Victor Louis Berger

Victor Louis Berger 1860-1929, American Socialist leader and Congressman, b. Austria-Hungary. After studying at the universities of Budapest and Vienna, he emigrated (1878) to the United States and settled in Milwaukee. After 1892 he devoted himself to Socialist politics and journalism, editing the Milwaukee Vorwärts! (1892-98) and a weekly that became (1911) the influential Milwaukee Leader. With Eugene V. Debs he pioneered in creating the American Socialist party. His leadership brought (1910) the Socialists control of Milwaukee for many years and made Berger the first Socialist member of Congress (1911-13). Reelected twice (1918, 1919), he was excluded by Congress on grounds of sedition, for which he was sentenced (1918-19) to a 20-year prison term. The decision was reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1921, and he was allowed to take his seat when reelected in 1922. Again elected in 1924 and 1926, he was defeated in 1928. Voice and Pen (1929) is a collection of his speeches and editorials.

Bibliography: See U.S. Congress, House, Special Committee on Victor L. Berger Investigation, Case of Victor L. Berger of Wisconsin: Hearings (1919 and 1921, repr. 1972); study by S. M. Miller (1973).

Louis, Louis-Nicolas-Victor (1731–1800). French Neo-Classical architect. He designed several interiors in the Louis Quinze style for the Royal Palace, Warsaw, in 1765, after which he returned to France and built the Governor's Residence, Besançon (1770–6), and several hôtels. His most influential building was the Grand Théâtre, Bordeaux (1773–80), with a huge colonnade of the Corinthian Order running the width of the façade and a high foyer with symmetrical staircase, the grandest in any theatre to that date. The auditorium was a truncated circle on plan, surrounded by a Giant Composite Order, and there was an elliptical concert-room over the vestibule. There was much in the design that influenced the planning of later theatres, notably Garnier's Opéra, Paris. He built several town- and country-houses, and designed the elegant colonnades and enclosing buildings for the Palais Royal Gardens, Paris (1780–5). His Théâtre du Palais Royal, later the Comédie-Française (1786–90—rebuilt), had wrought-iron trusses and hollow-clay-pot floors set in concrete, an early use of fire-resistant structure.

Bibliography

Builder (1980);
Hautecœur (1952);
Kalnein (1995);
Lorentz & and Rottermund (1984);
Middleton & and Watkin (1987);
Pariset (1980)

Mountbatten, Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas, Earl Mountbatten of Burma (b. 25 June 1900, d. 27 Aug. 1979). British admiral and statesman Born in Windsor, the grandson of Queen Victoria and great-uncle of Prince Charles. He served in the Royal Navy in World War I. In 1917, his family changed its name from Battenberg to Mountbatten, owing to wartime anti-German sentiments in Britain. In 1940–1, he commanded HMS Kelly, which was torpedoed in 1940, and sunk in the 1941 Battle of Crete. As Chief of Combined Operations from 1942, personally selected by Churchill, he was involved in planning Allied landings in North Africa, Italy, and Normandy. The big boost to his career came in October 1943, when he became Supreme Allied Commander in South-East Asia, where he was instrumental in revitalizing the organization and morale of the British and Commonwealth forces. His forces were successful in the Burma campaigns, but their planned combined operations to take Singapore and Malaya were made largely unnecessary by the fall of Japan in September 1945. Progressive in politics as in battle, he accepted the impossibility of returning to the prewar colonial status quo in Asia, and recognized the expediency of working with newly emerging political leaders. This commended him to the post of viceroy of India (1947–8), where he was given a free hand to negotiate the colony's release into independence. His diplomatic skills, and good personal relationships with many of the leaders, led to the establishment of good Anglo-Indian relations despite the colonial past. He stayed briefly as governor-general, but returned to the navy in 1948, where he rose to become First Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Staff (1955–9). As Chief of Defence Staff (1959–65), he supervised the merger of the service ministries into a single Ministry of Defence. In 1979, while on holiday in Ireland, he was assassinated by the IRA.