page_title: Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma
section_title: Early life
hierarchical_section_title: Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma / Early life
caption_attribution_description: English: Louis Alexander Mountbatten, 1st Marquess of Milford Haven with his familyPortuguês: Louis Mountbatten, 1.º Marquês de Milford Haven com a sua família
context_page_description: Admiral of the Fleet Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, was a British Royal Navy officer and statesman, an uncle of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and second cousin once removed of Queen Elizabeth II. During the Second World War, he was Supreme Allied Commander, South East Asia Command. He was the last Viceroy of India and the first governor-general of independent India.
  From 1954 to 1959, Mountbatten was First Sea Lord, a position that had been held by his father, Prince Louis of Battenberg, some forty years earlier. Thereafter he served as chief of the Defence Staff until 1965, making him the longest-serving professional head of the British Armed Forces to date. During this period Mountbatten also served as chairman of the NATO Military Committee for a year.
  In August 1979, Mountbatten was assassinated by a bomb that was hidden aboard his fishing boat in Mullaghmore, County Sligo, Ireland, by members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army.
context_section_description: Prince Louis of Battenberg was born on 25 June 1900 at Frogmore House in the Home Park, Windsor, Berkshire. He was the youngest child and the second son of Prince Louis of Battenberg and his wife Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine. His maternal grandparents were Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse, and Princess Alice of the United Kingdom, who was a daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. His paternal grandparents were Prince Alexander of Hesse and by Rhine and Julia, Princess of Battenberg. His paternal grandparents' marriage was morganatic because his grandmother was not of royal lineage; as a result, he and his father were styled "Serene Highness" rather than "Grand Ducal Highness", were not eligible to be titled Princes of Hesse and were given the less exalted Battenberg title. His siblings were Princess Alice of Greece and Denmark (mother of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh), Queen Louise of Sweden, and George Mountbatten, 2nd Marquess of Milford Haven.
  He was baptised in the large drawing room of Frogmore House on 17 July 1900 by the Dean of Windsor, Philip Eliot. His godparents were Queen Victoria, Nicholas II of Russia (represented by his father) and Prince Francis Joseph of Battenberg (represented by Lord Edward Clinton). He wore the original 1841 royal christening gown at the ceremony.
  Young Louis' nickname among family and friends was "Dickie", although "Richard" was not among his given names. This was because his great-grandmother, Queen Victoria, had suggested the nickname of "Nicky", but to avoid confusion with the many Nickys of the Russian Imperial Family ("Nicky" was particularly used to refer to Nicholas II, the last Tsar), "Nicky" was changed to "Dickie".
  Prince Louis was educated at home for the first 10 years of his life: he was then sent to Lockers Park School in Hertfordshire and on to the Royal Naval College, Osborne in May 1913. His mother's younger sister was Russian Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. In childhood he visited the Imperial Court of Russia at St Petersburg and became intimate with the Russian Imperial Family, harbouring romantic feelings towards his maternal first cousin Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna, whose photograph he kept at his bedside for the rest of his life.
  From 1914 to 1918, Britain and its allies were at war with the Central Powers, led by the German Empire. To appease British nationalist sentiment, King George V issued a royal proclamation changing the name of the British royal house from the German House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to the House of Windsor. The king's British relatives followed suit with the Louis' father dropping his German titles and name and adopting the surname Mountbatten, an anglicization of Battenberg.  His father was subsequently created Marquess of Milford Haven.
caption: Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine, Prince Louis of Battenberg and their four children Princess Alice, Princess Louise, Prince George and Prince Louis.
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