Background
Prince Leopold of Bavaria was born in Munich on February 9, 1846, the second son of Prince Regent Luitpold; he later became a son-in-law of Austria-Hungary.
Prince Leopold of Bavaria was born in Munich on February 9, 1846, the second son of Prince Regent Luitpold; he later became a son-in-law of Austria-Hungary.
Prince Leopold entered the Bavarian Army at the age of 15, and received his patent as a lieutenant dated 28 November 1861. He saw first combat during the Austro-Prussian War in 1866, where he commanded an artillery battery at Kissingen and Rossbrunn.
Leopold fought with the Bavarian army against Prussia in 1866, but four years later accompanied the Prussians to Sedan in the war against France. His career was marked by the customary rapid royal promotions: general in 1887 as head of the I Army Corps, inspector general in 1892 of the IV Army Inspectorate, which included Bavarian as well as Prussian corps, colonel general three years later, and field marshal in 1905. The prince was retired from active service in 1912 and was, therefore, without a command when the Great War began.
On April 16, 1915, Prince Leopold was reactivated as head of the German Ninth Army in the east, and he led this force into Warsaw on August 5. The prince then took over the Army Group Woyrsch as the new Army Group Prince Leopold of Bavaria, and with this force drove the Russians back upon Minsk. Throughout the summer and fall of 1916 Leopold attempted to shore up the Austro-Hungarian front in the wake of General Aleksei Brusilov's successful offensive in the direction of the Carpathians; the Germans finally brought the Russians to a halt near Baranovichi. On August 29 Prince Leopold succeeded Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg as military leader in the east, taking Colonel Max Hoff-mann as his chief of staff. His forces were spread from the Baltic Sea to the Carpathians and included two Austro-Hungarian armies.
Leopold in April 1917 mounted a successful offensive across the Stokhod near Toboly; on July 19 he began a further offensive that within a month had driven the Russians out of Galicia and the Bukovina. In September the Germans captured Riga and in October the Baltic islands Osel, Moon, and Dagö. On November 26, 1917, the Bolsheviks ended hostilities and a temporary armistice in the east was concluded on December 17. In February the peace was broken, however, and General Hoffmann launched a powerful drive that netted the Germans Estonia and Lithuania. Another assault drove the Russians across the Narva and out of Minsk, beyond the Dnepr; both the Ukraine and the Crimea later fell into German hands. On March 3, 1918, Leon Trotsky agreed to German terms at Prince Leopold's headquarters, and the war in the east finally ended. Leopold retired from the army in January 1919, and returned to his native Bavaria, where he died at Munich on September 28, 1930.
Prince Leopold and his wife Gisela had four children:
Princess Elisabeth Marie of Bavaria (1874–1957), who married Otto Ludwig Philipp Graf von Seefried auf Buttenheim
Princess Auguste Maria of Bavaria (1875–1964), who married Archduke Joseph August of Austria
Prince Georg of Bavaria (1880–1943), married Archduchess Isabella of Austria
Prince Konrad of Bavaria (1883–1969), who married Princess Bona Margherita of Savoy-Genoa