The Mountbattens Read online

  THE MOUNTBATTENS

  ANDREW LOWNIE

  Praise for Stalin’s Englishman: The Lives of Guy Burgess

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  ‘As gripping as a thriller’ Daily Express

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  ‘A remarkable and definitive portrait’ Frederick Forsyth

  ‘A superb biography… Brilliantly told’ Evening Standard

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  ‘Shrewd, thorough, revelatory’ William Boyd

  ‘Scrupulous and comprehensive’ The Week

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  ‘Thorough and lucid’ New York Times

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  ‘Packed with information, much of which is new’ Country Life

  ‘An affectionate, admirably well-researched study from an intelligent biographer. Well worth reading’ Daily Mail

  ‘Andrew Lownie has brought this most extraordinary man to life in a way no previous writer has’ Independent

  THE MOUNTBATTENS

  ANDREW LOWNIE

  Published by Blink Publishing

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  535 Kings Road,

  Chelsea Harbour,

  London, SW10 0SZ

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  Hardback – 978-1-788-702-56-0

  Trade paperback – 978-1-788-702-60-7

  Ebook – 978-1-788-702-57-7

  All rights reserved. No part of the publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted or circulated in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission in writing of the publisher.

  A CIP catalogue of this book is available from the British Library.

  Typeset by Envydesign Ltd

  Copyright © Andrew Lownie, 2019

  Andrew Lownie has asserted his moral right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  The publisher has made every effort to contact rights holders for permission to use their material, but in the event of any omission, will happily make amends and update the publication at the earliest possible opportunity.

  Blink Publishing is an imprint of Bonnier Books UK

  www.bonnierbooks.co.uk

  Contents

  Preface

  Prologue

  1.Beginnings

  2.Students

  3.First Loves

  4.Duty

  5.Honeymoon

  6.A Marriage Under Threat

  7.Divergent Paths

  8.A Terrible Scandal

  9.Playing to Win

  10.Problems in the Family

  11.At War

  12.Combined Operations

  13.The Dieppe Raid

  14.Supremo

  15.Relief Work

  16.Love and Marriage

  17.A Poisoned Chalice

  18.A Tryst with Destiny

  19.Governor-General

  20.A Deeper Attachment

  21.Malta Again

  22.Separate Lives

  23.Sea Lord

  24.After Edwina

  25.Retirement

  26.Fixer

  27.Ireland

  28.Rumours

  29.Legacy

  Acknowledgements

  Selected Bibliography

  Source Notes

  Index

  Preface

  No biography has any value unless it is written with warts and all.

  LORD MOUNTBATTEN

  Writing to Richard Hough about how he would like to be acknowledged in Hough’s book, Louis and Victoria, Dickie Mountbatten suggested: ‘Naval officer who became First Sea Lord after being Supreme Allied Commander and Viceroy of India and thus the best-known figure the Navy has produced since Nelson, as well as being the President of the Society of Genealogists.’1

  The entry reveals much – Mountbatten’s achievements, what he valued and his pomposity. No figure has a longer entry in Who’s Who, apart from Winston Churchill, partly because every minor organisation is mentioned, but also because Dickie Mountbatten had a remarkable life.

  As one obituary noted, ‘It seemed almost unbelievable that one human being could have touched the history of our century at so many points.’2 Head of Combined Operations, a Member of the Chiefs of Staff and then Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in South East Asia during the Second World War, the last Viceroy and first Governor-General of India, First Sea Lord and Chief of the Defence Staff, member of the Royal Family and mentor of Prince Philip and Prince Charles: his life, which covered the first 80 years of the 20th century, also provides an opportunity to look at some of the most important and controversial issues of the period, from the 1942 Dieppe Raid to Indian independence. His biography cannot be told without also considering the life of his wife, Edwina, the richest heiress in the world when they married, whose reputation for her global humanitarian work endures.

  Philip Ziegler’s magisterial official life of Dickie was published in 1985 and Janet Morgan’s deft authorised life of Edwina came out six years later. What is missing is a shorter, joint biography of these two remarkable figures, a book which is also a portrait of an unusual marriage – one that was loving and mutually supportive, but also beset with infidelities. As Dickie would later claim, ‘Edwina and I spent all our married lives getting into other people’s beds.’3

  With the Mountbattens, the private life did intrude into the public life, not least in the question over the nature of the relationship between Edwina and the Indian Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and how far it affected the perception of the impartiality of the Mountbattens during Independence.

  Even after countless books on the couple, the questions remain. Was Mountbatten one of the outstanding leaders of his generation, or a man over-promoted because of his royal birth, high-level connections, film-star looks and ruthless self-promotion? What is the true story behind controversies such as the Dieppe Raid and Indian Partition and the love affair between Edwina and Nehru? The authorised biographies had certain subjects they had to cover and to avoid. Now 30 years later, with many of those involved in the story dead, with new papers released and different sensitivities, there is a case for a new book.

  ‘The interesting biography will be the one that is published in 30 or 40 years’ time when the dust has settled,’ wrote Mountbatten’s military assistant Pat MacLellan to Brian Kimmins, a wartime member of Dickie’s staff, in 1980.4

  This book is that attempt.

  Prologue

  TUESDAY, 18 JULY 1922

  In spite of the rain, by breakfast, 600 people had gathered outside St Margaret’s, the 12th-century church in the shadow of Westminster Abbey and a favourite for society weddings. By lunchtime the crowd would swell to 8,000. For the Daily Telegraph, this was to be the Wedding of the Year – the Star thought it the Wedding of the Century – between the beautiful Edwina Ashley, ‘the richest girl in the world’, and Lord Louis Mountbatten, the handsome naval officer and member of the extended Royal Family. King George V and Queen Mary and most members of the Royal Family were attending, with the Prince of Wales as best man.

>   At exactly 2.15 p.m., Edwina entered the church to Wagner’s Lohengrin. The service was conducted by Dickie’s former school tutor, Frederic Lawrence Long. ‘The Lord is my Shepherd’ was followed by the hymns ‘Thine for Ever’ and ‘May the Grace of God our Saviour’, whilst Beethoven’s ‘Hallelujah’ was sung during the signing of the register.

  The couple – Dickie at six foot two dwarfing his wife – emerged from the church to Mendelssohn’s Wedding March just as the sun broke through the rain and they walked under the traditional arch of swords of a naval guard of honour. Mountbatten, his sharp-chiselled face set in a solemn expression, was dressed in a long, blue frock coat and golden epaulettes in the dress uniform of a naval lieutenant and carrying his father’s gold-hilted sword.5 Edwina, blue-eyed and fair-haired, was in a simple, ankle-length frosted silver dress, with a wreath of orange blossom on her head, and a four-foot train of silver cloth covered with 15th-century lace.

  They climbed into the bridal car, a Rolls-Royce – a wedding gift from Edwina bought from the Prince of Wales – which was then drawn by a naval gun crew around Parliament Square. Around the corner, a flag-draped lorry took over, towing the car past Buckingham Palace to the reception at the bride’s home, Brook House in Park Lane. There, at the entrance to the two groundfloor reception rooms, where a narrow dividing room had been made into an avenue of ten-foot orange trees, the couple received their 800 guests.6 So large was the wedding cake, with its top tier shaped like a crown, plus miniature anchors, sails and hawsers, and tiny lifeboats hanging from silver davits, that it took four men to lift it.

  The wedding had attracted attention around the world with entire issues of magazines devoted to it, postcards and souvenirs produced to commemorate the occasion, and a 14-minute film for Pathé News.7 The list of presents took up a whole page of The Times and included, for Edwina, a pendant with the royal cipher in diamonds from Queen Alexandra, a brooch from the Aga Khan, a horse from the Maharajah of Jaipur, and the bracelet she had only recently returned to a previous suitor, Geordie, Duke of Sutherland. Mountbatten’s gifts were of a more practical bent, reflecting his interests – a ship’s telescope, a copper hot-water jug and an aneroid barometer – and from the King, the award Knight Commander Victorian Order to add to his cherished Japanese Order of the Rising Sun and Grand Cross Order of the Nile.

  Finally, at 5 p.m., they set off in the Rolls-Royce for the bride’s family home, Broadlands, to begin their married life together.

  CHAPTER 1

  Beginnings

  The marriage had brought together two of the most glamorous figures of the period.

  Dickie Mountbatten, born on 25 June 1900 at Frogmore House, was a great grandson and godson of Queen Victoria – his mother, Victoria, born in 1863, was the daughter of the Queen’s second daughter, Alice. Dickie’s mother was to be an important influence, encouraging in her youngest child supreme self-confidence and acting as his tutor between the ages of five and nine. ‘She taught me English, German, French and Latin. She taught me world history in a horizontal manner,’ he later recalled. ‘In the Elizabethan era, I knew what was going on in Europe and India as well as in England.’8

  He was christened Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas – the Victor and Albert in tribute to his great-grandparents – though from an early age he was always known as Dicky or Dickie.

  His father, Prince Louis, born in 1854 in Austria, was the son of Prince Alexander and Princess Julie of Hesse, the oldest ruling Protestant dynasty in the world, but, as it was a morganatic marriage, the children were excluded from the succession to the sovereignty of Hesse.9 Instead, Prince Alexander was given the name and title of Battenberg, which came from a town in the upper part of the Grand Duchy. This genealogical flaw in Mountbatten’s ascendance was to be an embarrassment, which he would seek to brush over in later life.

  Dickie’s father had joined the Royal Navy, aged 14, and enjoyed a successful naval career, becoming Director of Naval Intelligence shortly after his younger son’s birth. Part of the slightly louche set around Edward VII – his torso boasted a tattoo of a dragon – in 1881 he had fathered a child, Jeanne Marie, with the King’s mistress, Lillie Langtry.10

  In 1884, Prince Louis had married his cousin, Victoria, eldest daughter of Grand Duke Louis of Hesse and a favourite granddaughter of Queen Victoria, and their children, Alice, Louise and George, were born respectively in 1885, 1889 and 1892. Fluent in French and German, a skilled pianist and artist, who had been elected to the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours, he was worshipped by his youngest child.11

  As the youngest and with a gap of between 15 and eight years with his siblings, Dickie was used to amusing himself and getting his own way. He later recollected, ‘I was spoilt and no one minded.’12 His was an essentially female household, as his brother and father were seldom at home, where he was doted on by his mother, two elder sisters and various female members of staff. This was to have a powerful effect on him in later life. He was always to get on with women better than men, who were either to be admired, like his father and brother, or seen as antagonists to be defeated.

  It was also, with his regular visits to German relations at the family homes at Heiligenberg Castle and Wolfsgarten, a much more cosmopolitan upbringing than that enjoyed by most British children of the time. Just after his first birthday, he had stayed with the Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, the Governor of Moscow, before going on to the Peterhof Palace.13 For Christmas 1905 he received from the Tsar, who was married to Dickie’s aunt, a replica uniform of the crack Chevalier Garde, complete with helmet, breastplate, boots, spurs and sword. It was to be the start of a lifelong love of uniforms.

  The summer of 1908 was spent staying with various Russian relations where, at the Nicholas Palace in St Petersburg, he became friendly with his cousin the Grand Duke Dmitri, one of the two conspirators behind the death of Rasputin. This was followed by a week with Tsar Nicholas and his family at the Peterhof Palace.14

  In 1910, Prince Louis, who had had a series of postings around the Mediterranean, was made Commander-in-Chief of the Atlantic Fleet, and decided to send Dickie to boarding school.15 His parents picked Lockers Park, a fashionable prep school just north of London with strong naval connections, which Dickie’s uncle Maurice and brother George had attended a few years previously.16 Shortly after arriving, he wrote to his mother, ‘Some of my nicknames are Baterpudding, 2 things beginning with P – prince and pig, also London Fire Brigade like LFB. One boy spelt my name Batumberg.’17

  A diligent but unpredictable student, his term positions fluctuated widely. At the end of his first term he was eighth in a class of ten, but by the end of 1910, he was first. ‘His behaviour has been excellent and I am pleased to see he is less inclined to worry over trivial matters’ ran his report.18 Throughout 1911, he remained in the bottom half of the class, with his best subjects history and geography, but by the following year, he was top and had received the form prize.

  He was a kind and popular child. One contemporary, Sir Hamilton Kerr, later remembered how, when he was lonely and miserable at the school, he discovered that Mountbatten could speak German. ‘We talked German on Sunday afternoons, walking up and down the school lawn. One never forgets these kindnesses of early youth.’19

  Not naturally athletic, nevertheless, Dickie managed to reach the finals of the boxing competition and captain the second football team. Above all, his qualities of leadership were beginning to be recognised and he became a prefect. His headmaster wrote in his final report: ‘He has always acted on the principle that if a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing well. We all regret that his stay at the school has come to an end and I am confident of his future success.’20

  In May 1913, Mountbatten followed in his brother George’s footsteps to Osborne, the Navy’s training school on the Isle of Wight, passing in 15th out of the 83 candidates – his score was 440/600 with the top mark 498 – and English and German his best subjects. Osborne was very different from Lockers
Park. The 430 boys, many from naval families, were subject to naval discipline and instead of school uniform, they wore naval dress, ranging from monkey jackets to dress uniforms for special occasions.

  The curriculum was focused on subjects such as engineering, navigation and seamanship, and it was a tough environment aimed at developing self-discipline, initiative and confidence. There was lots of bullying and Dickie, cocky and feminine-looking, was frequently bullied. In May, he got into a fight with a boy who had been at Lockers Park, John Scott, who teased him about his name – the brass plate on his bedside sea chest described him as Serene Highness – earning the respect of his peers when he fought back.21

  At the end of Dickie’s first term, he was 33rd out of 81. His tutor, A.P. Boissier, who taught maths, wrote, ‘He has made an excellent start. He invariably shows great keenness in everything and is always out to learn.’22 By the next term he was second in English and history, with Boissier noting, ‘He possesses the gift of thoroughly mastering a subject before he allows himself to pass on.’23 This was to prove a characteristic throughout his life.

  He was playing drums in the college band, taking fencing lessons, boxing, playing in the second eleven hockey, and in October he stroked the winning boat in the First Year Skiffs. Already he was showing an interest in wireless telegraphy and with a friend he spent hours trying to pick up broadcasts from the Eiffel Tower on a primitive crystal receiver.

  The summer of 1913 was spent in Hesse with his older siblings – Alice, now married to Prince Andrew of Greece, Louise and George, now a lieutenant serving in the battle cruiser HMS New Zealand. They were joined in Hesse by the Tsar and Tsarina and their five children, with one of whom, 14-year-old Marie, Dickie fell in love. ‘I was crackers about Marie, and was determined to marry her,’ he remembered. ‘She was absolutely lovely. I keep her photograph on the mantelpiece in my bedroom – always have.’24 Within five years, all the family would be dead at the hands of the Bolsheviks.