Prince Louis of Battenberg
Admiral
Prince Louis of Battenberg was a senior Royal Navy officer whose career is important both for professional service and for the political suspicions that affected him during the First World War. He belonged to the high command of the pre-war and early-war fleet.
His significance lies in the combination of administrative competence, modernization, and the complicated public atmosphere created by war and questions of nationality. His biography belongs to the political and institutional history of the navy.
He is significant because his career shows that the fate of admirals could be shaped by public feeling as well as service record. Battenberg stands in the command history of the early twentieth-century Royal Navy.