In the year 1884 Queen Victoria's granddaughter, Princes Beatrice of England, married German Prince Louis of Battenberg. It is said that the cake was created to celebrate the wedding. The four quarter sections of the cake represent the four German Princes of the day.
The incumbent British royal dynasty is of German origin. Following the sinking of the civilian cruise ship Lusitania by a German submarine in 1915 the British people became increasingly hostile towards anybody of German ancestry. So in 1917 the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha was renamed the House of Windsor by royal decree. The German family name "Battenberg" was translated into English as "Mountbatten" ("berg" being the German word for a mountain).