Feth-i Bülend fought a Russian vessel in an inconclusive battle, and both ships supported an amphibious assault on the port of Sokhumi.

After the war ended, Feth-i Bülend was rebuilt, but Mukaddeme-i Hayir was too badly deteriorated to merit reconstruction.

Feth-i Bülend served as a guard ship in Salonika during the First Balkan War, where she was sunk by a Greek torpedo boat in October 1912.

He ordered several ironclad warships from shipyards in Britain and France, though the program was limited by the Ottoman Empire's weak finances.

[4][2] The ships were powered by a single horizontal compound steam engine which drove one screw propeller.

The ship was reboilered with a pair of water-tube boilers manufactured by the Imperial Arsenal, which improved speed slightly to 9 knots (17 km/h; 10 mph).

[4][2] After she entered service, Feth-i Bülend was sent to Crete to assist in stabilizing the island in the aftermath of the Cretan Revolt of 1866–1869, but the Ottoman fleet, under Hobart Pasha, remained largely inactive during this period.

They were primarily occupied with bombarding Russian coastal positions in support of the Ottoman army in the Caucasus.

[5] By this time, Mukaddeme-i Hayir had been transferred to Sulina at the mouth of the Danube to assist in the defense of the port; in November, she and several other ironclads disrupted a Russian attempt to mine the outer harbor.

At the start of the Greco-Turkish War in February 1897, the Ottomans inspected the fleet and found that almost all of the vessels, including both Feth-i Bülend-class ships, to be completely unfit for combat against the Greek Navy.

During the latter conflict, her guns were removed to strengthen the land defenses of the port, and she was sunk there by a Greek torpedo boat on 31 October 1912.