Background
He was born into the dynasty"s surviving Sigmaringen branch, which inherited all the dynasty"s Swabian lands when the Hohenzollern-Hechingen branch became extinct.
Member of the Prussian House of Lords
He was born into the dynasty"s surviving Sigmaringen branch, which inherited all the dynasty"s Swabian lands when the Hohenzollern-Hechingen branch became extinct.
Leopold"s parents were Josephine of Baden and Karl Anton, Prince of Hohenzollern. After the Spanish Revolution of 1868 that overthrew Queen Isabella II, Leopold was offered the Spanish Crown by the new government. This offer was supported by the Prussian Prime Minister Otto von Bismarck, but opposed by the French Emperor Napoleon III on the grounds that the installation of a relative of the Prussian king would result in the expansion of Prussian influence and the encirclement of France.
Leopold was forced to decline the offer.
Additional demands made by the French government heightened diplomatic tensions between Paris and Berlin. Deliberate or accidental mistranslations of a diplomatic communique, the Ems Telegram, also known as the Ems Dispatch, led to the declaration of war by France.
Prussia"s speedy mobilization, with the support of the other members of the North German Confederation, resulted in French defeat, the capture of Napoleon and collapse of his government, loss of Alsace and part of Lorraine and huge compensation to Germany and the institution of the French Third Republic, and the creation of the German Empire.
