Arnulf had found on his return to Germany in 896 that his physical ill health (he suffers from morbus pediculosis—infestation of lice under the eyelid) means he is unable to deal with the problems besetting his reign.

Italy is lost, raiders from Moravia and Hungary are continually raiding his lands, and Lotharingia is in revolt against Zwentibold.

He is also plagued by escalating violence and power struggles between the lower German nobility.

Arnulf of Carinthia dies on December 8, 899, at Ratisbon (today known as Regensburg), Bavaria; he is the last Carolingian to be crowned Frankish emperor.

He is succeeded as a king of the East Franks by Louis the Child, his six-year-old son by his wife Ota, a member of the Conradine dynasty.