King Alfred participated in the unsuccessful searches for the German commerce raider SMS Möwe in 1916–17 before beginning to escort convoys later that year.

She was powered by two 4-cylinder triple-expansion steam engines, each driving one shaft, which produced a total of 30,000 indicated horsepower (22,000 kW) and gave a maximum speed of 23 knots (43 km/h; 26 mph).

[3] Her secondary armament of sixteen BL 6-inch Mk VII guns was arranged in casemates amidships.

[1] By April 1918, the ship had all of the lower casemates for her six-inch guns plated over and six of them remounted on the upper deck so they could be used in heavy weather.

[11][12][13] On 31 July 1913, King Alfred, which together with sister ships Good Hope and Drake and the light cruisers Active and Amphion, had left Grimsby that morning to take part in naval manoeuvres, collided with the Spanish steamer Umbre.Umbre sank within 75 minutes, with her crew rescued by King Alfred.

[14][15] When recommissioned in 1914, King Alfred was assigned to the 6th Cruiser Squadron, together with her sister ship, Drake, and was briefly deployed at the beginning of the war to blockade the northern exit from the North Sea.

[17] By January 1916, the squadron, under the command of Rear Admiral Archibald Moore in King Alfred, was patrolling the western entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar and unsuccessfully searching for the commerce raider SMS Möwe.

[18] The raider evaded all the British ships and returned to Germany before sortieing again into the Atlantic in late November.

In the meantime, Rear Admiral Sydney Fremantle hoisted his flag in King Alfred on 22 September, succeeding Moore.

When the Admiralty received word that Möwe was loose in the Atlantic in early December, Fremantle ordered his ships to patrol the eastern trade routes, but the raider slipped through the gap between squadrons.