She was a member of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine (her grandfather, Archduke Karl Ferdinand of Austria, was a grandson of Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor).

The wedding took place at the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna, and was attended by many important figures, including Franz Joseph I of Austria, Prince Georg's maternal grandfather.

[2] Before the wedding, Isabella renounced all rights of succession to the Austrian and Hungarian thrones, an act required of all archduchesses when they married, regardless of the groom's rank.

When these failed, Georg's father Prince Leopold even took a special journey to Vienna to convince Isabella to return.

"Public attention has recently and repeatedly been called to the deeply regrettable domestic conflict which has arisen between Prince George of Bavaria and his wife, Princess Isabelle.

It is the truth from the very beginning there has been profound incompatibility between the couple, which springs from differences in their character, and on account of which the marital relationship between them has been utterly destroyed.

[6] In 1913, Isabella underwent training at one of the largest Vienna hospitals for the poor, and planned afterwards to join the Austrian Red Cross.

[7] She immediately became a nurse in the Austrian army during the war under the name Sister Irmgard (sometimes called Hildegard), treating wounded soldiers who came into her care.

[1] According to the newspaper the Berliner Lokal-Anzeiger, in 1915 Isabella became engaged to the Viennese surgeon Paul Albrecht[8] until Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria forbade the marriage.