[1] In 1813, after studying law at Heidelberg University, he became an officer in the Austrian Hussars and fought in the armies of the sixth and seventh coalitions against Napoleon.

He also became betrothed to a Hungarian Countess, Melanie Zichy-Ferraris, but in 1831 she broke off their engagement to marry the Austrian chancellor, Klemens Wenzel, Prince von Metternich.

He seems to have been most intrigued by the Kashmir and Punjab regions of northern India, as he chose his experiences there to form the basis of the four-volume work published in the years following his return to Europe: Kaschmir und das Reich der Siek (literally "Cashmere and the Realm of the Sikhs").

After the final volume's publication, Major Thomas B. Jervis translated, abridged, and annotated an English edition of Hügel's work, published in London in 1845 by John Petheram.

[2] Four years later, primarily on the basis of this publication, the Royal Geographical Society awarded Hügel its Patron's Medal, "for his enterprising exploration of Cashmere."

During this time, Hügel wrote a journal, later translated by Dymphna Clark,[4] which, in addition to his botanical observations, is a rare record of an aristocratic European's attitudes towards colonial Australia.

Among those well-to-do settlers whom Hügel befriended in Sydney was the family of Colonel John George Nathaniel Gibbes, who shared his interest in scientific and cultural matters.

In general, however, Hügel's opinions of the administration, transportation, social life and missionary efforts that he encountered in Australia, and wrote about in his journal, were not favourable.

[5] On the outbreak of the 1848 revolution, Hügel chaperoned his earlier rival in love Chancellor Metternich during his escape from Vienna to England.

From 1850 to 1859, he served as Austrian Envoy Extraordinary (ambassador) to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany in Florence, finally marrying Elizabeth Farquharson there in 1851.