Sir Francis Drake may have landed on Oregon and named it New Albion. If I had become Governor of Oregon, I was going to offer Harry and Meghan a title….Lord and Lady Mountbatten. Harry’s grandmother grabbed the name Mountbatten to shore up the name Windsor for her German husband. Now King Charles is not going to give Harry, and his American wife – any titles! That king needs to get out of the block – and in the race! Meghan needs to be educated – on every level! I volunteer to be her teacher in the New Cyber Chess Game. Winston Churchill and President Roosevelt did not have time to establish The Rules. FDR died after the Hands across the Water Unity was completed.
“After five hours of research, I found this alternative history site that came to the same conclusions that I did, but, did not know Harry would remove his family from the influence of the Windsor’s. Harry carries the DNA of the Romanovs. We are talking about a Russian Romanov Kingdom in California. Alexandra of Prussia was married to Nicholas 1. Was she the source of the Prussian plan to purchase Alta Norte, Northern California? How much land was offered to Sutter that he could not afford?
With Great Britain leading a united force against Putin. I can come to the end of our amazing story, that Rena did not know about. She is the Muse of the Ages.
Caspar John is in my rosy family tree. He was a Sea Lord, and half-brother of Poppet Pol (John) There is no doubt that Rena’s late husband, Commander Sir Ian Easton, and John, knew each other. Tabitha Getty is Caspar’s second-niece. She was a Bohemian fashion model, and step-mother of John Paul, who was abducted. John is the subject of a movie and television series titled ‘Trust’. Why are these knighted men marrying beautiful American women? May I dare wonder?
Rena was the muse of my late, Christine Rosamond, and I. This is the love story of our time. The children born at the end of the World War were given a special mission. Rena and I were destined to meet – and part – so our spirits can rescue Britain from her enemies. Britannia rules the waves! Like Phoenix Birds…………..We will rise from the ashes?
“We now come to the History of Jon. Jon, Jôn, Jhon, Jan, are all the same name, though the pronunciation varies, as the seamen like to shorten everything to be able to make it easier to call. Jon—that is, “Given”—was a sea-king, born at Alberga.”
King Henry the second claims he descends from Trojans. I have compared Rena to Helen of Troy – and the goddess, Britannia! I began a painting of her as Fair Rosamond, who captured Henry’s heart. This King of England placed her in a Labyrinth. I can not yet reveal what the movie ‘The Shape of Water’ revealed to me. It has much to do with Pharamond, the King of Franks.
I am going to contact Boyle and send him a movie script ‘Capturing Beauty’. If he won’t produce it, I will send it to de Toro.
Everyone wants to overlook the truth that I rescued Rena in the City of Venice, by the sea. At the premiure of OUR MOVIE, we will unite. When she comes down the isle, the audience will stand as one, and sing: for the world is saved by many means, but, it is the love the artist has for his muse, that forever gets our special attention. This is what we come back for, again, and again.
The Muses, still with freedom found, Shall to thy happy coasts repair. Blest isle! with matchless beauty crowned, And manly hearts to guard the fair.
A Russian lawmaker made an outlandish demand over the weekend that the United States return Alaska and a historic settlement in California, in addition to paying reparations to Russia over crippling American-led sanctions that have put Moscow’s economy in a tailspin.
Oleg Matveychev, a member of the state Duma, outlined on Russian state television a set of demands for the U.S. and Ukraine after Kiv’s “demilitarization is completed,” the Express newspaper in the United Kingdom reported.
The demands include the return of Alaska, which the U.S. purchased from the Russian Empire in 1867 as part of the Alaska Purchase, and the former Russian settlement of Fort Ross, California, 90 miles north of San Francisco.
The Kremlin’s spin doctor is demanding the US return Alaska and pay Russia reparations due to the White House’s crippling sanctions imposed in the wake of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Parliament member Oleg Matveychev, who often speaks on behalf of top government officials, made the outlandish demands on Sunday while on Russian state TV, according to the Daily Mail.
“We should be thinking about reparations from the damage that was caused by the sanctions and the war itself, because that too costs money and we should get it back,” Matveychev said — even though Russia was the country that started the war.
Russian parliament member Oleg Matveychev called for reparations from the US and a return of Alaska in response to sanctions imposed on Russia due to its invasion of Ukraine.Youtube/Oleg Matveychev
Matveychev then said he wants “the return of all Russian properties, those of the Russian empire, the Soviet Union and current Russia, which has been seized in the United States, and so on.”
That includes Alaska and even Fort Ross, California, a small area in Sonoma County that was at one point the Russian Empire’s southernmost outpost in North America and was sold off in 1841.
Among the Russian properties Kremlin spin doctor Oleg Matveychev wants returned is Fort Ross, California a small town in Sonoma County.Getty Images
The Doma member also said his demand includes the Antarctic.
“We discovered it, so it belongs to us,” he said, according to the Daily Mail.
John Sutter did not complete the payment to the Russians for Fort Ross, and thus I claim it in the name of Harry and Meaghen Markel. This land discovered by a Russian explorer, was called New Albion, as was the land Sir Francis Drake discovered and claimed in the name of Queen Elizabeth.
After five hours of research, I found this alternative history site that came to the same conclusions that I did, but, did not know Harry would remove his family from the influence of the Windsor’s. Harry carries the DNA of the Romanovs. We are talking about a Russian Romanov Kingdom in California. Alexandra of Prussia was married to Nicholas 1. Was she the source of the Prussian plan to purchase Alta Norte, Northern California? How much land was offered to Sutter that he could not afford?
The name of Lord Mountbatten will forever be found in the California Birth Records. Lilibet Diana Mountbatten-Windsor is an entity unto herself. She can come and go as she please when she reaches the age of eighteen. At sixteen, she will traditionally rebel against her father, and render him The Bad Guy, even ‘The Evil One’. This is part of the Woman’s Ritual of America. In the quest to be REVELANT, sixteen year old American Female Teenagers will rank higher than King Jesus, then drop down into the rank and file of Us Mortals. The Duchess of Cambridge has escaped all this by going along with the Royal Program – to the max! She liked her Job Description – and excelled! Meghan Markle hated her Job Description – and rebelled – as is her prerogative. She was born in America, the home of the Great Christian Schism that led to the bloody Civil war. Royal families sent their Military Spies to take notes on The Great Holy War Over Slavery so when it came time to knocking the crap out of an aggressive cousin, they are equipped with the most modern killing tools and tactics. Because the U.S. Military knocked the crap out of The Peace Movement, seeking peace is no longer revelent. Jesus is not The Son of Peace’ but a Sword Swinging King of Anger. Look out!
The only other revelent thing in The West, is the Rights of Northern Ireland. The IRA put a bomb in Mountbatten’s boat – and blew him all to hell! My Rosamond kin took part in this bloodshed, and fled to Canada after killing a Catholic lad. The only thing the North and the South have in common – is the Legend of Fair Rosamond – that I informed President Clinton about in a two page letter written in 1997. I was utterly ignored. Now we got Rosamond coming out of our ass, as the Bible Thumpers declare they are a Separate Christian Nation! For Mountbatten to meet with President Kennedy, an Irish Catholic, was an attempt to end the long Christian Schism that has divided Ireland in twain.
FACT: It is not Beatniks and Lesbians that cause all the trouble in the world, and shed all that blood. It is Religion that does this.
Lord Mountbatten was a Sea Lord, as was Caspar John, whose father was a famous British Beatnik Artist. But for Bohemianism, there is no Cosmology confronting Giant Chinesism – that laughs at us as our Davidic Slingshot Stones clink off the massive body armor.
“My kingdom for a Nazarite!”
I began my novel ‘The Royal Janitor’ with Victoria Rosemond Bond being driven to the Osborne House where Mountbatten studied Naval Tactics. She is hurting to take part in a Orange parade where she want to play her bagpipe with a dragon head on it, representing the Clifford family. Confronting the truth she and her bodyguard have a drinking problem, Miriam Starfish forces her lover to take The Oath of the Nazarite. They both do the dance of the Jawbone of Ass, and are empowered with Angelic Spirit. If you are looking for more, or a different pertinence, there isn’t any, unless you consult the I-Ching, or, get off on Four-leaf clovers.
There exist a tug-of-war about the naming of this Royal Child. On the eighth day, Temple Priests came to Elizabeth to name her newborn son. There is a fake argument I solved the riddle of. I chose Lily as the name of my newborn granddaughter – my daughter will not let me see! I declare Lilibet a Foundling, and, as the American Merlin – I claim her! For here come – Oberon! Runaway!
Welcome to California Lilibet! You belong to us!
I will render a new flag for Lili showing the Bear and Red Star, with British flag in the upper left corner! Hail Britania California!
Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex have denied a report in the British media that they did not ask Queen Elizabeth II about naming their daughter Lilibet, after the monarch’s childhood nickname.
A BBC report, which cited an unnamed Buckingham Palace source, stated that the couple never checked whether they could use the moniker before naming their second child, who was born on Friday in California.
Overall, the passage of Scripture which we are studying falls into two major parts. The first segment deals with the “family feud” over the naming of John and its aftermath (vv. 57-66). The second segment records the praise of Zacharias, when the power of speech is once again given to him (vv. 67-79), with verse 80 summing up the early life of John as a concluding statement.
But their meeting on Thursday also comes at a time of tension over Northern Ireland’s role in the UK’s Brexit agreement with the European Union, which is a key issue for Biden. The meeting will set the tone for both US-UK relations over the next four years and Biden’s diplomatic agenda as they confer in southwest England. It also kicks off Biden’s swing across Europe for meetings with America’s G7 partners, NATO allies, the European Union and, finally, Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Louis Mountbatten” redirects here. For his father, the 1st Marquess of Milford Haven, see Prince Louis of Battenberg.
Born in Windsor to the prominent Battenberg family, Mountbatten attended the Royal Naval College, Osborne, before entering the Royal Navy in 1916. He saw action during the closing phase of the First World War, and after the war briefly attended Christ’s College, Cambridge. During the interwar period, Mountbatten continued to pursue his naval career, specialising in naval communications.
Following the outbreak of the Second World War, Mountbatten commanded the destroyer HMS Kelly and the 5th Destroyer Flotilla and saw considerable action in Norway, the English Channel and the Mediterranean. In August 1941, he received command of the aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious. He was appointed chief of Combined Operations and a member of the Chiefs of Staff Committee in early 1942, and organised the raids on St Nazaire and Dieppe. In August 1943, Mountbatten became Supreme Allied Commander South East Asia Command and oversaw the recapture of Burma and Singapore from the Japanese by the end of 1945. For his service during the war, Mountbatten was created viscount in 1946 and earl the following year.
Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine, Prince Louis of Battenberg and their four children Princess Alice, Princess Louise, Prince George and Prince Louis in 1902.
Mountbatten’s nickname among family and friends was “Dickie”; however “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”.[3]
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 Prince Louis’s 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.
Mountbatten was posted as midshipman to the battlecruiserHMS Lion in July 1916 and, after seeing action in August 1916, transferred to the battleship HMS Queen Elizabeth during the closing phases of the First World War.[5] In June 1917, when the royal family stopped using their German names and titles and adopted the more British-sounding “Windsor”, Prince Louis of Battenberg became Louis Mountbatten and was created Marquess of Milford Haven. His second son acquired the courtesy titleLord Louis Mountbatten and was known as Lord Louis until he was created a peer in 1946.[7] He paid a visit of ten days to the Western Front, in July 1918.[8]Portrait by Philip de László, 1925
He was appointed executive officer (second-in-command) of the small warship HMS P. 31 on 13 October 1918 and was promoted sub-lieutenant on 15 January 1919. HMS P. 31 took part in the Peace River Pageant on 4 April 1919. Mountbatten attended Christ’s College, Cambridge, for two terms, starting in October 1919, where he studied English literature (including John Milton and Lord Byron) in a programme designed to augment the education of junior officers which had been curtailed by the war.[9][10] He was elected for a term to the Standing Committee of the Cambridge Union Society and was suspected of sympathy for the Labour Party, then emerging as a potential party of government for the first time.[11]
He was posted to the battlecruiser HMS Renown in March 1920 and accompanied Edward, Prince of Wales, on a royal tour of Australia in her.[7] He was promoted lieutenant on 15 April 1920.[12] HMS Renown returned to Portsmouth on 11 October 1920.[13] Early in 1921 Royal Navy personnel were used for civil defence duties as serious industrial unrest seemed imminent. Mountbatten had to command a platoon of stokers, many of whom had never handled a rifle before, in northern England.[13] He transferred to the battlecruiser HMS Repulse in March 1921 and accompanied the Prince of Wales on a Royal tour of India and Japan.[7][14] Edward and Mountbatten formed a close friendship during the trip.[7] Mountbatten survived the deep defence cuts known as the Geddes Axe. Fifty-two percent of the officers of his year had had to leave the Royal Navy by the end of 1923; although he was highly regarded by his superiors, it was rumoured that wealthy and well-connected officers were more likely to be retained.[15] He was posted to the battleship HMS Revenge in the Mediterranean Fleet in January 1923.[7]
Pursuing his interests in technological development and gadgetry, Mountbatten joined the Portsmouth Signals School in August 1924 and then went on briefly to study electronics at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich.[7] Mountbatten became a Member of the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE), now the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET).[16] He was posted to the battleship HMS Centurion in the Reserve Fleet in 1926 and became Assistant Fleet Wireless and Signals Officer of the Mediterranean Fleet under the command of Admiral Sir Roger Keyes in January 1927.[7] Promoted lieutenant-commander on 15 April 1928,[17] he returned to the Signals School in July 1929 as Senior Wireless Instructor.[7] He was appointed Fleet Wireless Officer to the Mediterranean Fleet in August 1931 and, having been promoted commander on 31 December 1932,[18] was posted to the battleship HMS Resolution.[7]
In July 1939, Mountbatten was granted a patent (UK Number 508,956) for a system for maintaining a warship in a fixed position relative to another ship.[25]
Within the Admiralty, Mountbatten was called “The Master of Disaster” for his penchant of getting into messes.[26][27]
Mountbatten inspecting sailors before the Bruneval Raid, February 1942
When war broke out in September 1939, Mountbatten became Captain (D) (commander) of the 5th Destroyer Flotilla aboard HMS Kelly, which became famous for its exploits.[21] In late 1939 he brought the Duke of Windsor back from exile in France and in early May 1940 Mountbatten led a British convoy in through the fog to evacuate the Allied forces participating in the Namsos Campaign during the Norwegian Campaign.[24]
On the night of 9–10 May 1940, Kelly was torpedoed amidships by a German E-boatS 31 off the Dutch coast, and Mountbatten thereafter commanded the 5th Destroyer Flotilla from the destroyer HMS Javelin.[24] On 29 November 1940 the 5th Flotilla engaged three German destroyers off Lizard Point, Cornwall. Mountbatten turned to port to match a German course change. This was “a rather disastrous move as the directors swung off and lost target”[28] and it resulted in Javelin being struck by two torpedoes. He rejoined Kelly in December 1940, by which time the torpedo damage had been repaired.[24]
In August 1941, Mountbatten was appointed captain of the aircraft carrierHMS Illustrious which lay in Norfolk, Virginia, for repairs following action at Malta in January.[29] During this period of relative inactivity, he paid a flying visit to Pearl Harbor, three months before the Japanese attack on it. Mountbatten, appalled at the US naval base’s lack of preparedness, drawing on Japan’s history of launching wars with surprise attacks as well as the successful British surprise attack at the Battle of Taranto which had effectively knocked Italy’s fleet out of the war, and the sheer effectiveness of aircraft against warships, accurately predicted that the US would enter the war after a Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.[29][34]Clockwise from lower right, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Sir Hastings ‘Pug’ Ismay, Mountbatten: January 1943 at the Casablanca conference.
His duties in this role included inventing new technical aids to assist with opposed landings.[21] Noteworthy technical achievements of Mountbatten and his staff include the construction of “PLUTO”, an underwater oil pipeline to Normandy, an artificial Mulberry harbour constructed of concrete caissons and sunken ships, and the development of tank-landing ships.[21] Another project Mountbatten proposed to Churchill was Project Habakkuk. It was to be an unsinkable 600-metre aircraft carrier made from reinforced ice (“Pykrete“): Habakkuk was never carried out due to its enormous cost.[21]Mountbatten in 1943
As commander of Combined Operations, Mountbatten and his staff planned the highly successful Bruneval raid, which gained important information and captured part of a German Würzburg radar installation and one of the machine’s technicians on 27 February 1942. It was Mountbatten who recognised that surprise and speed were essential to capture the radar, and saw that an airborne assault was the only viable method.[36]
On 18 March 1942, he was promoted to the acting rank of vice admiral and given the honorary ranks of lieutenant general[37] and air marshal to have the authority to carry out his duties in Combined Operations; and, despite the misgivings of GeneralSir Alan Brooke, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff,[38] Mountbatten was placed in the Chiefs of Staff Committee.[39] He was in large part responsible for the planning and organisation of the St Nazaire Raid on 28 March, which put out of action one of the most heavily defended docks in Nazi-occupied France until well after the war’s end, the ramifications of which contributed to allied supremacy in the Battle of the Atlantic. After these two successes came the Dieppe Raid of 19 August 1942. He was central in the planning and promotion of the raid on the port of Dieppe. The raid was a marked failure, with casualties of almost 60%, the great majority of them Canadians.[29] Following the Dieppe Raid, Mountbatten became a controversial figure in Canada, with the Royal Canadian Legion distancing itself from him during his visits there during his later career.[40] His relations with Canadian veterans, who blamed him for the losses, “remained frosty” after the war.[41]Mountbatten during his tour of the Arakan Front in Burma in February 1944
Mountbatten claimed that the lessons learned from the Dieppe Raid were necessary for planning the Normandy invasion on D-Day nearly two years later. However, military historians such as Major-GeneralJulian Thompson, a former member of the Royal Marines, have written that these lessons should not have needed a debacle such as Dieppe to be recognised.[42] Nevertheless, as a direct result of the failings of the Dieppe Raid, the British made several innovations, most notably Hobart’s Funnies – specialised armoured vehicles which, in the course of the Normandy Landings, undoubtedly saved many lives on those three beachheads upon which Commonwealth soldiers were landing (Gold Beach, Juno Beach and Sword Beach).[43]
In August 1943, Churchill appointed Mountbatten the Supreme Allied Commander South East Asia Command (SEAC) with promotion to acting full admiral.[29] His less practical ideas were sidelined by an experienced planning staff led by Lieutenant-Colonel James Allason, though some, such as a proposal to launch an amphibious assault near Rangoon, got as far as Churchill before being quashed.[44]Mountbatten’s address on the steps of Singapore’s Municipal Building after the surrender
British interpreter Hugh Lunghi recounted an embarrassing episode during the Potsdam Conference when Mountbatten, desiring to receive an invitation to visit the Soviet Union, repeatedly attempted to impress Joseph Stalin with his former connections to the Russian imperial family. The attempt fell predictably flat, with Stalin dryly inquiring whether “it was some time ago that he had been there”. Says Lunghi, “The meeting was embarrassing because Stalin was so unimpressed. He offered no invitation. Mountbatten left with his tail between his legs.”[45]
During his time as Supreme Allied Commander of the Southeast Asia Theatre, his command oversaw the recapture of Burma from the Japanese by GeneralSir William Slim.[46] A personal high point was the receipt of the Japanese surrender in Singapore when British troops returned to the island to receive the formal surrender of Japanese forces in the region led by General Itagaki Seishiro on 12 September 1945, codenamed Operation Tiderace.[47] South East Asia Command was disbanded in May 1946 and Mountbatten returned home with the substantive rank of rear-admiral.[48] That year, he was made a Knight of the Garter and created Viscount Mountbatten of Burma, of Romsey in the County of Southampton, as a victory title for war service. He was then in 1947 further created Earl Mountbatten of Burma and Baron Romsey, of Romsey in the County of Southampton.[49][50]
Following the war, Mountbatten was known to have largely shunned the Japanese for the rest of his life out of respect for his men killed during the war and, as per his will, Japan was not invited to send diplomatic representatives to his funeral in 1979, though he did meet Emperor Hirohito during his state visit to Britain in 1971, reportedly at the urging of the Queen.[51]
His experience in the region and in particular his perceived Labour sympathies at that time led to Clement Attlee advising King George VI to appoint Mountbatten Viceroy of India on 20 February 1947[52][53] charged with overseeing the transition of British India to independence no later than 30 June 1948. Mountbatten’s instructions were to avoid partition and preserve a united India as a result of the transfer of power but authorised him to adapt to a changing situation in order to get Britain out promptly with minimal reputational damage.[54][55] He arrived in India on 22 March 1947 by air, from London. In the evening, he was taken to his residence and, two days later, he took the Viceregal Oath. His arrival saw large-scale communal riots in Delhi, Bombay and Rawalpindi. Mountbatten concluded that the situation was too volatile to wait even a year before granting independence to India. Although his advisers favoured a gradual transfer of independence, Mountbatten decided the only way forward was a quick and orderly transfer of power before 1947 was out. In his view, any longer would mean civil war.[56] The Viceroy also hurried so he could return to his senior technical Navy courses.[57][58]Lord and Lady Mountbatten at Mussoorie with Congress leader Sardar Patel, his daughter Manibehn Patel and Nehru in the background
Mountbatten was fond of Congress leader Jawaharlal Nehru and his liberal outlook for the country. He felt differently about the Muslim League leader Muhammad Ali Jinnah, but was aware of his power, stating “If it could be said that any single man held the future of India in the palm of his hand in 1947, that man was Mohammad Ali Jinnah.”[58] During his meeting with Jinnah on 5 April 1947,[59] Mountbatten tried to persuade him of a united India, citing the difficult task of dividing the mixed states of Punjab and Bengal, but the Muslim leader was unyielding in his goal of establishing a separate Muslim state called Pakistan.[60]Lord and Lady Mountbatten with Mahatma Gandhi, 1947
Given the British government’s recommendations to grant independence quickly, Mountbatten concluded that a united India was an unachievable goal and resigned himself to a plan for partition, creating the independent nations of India and Pakistan.[21] Mountbatten set a date for the transfer of power from the British to the Indians, arguing that a fixed timeline would convince Indians of his and the British government’s sincerity in working towards a swift and efficient independence, excluding all possibilities of stalling the process.[61]
Mountbatten’s proposed flag for India, consisting of the flag of the Indian National Congress defaced with a Union Jack in the canton. It was rejected by Nehru, as he felt that the more extremist members of Congress would see the inclusion of the Union Jack on an Indian flag as pandering to the British.[62]
Mountbatten’s proposed flag for Pakistan, consisting of the flag of the Muslim League defaced with a Union Jack in the canton. It was rejected by Jinnah, as he felt that a flag featuring a Christian Cross alongside the Islamic Crescent would be unacceptable to the Muslims of Pakistan.[62]
Among the Indian leaders, Mahatma Gandhi emphatically insisted on maintaining a united India and for a while successfully rallied people to this goal. During his meeting with Mountbatten, Gandhi asked Mountbatten to invite Jinnah to form a new central government, but Mountbatten never uttered a word of Gandhi’s ideas to Jinnah.[63] When Mountbatten’s timeline offered the prospect of attaining independence soon, sentiments took a different turn. Given Mountbatten’s determination, Nehru and Patel’s inability to deal with the Muslim League and, lastly, Jinnah’s obstinacy, all Indian party leaders (except Gandhi) acquiesced to Jinnah’s plan to divide India,[64] which in turn eased Mountbatten’s task. Mountbatten also developed a strong relationship with the Indian princes, who ruled those portions of India not directly under British rule. His intervention was decisive in persuading the vast majority of them to see advantages in opting to join the Indian Union.[65] On one hand, the integration of the princely states can be viewed as one of the positive aspects of his legacy.[66] But on the other, the refusal of Hyderabad, Jammu and Kashmir, and Junagadh to join one of the dominions led to future tension between Pakistan and India.[67]
Mountbatten brought forward the date of the partition from June 1948 to 15 August 1947.[68] The uncertainty of the borders caused Muslims and Hindus to move into the direction where they felt they would get the majority. Hindus and Muslims were thoroughly terrified, and the Muslim movement from the East was balanced by the similar movement of Hindus from the West.[69] A boundary committee chaired by Sir Cyril Radcliffe was charged with drawing boundaries for the new nations. With a mandate to leave as many Hindus and Sikhs in India and as many Muslims in Pakistan as possible, Radcliffe came up with a map that split the two countries along the Punjab and Bengal borders. This left 14 million people on the “wrong” side of the border, and very many of them fled to “safety” on the other side when the new lines were announced.[56]Mountbatten with Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of sovereign India, in Government House. Lady Mountbatten is standing to their left.
When India and Pakistan attained independence at midnight of 14–15 August 1947, Mountbatten remained in New Delhi for 10 months, serving as the first governor-general of an independent India until June 1948.[70] On Mountbatten’s advice, India took the issue of Kashmir to the newly formed United Nations in January 1948. This issue would become a lasting thorn in his legacy and one that is not resolved to this day.[71] Accounts differ on the future which Mountbatten desired for Kashmir. Pakistani accounts suggest that Mountbatten favoured the accession of Kashmir to India, citing his close relationship to Nehru. Mountbatten’s own account says that he simply wanted the maharaja, Hari Singh, to make up his mind. The viceroy made several attempts to mediate between the Congress leaders, Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Hari Singh on issues relating to the accession of Kashmir, though he was largely unsuccessful in resolving the conflict.[72] After the tribal invasion of Kashmir, it was on his suggestion that India moved to secure the accession of Kashmir from Hari Singh before sending in military forces for his defence.[73]Lord and Lady Mountbatten with Muhammad Ali Jinnah
Notwithstanding the self-promotion of his own part in Indian independence – notably in the television series The Life and Times of Admiral of the Fleet Lord Mountbatten of Burma, produced by his son-in-law Lord Brabourne, and Freedom at Midnight by Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins (of which he was the main quoted source) – his record is seen as very mixed. One common view is that he hastened the process of independence unduly and recklessly, foreseeing vast disruption and loss of life and not wanting this to occur on his watch, but thereby actually helping it to occur (albeit in an indirect manner), especially in Punjab and Bengal.[74]John Kenneth Galbraith, the Canadian-American Harvard University economist, who advised governments of India during the 1950s and was an intimate of Nehru who served as the American ambassador from 1961 to 1963, was a particularly harsh critic of Mountbatten in this regard.[75]
The creation of Pakistan was never emotionally accepted by many British leaders, among them Mountbatten.[76] Mountbatten clearly expressed his lack of support and faith in the Muslim League‘s idea of Pakistan.[77]Jinnah refused Mountbatten’s offer to serve as Governor-General of Pakistan.[78] When Mountbatten was asked by Collins and Lapierre if he would have sabotaged the creation of Pakistan had he known that Jinnah was dying of tuberculosis, he replied, “Most probably”.[79]
After India, Mountbatten served as commander of the 1st Cruiser Squadron in the Mediterranean Fleet and, having been granted the substantive rank of vice-admiral on 22 June 1949,[80] he became Second-in-Command of the Mediterranean Fleet in April 1950.[70] He became Fourth Sea Lord at the Admiralty in June 1950. He then returned to the Mediterranean to serve as Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean Fleet and NATO Commander Allied Forces Mediterranean from June 1952.[70] He was promoted to the substantive rank of full admiral on 27 February 1953.[81] In March 1953, he was appointed Personal Aide-de-Camp to the Queen.[82]Mountbatten arrives on board HMS Glasgow at Malta to assume command of the Mediterranean Fleet, 16 May 1952
Mountbatten served his final posting at the Admiralty as First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff from April 1955 to July 1959, the position which his father had held some forty years before. This was the first time in Royal Naval history that a father and son had both attained such high rank.[83] He was promoted to Admiral of the Fleet on 22 October 1956.[84]
In the Suez Crisis of 1956, Mountbatten strongly advised his old friend Prime Minister Anthony Eden against the Conservative government’s plans to seize the Suez canal in conjunction with France and Israel. He argued that such a move would destabilize the Middle East, undermine the authority of the United Nations, divide the Commonwealth and diminish Britain’s global standing. His advice was not taken. Eden insisted that Mountbatten not resign. Instead, he worked hard to prepare the Royal Navy for war with characteristic professionalism and thoroughness.[85][86]
Military commanders did not understand the physics involved in a nuclear explosion. This became evident when Mountbatten had to be reassured that the fission reactions from the Bikini Atoll tests would not spread through the oceans and blow up the planet.[87] As Mountbatten became more familiar with this new form of weaponry, he increasingly grew opposed to its use in combat yet at the same time he realised the potential for nuclear energy, especially with regard to submarines. Mountbatten expressed his feelings towards the use of nuclear weapons in combat in his article “A Military Commander Surveys The Nuclear Arms Race”, which was published shortly after his death in International Security in the Winter of 1979–1980.[88]
After leaving the Admiralty, Mountbatten took the position of Chief of the Defence Staff.[70] He served in this post for six years during which he was able to consolidate the three service departments of the military branch into a single Ministry of Defence.[89]Ian Jacob, co-author of the 1963 Report on the Central Organisation of Defence that served as the basis of these reforms, described Mountbatten as “universally mistrusted in spite of his great qualities”.[90] On their election in October 1964, the Wilson ministry had to decide whether to renew his appointment the following July. The Defence Secretary, Denis Healey, interviewed the forty most senior officials in the Ministry of Defence; only one, Sir Kenneth Strong, a personal friend of Mountbatten, recommended his reappointment.[90] “When I told Dickie of my decision not to reappoint him,” recalls Healey, “he slapped his thigh and roared with delight; but his eyes told a different story.”[90]
In 1969, Mountbatten tried unsuccessfully to persuade his cousin, the Spanish pretender Infante Juan, Count of Barcelona, to ease the eventual accession of his son, Juan Carlos, to the Spanish throne by signing a declaration of abdication while in exile.[96] The next year Mountbatten attended an official White House dinner during which he took the opportunity to have a 20-minute conversation with Richard Nixon and Secretary of State William P. Rogers, about which he later wrote, “I was able to talk to the President a bit about both Tino [Constantine II of Greece] and Juanito [Juan Carlos of Spain] to try and put over their respective points of view about Greece and Spain, and how I felt the US could help them.”[96] In January 1971, Nixon hosted Juan Carlos and his wife Sofia (sister of the exiled King Constantine) during a visit to Washington and later that year The Washington Post published an article alleging that Nixon’s administration was seeking to persuade Franco to retire in favour of the young Bourbon prince.[96]
From 1967 until 1978, Mountbatten was president of the United World Colleges Organisation, then represented by a single college: that of Atlantic College in South Wales. Mountbatten supported the United World Colleges and encouraged heads of state, politicians and personalities throughout the world to share his interest. Under his presidency and personal involvement, the United World College of South East Asia was established in Singapore in 1971, followed by the United World College of the Pacific in Victoria, British Columbia, in 1974. In 1978, Mountbatten passed the presidency of the college to his great-nephew, the Prince of Wales.[97]
In 1975 he finally visited the Soviet Union, leading the delegation from UK as personal representative of Queen Elizabeth II at the celebrations to mark the 30th anniversary of Victory Day in World War II in Moscow.[101]
Peter Wright, in his 1987 book Spycatcher, claimed that in May 1968 Mountbatten attended a private meeting with press baron Cecil King, and the government’s Chief Scientific Adviser, Solly Zuckerman. Wright alleged that “up to thirty” MI5 officers had joined a secret campaign to undermine the crisis-stricken Labour government of Harold Wilson and that King was an MI5 agent. In the meeting, King allegedly urged Mountbatten to become the leader of a government of national salvation. Solly Zuckerman pointed out that it was “rank treachery” and the idea came to nothing because of Mountbatten’s reluctance to act.[102] In contrast, Andrew Lownie has suggested that it took the intervention of the Queen to dissuade him from plotting against Wilson.[103]
In 2006, the BBC documentary The Plot Against Harold Wilson alleged that there had been another plot involving Mountbatten to oust Wilson during his second term in office (1974–1976). The period was characterised by high inflation, increasing unemployment and widespread industrial unrest. The alleged plot revolved around right-wing former military figures who were supposedly building private armies to counter the perceived threat from trade unions and the Soviet Union. They believed that the Labour Party was unable and unwilling to counter these developments and that Wilson was either a Soviet agent or at the very least a Communist sympathiser – claims Wilson strongly denied. The documentary alleged that a coup was planned to overthrow Wilson and replace him with Mountbatten using the private armies and sympathisers in the military and MI5.[104]
The first official history of MI5, The Defence of the Realm (2009), implied that there was a plot against Wilson and that MI5 did have a file on him. Yet it also made clear that the plot was in no way official and that any activity centred on a small group of discontented officers. This much had already been confirmed by former cabinet secretaryLord Hunt, who concluded in a secret inquiry conducted in 1996 that “there is absolutely no doubt at all that a few, a very few, malcontents in MI5 … a lot of them like Peter Wright who were right-wing, malicious and had serious personal grudges – gave vent to these and spread damaging malicious stories about that Labour government.”[105]
Mountbatten was married on 18 July 1922 to Edwina Cynthia Annette Ashley, daughter of Wilfred William Ashley, later 1st Baron Mount Temple, himself a grandson of the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury. She was the favourite granddaughter of the Edwardian magnate Sir Ernest Cassel and the principal heir to his fortune. The couple spent heavily on households, luxuries and entertainment.[7] There followed a honeymoon tour of European royal courts and America which included a visit to Niagara Falls (because “all honeymooners went there”).[3]
Mountbatten admitted: “Edwina and I spent all our married lives getting into other people’s beds.”[106] He maintained an affair for several years with Yola Letellier,[107] the wife of Henri Letellier, publisher of Le Journal and mayor of Deauville (1925–28).[108] Yola Letellier’s life story was the inspiration for Colette‘s novel Gigi.[107]
After Edwina died in 1960, Mountbatten was involved in relationships with young women, according to his daughter Patricia, his secretary John Barratt, his valet Bill Evans and William Stadiem, an employee of Madame Claude.[109]
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