Lichnowsky was born in Vienna. He entered the Prussian army in 1834 in Neustadt (now Prudnik), but left it in 1838 to enter the service of the Spanish pretender Don Carlos, where he received the rank of brigadier general. He fought a duel with the Spanish General Montenegro and was severely wounded, but recovered. In 1847, he was elected by Ratibor (now Racibórz) to Prussia's United Diet, and was elected to the national parliament in 1848 where he took his seat on the right. Here he put to use his substantial oratorical skills, though frequently using them to dazzle rather than enlighten, and his demeaning characterizations of the left earned him a poor reputation in those quarters. When the uprising broke out on 18 September in consequence of the parliament's decision regarding the truce of Malmö (in the debate for which Lichnowsky had spoken in very conciliatory terms), disdaining all warnings, he rode out with General von Auerswald to meet the troops arriving from Württemberg. A group of upset citizens recognized them on the Bornheimer Highway and chased them. Von Auerswald was shot to death and Lichnowsky beaten up and died the next day in Baron Bethmann's villa in Frankfurt.