With France's defeat and humiliation against the combined German forces, it was Ludwig II who proposed that Prussian King Wilhelm I be proclaimed German Emperor or ""Kaiser"" of the German Empire (""Deutsches Reich""), which occurred in 1871 in German-occupied Versailles, France. The territories of the German Empire were declared, which included the states of the North German Confederation and all of the south German states, with the major exception of Austria. The Empire also annexed the formerly French territory of Alsace-Lorraine, due in large part to Ludwig's desire to move the French frontier away from the Palatinate.