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A Slight Inheritance. Battenberg. a name to reckon with in medieval Germany, had come alive again, after five centuries of obscurity, by the time that Prince Louis of Battenberg, half German and half Polish, married Queen Victoria's granddaughter. He moved to England, became First Sea Lord of the Admiralty and an intimate adviser to Victoria. Edward VII and George V. In World War I, hamburger became Salisbury steak, sauerkraut became liberty cabbage and the Battenbergs translated their German name directly into English: Mountbatten. Louis' son, the present "Lord. Louis," Earl Mountbatten of Burma, took up where his father left off, joined the Royal Navy, ran around with his playboy cousin, Edward, Prince of Wales. He married the commoner granddaughter of fabulously wealthy Sir Ernest Cassel (a German-Jewish financier), whose money irrigated the Nile valley, reconstructed Argentina's finances, built railroads in Sweden, refloated China after the 1894-95 war with Japan, sponsored the "tuppenny tube" (the forerunner of London's subways). He left Edwina a large share of a £6,000,000 inheritance.
For three decades Lord Louis ("Dickie" to his friends) and Edwina, both brilliant, handsome and unabashedly extravert, have been making headlines, salon gossip, friends and enemies in the Empire. Dickie led London's Mayfair set after World War I, and the British Commandos in World War II. A thoroughly professional naval commander, he also won distinction on land as Supreme Allied Commander for Southeast Asia. "A nice guy," commented the late General Joe Stilwell, who had to deal with Mountbatten in Burma. "That's what makes him so dangerous—he turns on charm like a water faucet." After the war Mountbatten became British Viceroy and Governor General of India and presided over the birth of an independent India, became an ally of Nehru and the British Laborites, and emerged from it all a trusted friend of Empire-minded Winston Churchill.
Never far behind was Edwina. A mingling of German, English, Scottish, Irish and perhaps even American-Indian blood (she claims descent from Pocahontas), she shared her husband's limelight and ambitions, his tendency to cultivate the then-rising left wing, his love for finery and entertaining. She jarred social London with some of her friendships. Once, when a Laborite vote canvasser called on them, Lord Mountbatten assured him, "Don't worry about us. It's the servants you want to work on."
More Hindrance Than Help. Philip, the debonair son of Lord Louis' sister, Alice of Battenberg, and of Prince Andrew of Greece, was ushered into English life as the ward of his uncle Louis. There were many who saw the hand of the Mountbattens in the romance which made Philip husband of the Heiress Presumptive; a part of the royal honeymoon in 1947 was spent at the Mountbattens' 6,000-acre estate at Broadlands.