Whippingham
Whippingham is a village and civil parish on the Isle of Wight. The population of the Civil Parish at the 2011 Census was 787, it is located 1 1⁄2 miles south of East Cowes in the north of the Island. Whippingham is best known for its connections with Queen Victoria St Mildred's Church, redesigned by Prince Albert; the village became the centre of the royal estate supporting Barton Manor. The farms, almshouses and cottages were rebuilt when they became part of the Queen's estate and Prince Albert had a'model farm' built at Barton. Queen Victoria took a close interest in'her people' in Whippingham, providing for them in sickness and in health, it is the home to The Folly Inn. St Mildred's Church is the Church of England parish church, its close connection with Queen Victoria is reflected in the many memorials in the church and the churchyard which commemorate members of the Royal Family and the Royal Household. A side chapel is dedicated to the Battenberg/Mountbatten family. St Mildred's Church is now in a united benefice with East Cowes.
Barton Manor is a Jacobean manor house in Whippingham, the most northerly of all manor houses on the Isle of Wight. The Isle of Wight Crematorium is in the parish - opened in 1961 it is the island's only such facility. Whippingham is part of the electoral ward called Osborne; this ward covers much of East Cowes and at the 2011 Census had a population of 3,818. Southern Vectis bus routes 4, 5 and 25 link the village with the towns of East Cowes and Ryde. HMS Whippingham, a Ham class minesweeper The Book of Whippingham: Queen Victoria's Island Village, Sarah Burdett, Devon Books, July 2006 ISBN 1-84114-501-7 Media related to Whippingham at Wikimedia Commons Wooton Bridge Historical Association http://woottonbridgeiow.org.uk/index.php
Lord Leopold Mountbatten
Lord Leopold Mountbatten, GCVO was a British Army officer and a descendant of the Hessian princely Battenberg family and the British Royal Family. A grandson of Queen Victoria, he was known as Prince Leopold of Battenberg from his birth until 1917, when the British Royal Family relinquished their German titles during World War I, the Battenberg family changed their name to Mountbatten. Prince Leopold was born on 21 May 1889, his father was Prince Henry of Battenberg, the son of Prince Alexander of Hesse and by Rhine and Julie Therese née Countess of Hauke. His mother was Princess Henry of Battenberg, the fifth daughter and the youngest child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert; as he was the product of a morganatic marriage, Prince Henry of Battenberg took his style of Prince of Battenberg from his mother, Julia von Hauke, created Princess of Battenberg in her own right. As such, Leopold was styled as His Serene Highness Prince Leopold of Battenberg from birth. In the United Kingdom he was styled His Highness Prince Leopold of Battenberg under a Royal Warrant passed by Queen Victoria in 1886.
He was baptised at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle on 29 June 1889. His godparents were Leopold II of Belgium, the Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, Prince Louis of Battenberg, the Marchioness of Lorne, the Duchess of Albany and Countess Gustav of Erbach-Schönberg, his father died of malaria in 1896. Leopold was a condition he inherited from his mother. Leopold was commissioned a lieutenant on 16 October 1909 in the 8th Battalion of the Isle of Wight Rifles, a Territorial Force unit. On 19 October 1912, he received a regular army commission in The King's Royal Rifle Corps. During service in the First World War, he was promoted to temporary lieutenant on 15 November 1914, to lieutenant on 30 April 1915 and to captain on 14 September 1916. On 7 April 1918, he was placed on the half-pay list "on account of ill-health contracted on active service." From 23 July of that year until the following 6 January, he served as an extra aide-de-camp on the staff of the War Office. He resigned his commission on 14 April 1920.
During World War I, anti-German feeling in the United Kingdom led Leopold's first cousin, George V to change the name of the Royal House from the Germanic House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to the more English-sounding House of Windsor. The King renounced all his Germanic titles for himself and all members of the British Royal Family who were British citizens. In response to this, Leopold renounced his title, through a Royal Warrant from the King, dated 14 July 1917, of a Prince of Battenberg and the style His Highness and became Sir Leopold Mountbatten, by virtue of him being a Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order. Under a further Royal Warrant in September 1917 he was granted the style and precedence of the younger son of a Marquess, became Lord Leopold Mountbatten. Lord Leopold died on 23 April 1922, during a hip operation, he is buried in Frogmore. A memorial tablet to him and his brother Maurice is in Winchester Cathedral. 21 May 1889 – 14 July 1917: His Highness Prince Leopold of Battenberg 14 July – September 1917: Sir Leopold Mountbatten September 1917 – 23 April 1922: Lord Leopold Mountbatten KCVO: Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order, 1911 GCVO: Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order, 1915
Prussian Army
The Royal Prussian Army served as the army of the Kingdom of Prussia. It became vital to the development of Brandenburg-Prussia as a European power; the Prussian Army had its roots in the core mercenary forces of Brandenburg during the Thirty Years' War of 1618–1648. Elector Frederick William developed it into a viable standing army, while King Frederick William I of Prussia increased its size and improved its doctrines. King Frederick the Great, a formidable battle commander, led the disciplined Prussian troops to victory during the 18th-century Silesian Wars and increased the prestige of the Kingdom of Prussia; the army had become outdated by the beginning of the Napoleonic Wars, France defeated Prussia in the War of the Fourth Coalition. However, under the leadership of Gerhard von Scharnhorst, Prussian reformers began modernizing the Prussian Army, which contributed to the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte during the War of the Sixth Coalition. Conservatives halted some of the reforms and the Prussian Army subsequently became a bulwark of the conservative Prussian government.
In the 19th century the Prussian Army fought successful wars against Denmark and France, allowing Prussia to unify Germany and to establish the German Empire in 1871. The Prussian Army formed the core of the Imperial German Army, replaced by the Reichswehr after World War I; the army of Prussia grew out of the united armed forces created during the reign of Elector Frederick William of Brandenburg. Hohenzollern Brandenburg-Prussia had relied upon Landsknecht mercenaries during the Thirty Years' War, in which Brandenburg was devastated. Swedish and Imperial forces occupied the country. In the spring of 1644, Frederick William started building a standing army through conscription to better defend his state. By 1643–44, the developing army numbered only 5,500 troops, including 500 musketeers in Frederick William's bodyguard; the elector's confidant Johann von Norprath recruited forces in the Duchy of Cleves and organized an army of 3,000 Dutch and German soldiers in the Rhineland by 1646. Garrisons were slowly augmented in Brandenburg and the Duchy of Prussia.
Frederick William sought assistance from France, the traditional rival of Habsburg Austria, began receiving French subsidies. He based his reforms on those of the War Minister of King Louis XIV of France; the growth of his army allowed Frederick William to achieve considerable territorial acquisitions in the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, despite Brandenburg's relative lack of success during the war. The provincial estates desired a reduction in the army's size during peacetime, but the elector avoided their demands through political concessions and economy. In the 1653 Brandenburg Recess between Frederick William and the estates of Brandenburg, the nobility provided the sovereign with 530,000 thalers in return for affirmation of their privileges; the Junkers thus cemented their political power at the expense of the peasantry. Once the elector and his army were strong enough, Frederick William was able to suppress the estates of Cleves and Prussia. Frederick William attempted to professionalize his soldiers during a time when mercenaries were the norm.
In addition to individually creating regiments and appointing colonels, the elector imposed harsh punishments for transgressions, such as punishing by hanging for looting, running the gauntlet for desertion. Acts of violence by officers against civilians resulted in decommission for a year, he developed a cadet institution for the nobility. Field Marshals of Brandenburg-Prussia included John George II, Spaen and Sparr; the elector's troops traditionally were organized into disconnected provincial forces. In 1655, Frederick William began the unification of the various detachments by placing them under the overall command of Sparr. Unification increased through the appointment of Generalkriegskommissar Platen as head of supplies; these measures decreased the authority of the mercenary colonels, so prominent during the Thirty Years' War. Brandenburg-Prussia's new army survived its trial by fire through victory in the 1656 Battle of Warsaw, during the Northern Wars. Observers were impressed with the discipline of the Brandenburger troops, as well as their treatment of civilians, considered more humane than that of their allies, the Swedish Army.
Hohenzollern success enabled Frederick William to assume sovereignty over the Duchy of Prussia in the 1657 Treaty of Wehlau, by which Brandenburg-Prussia allied itself with the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Despite having expelled Swedish forces from the territory, the elector did not acquire Vorpommern in the 1660 Treaty of Oliva, as the balance of power had been restored. In the early 1670s, Frederick William supported Imperial attempts to reclaim Alsace and counter the expansion of Louis XIV of France. Swedish troops invaded Brandenburg in 1674 while the bulk of the elector's troops were in winter quarters in Franconia. In 1675 Frederick William surrounded Wrangel's troops; the elector achieved his greatest victory in the Battle of Fehrbellin. After Sweden invaded Prussia in late 1678, Frederick William's forces expelled the Swedish invaders during "the Great Sleigh Drive" of 1678–79. Frederick William built the Hohenzollern army up to a peacet
Anglo-Ashanti wars
The Anglo-Ashanti Wars were a series of five conflicts between the Ashanti Empire, in the Akan interior of the Gold Coast, the British Empire and British-allied African states that took place between 1824 and 1901. The wars were due to Ashanti attempts to establish strong control over the coastal areas of what is now Ghana. Coastal peoples, such as the Fante and the inhabitants of Accra, who were chiefly Ga, came to rely on British protection against Ashanti incursions; the British were drawn into three earlier wars in the Gold Coast: In the Ashanti-Fante War of 1806–07, the British refused to hand over two rebels pursued by the Ashanti, but handed one over. In the Ga-Fante War of 1811, the Akwapim captured a British fort at Tantamkweri and a Dutch fort at Apam. In the Ashanti-Akim-Akwapim War of 1814–16 the Ashanti defeated the Akim-Akwapim alliance. Local British and Danish authorities all had to come to terms with the Ashanti. By 1817, the Ashanti, who had an army of 20,000, had become the strongest power in West Africa, so the African Company of Merchants signed a treaty of friendship that recognized Ashanti claims to sovereignty over much of the coast.
The African Company of Merchants was dissolved in 1821 and the British assumed control of the Gold Coast. By the 1820s the British had decided to support one of the other tribes, the Fante, enemies of the Ashanti. Inland, the Ashanti kings who ruled from the Golden Stool – said to have come from their great god guardian of the Ashanti soul, "Nyame" – would not allow themselves to be governed by the British. Economic and social friction played their part in the causes for the outbreak of violence; the immediate cause of the war happened when a group of Ashanti kidnapped and murdered an African sergeant of the Royal African Corps. A small British group was led into a trap which resulted in 10 killed, 39 wounded and a British retreat; the Ashanti tried to negotiate but the British governor, Sir Charles MacCarthy, rejected Ashanti claims to Fanti areas of the coast and resisted overtures by the Ashanti to negotiate. This started the First Anglo-Ashanti War which ran until 1831. MacCarthy led an invading force from the Cape Coast in two columns: the governor was in the first group of 500, out of touch with the second column of 2,500 when he encountered an Ashanti army of around 10,000 on 22 January 1824, in the Battle of Nsamankow.
The British were overrun, suffered losses, ran out of ammunition. All the British force were killed immediately. MacCarthy, along with the ensign and his secretary, attempted to fall back. Ensign Wetherell was killed while trying to defend Williams taken prisoner. On his return, he related that he had only survived through being recognised by an Ashanti chief for whom he had done a small favour, was spared. McCarthy's gold-rimmed skull was used as a drinking-cup by the Ashanti rulers. Eye-witness accounts of Sir MacCarthy's death stated "He saw ensign Wetherell, who appeared to have been wounded, lying close to Sir Charles, Some of the Ashantis were attempting to cut off his head, had inflicted one gash on the back of his neck. On Mr Williams's recovering his senses, he saw the headless trunks of Sir Charles McCarthy, Mr Buckle, Ensign Wetherell. During his captivity he was lodged under a thatched shed in the same rooms as the heads which, owing to some peculiar process, were in a perfect state of preservation".
Major Alexander Gordon Laing returned to Britain with news of their fate. The Ashanti swept down to the coast; the new governor of the Gold Coast, John Hope Smith, started to gather a new army comprising natives, including Denkyiras, many of the traditional enemies of the Ashanti. In August 1826 the governor heard. A defensive position was prepared on the open plain 10 miles north of Accra and the 11,000 men waited. On 7 August the Ashanti army appeared and attacked the centre of the British line where the best troops were held, which included some Royal Marines, the militia and a battery of Congreve rockets; the battle dissolved into hand-to-hand fighting but the Ashanti force were not doing well on their flanks whilst they looked like winning in the centre. The rockets were fired; the novelty of the weapons, the explosions, rocket trails, grievous wounds caused by flying metal shards caused the Ashanti to fall back. Soon they fled leaving thousands of casualties on the field; the war was over.
In 1831, the Pra River was accepted as the border in a treaty, there was thirty years of peace. In late 1823, following the disagreements between the Fantis and the Ashantis, MacCarthy declared war on the king of the Ashanti, he was accompanied by a captain and an ensign of the 2nd West India Regiment, as aides-de-camp, a surgeon of the same regiment, J. T. Williams, his colonial secretary; this was not the only part of his force.
Canary Islands
The Canary Islands is a Spanish archipelago and the southernmost autonomous community of Spain located in the Atlantic Ocean, 100 kilometres west of Morocco at the closest point. The Canary Islands, which are known informally as the Canaries, are among the outermost regions of the European Union proper, it is one of the eight regions with special consideration of historical nationality recognized as such by the Spanish Government. The Canary Islands belong to the African Plate like the Spanish cities of Ceuta and Melilla, the two on the African mainland; the seven main islands are Tenerife, Gran Canaria, Lanzarote, La Palma, La Gomera and El Hierro. The archipelago includes much smaller islands and islets: La Graciosa, Isla de Lobos, Montaña Clara, Roque del Oeste and Roque del Este, it includes a series of adjacent roques. In ancient times, the island chain was referred to as "the Fortunate Isles"; the Canary Islands are the most southerly region of Spain and the largest and most populated archipelago of the Macaronesia region.
The Canary Islands have been considered a bridge between four continents: Africa, North America, South America and Europe. The archipelago's beaches and important natural attractions Maspalomas in Gran Canaria and Teide National Park and Mount Teide in Tenerife, make it a major tourist destination with over 12 million visitors per year Tenerife, Gran Canaria and Lanzarote; the islands have a subtropical climate, with moderately warm winters. The precipitation levels and the level of maritime moderation vary depending on location and elevation. Green areas as well as desert exist on the archipelago. Due to their location above the temperature inversion layer, the high mountains of these islands are ideal for astronomical observation. For this reason, two professional observatories, Teide Observatory on the island of Tenerife and Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on the island of La Palma, have been built on the islands. In 1927, the Province of Canary Islands was split into two provinces; the autonomous community of the Canary Islands was established in 1982.
Its capital is shared by the cities of Santa Cruz de Tenerife and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, which in turn are the capitals of the provinces of Santa Cruz de Tenerife and Las Palmas. Las Palmas de Gran Canaria has been the largest city in the Canaries since 1768, except for a brief period in the 1910s. Between the 1833 territorial division of Spain and 1927 Santa Cruz de Tenerife was the sole capital of the Canary Islands. In 1927 a decree ordered; the third largest city of the Canary Islands is San Cristóbal de La Laguna on Tenerife. This city is home to the Consejo Consultivo de Canarias, the supreme consultative body of the Canary Islands. During the time of the Spanish Empire, the Canaries were the main stopover for Spanish galleons on their way to the Americas, which came south to catch the prevailing northeasterly trade winds; the name Islas Canarias is derived from the Latin name Canariae Insulae, meaning "Islands of the Dogs", a name, applied only to Gran Canaria. According to the historian Pliny the Elder, the Mauretanian king Juba II named the island Canaria because it contained "vast multitudes of dogs of large size".
Alternatively, it is said that the original inhabitants of the island, used to worship dogs, mummified them and treated dogs as holy animals. The ancient Greeks knew about a people, living far to the west, who are the "dog-headed ones", who worshipped dogs on an island; some hypothesize that the Canary Islands dog-worship and the ancient Egyptian cult of the dog-headed god, Anubis are connected but there is no explanation given as to which one was first. Other theories speculate that the name comes from the Nukkari Berber tribe living in the Moroccan Atlas, named in Roman sources as Canarii, though Pliny again mentions the relation of this term with dogs; the connection to dogs is retained in their depiction on the islands' coat-of-arms. It is considered that the aborigines of Gran Canaria called themselves "Canarios", it is possible that after being conquered, this name was used in plural in Spanish, i.e. as to refer to all of the islands as the Canarii-as. What is certain is that the name of the islands does not derive from the canary bird.
Tenerife is the largest and most populous island of the archipelago. Gran Canaria, with 865,070 inhabitants, is both the Canary Islands' second most populous island, the third most populous one in Spain after Majorca; the island of Fuerteventura is the second largest in the archipelago and located 100 km from the African coast. The islands form the Macaronesia ecoregion with the Azores, Cape Verde and the Savage Isles; the Canary Islands is the largest and most populated archipelago of the Macaronesia region. The archipelago consists of seven large and several smaller islands, all of which are volcanic in origin. According to the position of the islands with respect to the north-east trade winds, the climate can be mild and wet or dry. Several native species form laurisilva forests; as a consequence, the individual islands in the Canary archipelago tend to have distinct microclimates. Those islands such as El Hierro, La Palma and La Gomera lying to the west of the archipelago have a climate, influenced by the m
Royal Hampshire Regiment
The Hampshire Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army, created as part of the Childers Reforms in 1881 by the amalgamation of the 37th Regiment of Foot and the 67th Regiment of Foot. The regiment existed continuously for 111 years and served in the Second Boer War, World War I and World War II. In 1946, due to distinguished service in World War II, the regiment was retitled as the Royal Hampshire Regiment. On 9 September 1992, after over 111 years of service, the Royal Hampshire Regiment was amalgamated with the Queen's Regiment to form a new large regiment, the Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment, which continues the traditions of the Royal Hampshires; the Hampshire Regiment was formed on 1 July 1881 under the Childers reforms from the merger of the 37th Regiment of Foot and the 67th Regiment of Foot along with the militia and rifle volunteers of the county of Hampshire. At the turn of the 20th century, there were two regular battalions of the regiment; the 1st battalion was stationed at Malta from 1884 transferred to British India where it had various postings.
In early 1903 the battalion transferred from Lucknow to Aden. The 2nd Battalion was deployed to South Africa as reinforcement for the British Army during the Second Boer War in January 1900, took part in an action at Karee Siding on 29 March 1900, when one officer and 11 troops died; the battalion served in South Africa throughout the war, which ended in June 1902 with the Peace of Vereeniging. They returned home three months arriving in late September 1902, a few days after their return was entertained to a large celebratory banquet by the Mayor of Portsmouth. A third militia battalion was formed from the former Hampshire Militia, with headquarters in Winchester; the battalion was embodied in January 1900 for service in South Africa, disembodied in December the same year. A Volunteer battalion was formed to serve in South Africa. Men from this battalion were involved in the worst train accident during the war, near Barberton, on 30 March 1902. Following the accident, the battalion returned to the United Kingdom, arriving at Southampton in May 1902.
In 1908, the Volunteers and Militia were reorganised nationally, with the former becoming the Territorial Force and the latter the Special Reserve. During the First World War, the regiment expanded to 34 battalions. By the end of the First World War, the Hampshire Regiment had lost 7,580 officers and men killed in action; the 1st Battalion was a Regular Army unit stationed in Colchester on the outbreak of war in August 1914. The battalion was assigned to 4th Division. With the division, the battalion joined the British Expeditionary Force and was sent overseas to France in August 1914, landing at Le Havre on 23 August; the 1st Battalion saw its first combat against the German Army at Le Cateau. The battalion served on the Western Front for the rest of the war, participating in many battles in 1914 alone such as the First Battle of the Marne, the First Battle of the Aisne, the Battle of Messines. In 1914, on Christmas Day, men of the 1st Battalion participated in the legendary Christmas Truce of 1914 where British and German soldiers fraternised in No man's land.
In 1915, the battalion took part in the Second Battle of Ypres, famous for its use of poison gas. In 1916 it fought at Albert and Le Transloy, part of the larger Somme offensive; the 2nd Battalion was a Regular Army battalion, serving in India at the outbreak of war and arrived in England on 22 December 1914. In early 1915, the battalion became part of the 88th Brigade, assigned to the 29th Division; the 2nd Battalion took part in the Battle of Gallipoli when engaged in the fatal Landing at Cape Helles in April 1915 and fought in the Battle of Krithia. In 1916, the 2nd Battalion was evacuated to Alexandria due to a mixture of heavy casualties from combat and the terrible weather conditions. In March 1916, the battalion was sent to France and would serve on the Western Front for the rest of the war, participating in the battle of Albert and Le Transloy rides, alongside the 1st Battalion; the 1/4th Battalion landed at Karachi in India in November 1914 as part of the 4th Brigade in the 2nd Division before moving to Basra in March 1915: it remained in Mesopotamia and Persia for the rest of the war.
The 1/5th Battalion landed at Karachi in India in November 1914: it remained in India for the rest of the war. The 1/6th Battalion landed at Karachi in India in November 1914: it remained in India for the rest of the war; the 1/7th Battalion landed at Karachi in India in November 1914: it remained in India until January 1918 when it moved to Aden. The 1/8th Battalion landed at Suvla Bay in Gallipoli as part of the 163rd Brigade in the 54th Division on 9 August 1915 and, having been evacuated from Gallipoli in December 1915, moved to Egypt and to Palestine; the 1/9th Battalion sailed for India in February 1916 and to Vladivostok in October 1918. The 2/4th Battalion sailed for India in December 1914 as part of 2/1st Hampshire Brigade in the 2nd Wessex Division and sailed for Egypt in April 1917 and to France in May 1918; the 2/5th Battalion sailed for India in December 1914 as part of 2/1st Hampshire Brigade in the 2nd Wessex Division and sailed for Egypt in April 1917 before being disbanded in Palestine in August 1918.
The 2/7th Battalion sailed for India in December 1914 as part of 2/1st Hampshire Brigade in the 2nd Wessex Division and moved to Mesopotamia in September 1917. The 10th Battalion landed at Gallipoli in August 1915 and was t
Prince Alexander of Hesse and by Rhine
Prince Alexander Ludwig Georg Friedrich Emil of Hesse, GCB was the third son and fourth child of Louis II, Grand Duke of Hesse and Wilhelmina of Baden. He was a brother of Tsarina Maria Alexandrovna, wife of Tsar Alexander II; the Battenberg / Mountbatten family descends from Alexander and his wife Countess Julia von Hauke, a former lady-in-waiting to his sister. It was rumoured that Alexander and his sister Marie were not the children of the Grand Duke, but that their father was August von Senarclens de Grancy, their mother's chamberlain, his mother, although married to the grand duke, lived apart from her husband, who divorced her but did not repudiate paternity of any of the four children born during the marriage. Thus, when the future emperor Alexander II of Russia, as tsarevich, chose the sixteen-year-old Marie as consort, his parents consented to the match; because of her youth, Alexander escorted his sister to Russia for her wedding, remaining at the Russian court and joining the inner circle of his brother-in-law the tsarevich after the rest of Marie's entourage returned to Hesse.
Alexander fell in love with Countess Julia Hauke. The countess was an orphaned German-Polish ward of the Russian Emperor, daughter of the Emperor's former minister of war. At that time, the Emperor Nicholas I was considering Alexander as a possible husband for his niece and, when he heard of Alexander's romance, he forbade the couple to marry. Alexander left for England to contemplate his future, but returned to Russia and eloped with Julia from St. Petersburg, being stricken by the Emperor's orders from the roll of the Russian imperial army for insubordination; the two were married in Breslau in 1851. Alexander's older brother Louis III, Grand Duke of Hesse, allowed him to re-patriate to Hesse with his bride, although he did not recognize their marriage as dynastic, he granted her the hereditary title of Countess von Battenberg. Alexander's wife would deliver his first child six months after their elopement. Nonetheless, Julia Hauke was a countess in her own right, as well as a former ward of the Russian Emperor whose husband retained, despite exile from Russia, the sympathetic support of the tsarevich and tsarevna.
Grand Duke Louis III therefore chose to distinguish her from several non-royal wives of other Hessian princes by conferring upon her, along with the Battenberg countship, the style of Erlaucht reserved in Germany for counts of mediatized rank. As a cadet of the Hessian grand ducal dynasty Prince Alexander had followed the martial tradition of his family by offering his sword to the military service of a Great Power while still a teenager, having accompanied his sister to St. Petersburg, he became a respected commander with the prospect of a distinguished career. He was awarded the Order of St. George 4th class, his elopement, in sending him abroad AWOL, terminated his military career and made him a fugitive from Russia. But once his elder brother recognized his wife, he was able to obtain an appointment in the Austrian army, where he resumed his military career, although remaining sufficiently in disgrace never to be billeted in Vienna; each of his children would be born in a different city, depending upon where in the Austro-Hungarian empire Prince Alexander was stationed.
After serving Austria with distinction in several battles, he was given a major command in Hesse's small army in its war, as an ally of Austria, with Prussia in 1866. By this time his wife and children had taken up their home at Alexander's small castle at Seeheim-Jugenheim in Hesse, to which he retired after Prussia defeated Austria and Hesse. Although the electorate of Hesse-Kassel, ruled by another branch of Alexander's family, was annexed by Prussia for adhering to the losing side, the fact that Hesse-Darmstadt's grand duke was the brother-in-law of the Russian tsar saved its independence, although not without loss of territory. Henceforth and his family alternated between their castle in the grandducal capital of Darmstadt, their country home a few hours away by carriage. Alexander was in attendance at his elder brother's court, but a shift occurred when his sister, now Empress of Russia, began to pay annual visits to her brother in the 1870s along with her husband, a large entourage. Louis III, while benefitting from his kinship to the tsar, preferred to defer entertaining him to Alexander and Marie at Heiligenberg.
These annual visits had the twofold effect of enhancing the international prestige of the grandduchy while rehabilitating Alexander's morganatic household. Marie of Battenberg's memoirs document the cordiality between Alexander and his eldest brother, while recording the growing importance of her own family's household as diplomats who wished to pay court to the Russian emperor would await his annual visit to the Hessian countryside to do so discreetly in the more intimate setting of Alexander's home. Although Prince Alexander retained his own dynastic rights and appanage, his morganatic wife lived a quiet life, their family lived at Heiligenberg Castle, in southern Hesse. In 1858 Grand Duke Louis III raised his sister-in-law from "Countess" to "Princess" von Battenberg, her children sharing in the princely title, accorded them the sty
