Portsmouth in July 1929. While there, he learnt to fly at a private flying school. In August 1931 he became Fleet Signals Officer in the Mediterranean in the battleship Queen Elizabeth and on 31 December 1932 was promoted to commander and appointed to the battleship Resolution. He was given command in 1934 of the new destroyer Daring in the Mediterranean Fleet and soon afterwards transferred to the older destroyer Wishart. During his years with the Mediterranean Fleet Mountbatten established an image that lasted for the rest of his career. To his admirers he was a charismatic and inspiring leader, whose brilliant talents, charm and energy allowed him to excel in every field. To his detractors he was a fun-loving playboy who shamelessly exploited his royal connections and his wife’s money in the ruthless pursuit of personal ambition.

  In July 1936 Mountbatten was appointed to the Naval Air Division of the Admiralty and lobbied in support of the campaign to transfer the Fleet Air Arm from the Royal Air Force to the Navy. With friends in the film industry, he set up the Royal Naval Film Corporation, allowing ships at sea to screen the latest popular releases. He was also given credit for advocating the adoption of the Oerlikon gun as the fleet’s low-level air defence weapon. During the abdication crisis of 1936 he failed to dissuade his old companion, who had come to the throne as Edward VIII [84], from abdicating in order to marry Mrs Wallis Simpson, and soon afterwards became close to the new King, George VI [86].

  In June 1939 Mountbatten assumed command of the new destroyer flotilla leader Kelly, in whose construction he had taken a keen interest. With the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939 he became Captain (Destroyers) of the Fifth Destroyer Flotilla. One of his first tasks was to bring back the former Edward VIII, now Duke of Windsor, from his self-imposed exile in France. Kelly subsequently suffered storm-damage when proceeding at excessive speed after failing to intercept a captured British merchantman off Norway. After repairs she was damaged first by a mine in December 1939 and then by collision with the destroyer Gurkha on returning to sea in March 1940. Mountbatten’s flotilla took part in the Norwegian campaign (9 April–9 June 1940), coming under German air attack and embarking French Chasseurs Alpins during the Allied evacuation of Namsos. On 9 May 1940, operating off the Dutch coast, Kelly was badly damaged by a torpedo and only reached safety after a tow of ninety-two hours. Mountbatten’s personal courage and seamanship gained him the first of his several mentions in despatches, but he was denied a DSO, despite lobbying by the new Prime Minister, Winston Churchill and by the King’s brother, the Duke of Kent. The C-in-C, Home Fleet, Sir Charles Forbes [90], held that other officers were more deserving and that Mountbatten’s ship had been torpedoed in consequence of his own rashness. In July 1940
, with the United Kingdom threatened by invasion, Mountbatten felt that his family would be singled out by the Nazis on account of his own German descent and his wife’s Jewish grandparents. Lady Louis refused to leave her position in the St John Ambulance Brigade, but their two daughters were evacuated to the United States.

  In October 1940 the Fifth Destroyer Flotilla, with Mountbatten commanding from the flotilla leader Javelin, moved from the North Sea to the Channel. On 28 November 1940 in an encounter with an inferior force of German destroyers, Javelin was disabled by a torpedo and the enemy escaped. Mountbatten was criticized by the Admiralty for faulty tactics, but was congratulated by Churchill for his dashing conduct. Kelly, with many of her old crew having volunteered to rejoin her, put to sea again in December 1940, only to suffer minor damage through ramming a merchantman. Mountbatten was exonerated and received his DSO in January 1941. His flotilla joined the Mediterranean Fleet at the end of April 1941 and took part in the defence of Malta and operations off the Libyan coast. On 23 May 1941, after giving naval gunfire support to the Army during the campaign in Crete, Kelly was sunk by German dive-bombers, with the loss of half her complement. Mountbatten and other survivors were machine-gunned in the water before being rescued by the destroyer Kipling. He briefly resumed command as Captain (Destroyers) before returning to London.

  In August 1941 Mountbatten flew to the USA to take command of the aircraft carrier Illustrious, then under repair at Norfolk, Virginia. He made official visits to several naval establishments, including the fleet base at Pearl Harbor, which he thought was inadequately defended against surprise attack, and met a number of important personages, including President Roosevelt. He was recalled in October 1941, when he was selected by Churchill to succeed Sir Roger Keyes [80] as adviser to the Chiefs of Staff on Combined Operations, with promotion to commodore. This rapid advancement did not enhance his popularity with senior officers of any Service, especially when he established a large headquarters, staffed by his own nominees, including a number of scientists whose ideas were required for the development of special projects needed for large-scale amphibious warfare. Some condemned it as full of cranks and communists, and derided the results of early raids on the German-held coast. Nevertheless, Churchill was impressed by Mountbatten’s achievements and in March 1942 appointed him Chief of Combined Operations, with full membership of the Chiefs of Staff Committee and acting promotion to vice-admiral, lieutenant general and air marshal. During 1942 Rank/Two Cities, with Admiralty cooperation, produced the successful and morale-boosting feature film In Which We Serve. The film was written and directed by Mountbatten’s friend, the composer, playwright and entertainer Noel Coward. Mountbatten was involved in every aspect of filming the story, which was based on that of Kelly, and the set-piece dialogue of the leading character (played by Coward himself with his cap at the same jaunty angle affected by Mountbatten) included some of Mountbatten’s own speeches to his crew.