Portal:Biography/Selected biography military/7

Louis Alexander Mountbatten, 1st Marquess of Milford Haven, GCB GCVO KCMG PC (24 May 1854 – 11 September 1921), formerly Prince Louis Alexander of Battenberg, was a British naval officer and German prince related to members of the British Royal Family. He enrolled in the United Kingdom's Royal Navy at the age of fourteen, and although Queen Victoria and her son King Edward VII occasionally intervened in his career, Louis welcomed battle assignments that provided opportunities for him to acquire the skills of war and to demonstrate to his superiors that he was serious about his naval career. After a naval career lasting more than forty years, in 1912 he was appointed First Sea Lord, the professional head of the British naval service. With World War I looming, he took steps to ready the British fleet for combat, but his background as a German prince forced his retirement once the war began, when anti-German sentiment was running high. His son, Louis Mountbatten, served as First Sea Lord from 1954 to 1959, and his grandson, Prince Philip, is the husband of Queen Elizabeth II.