Commissioned into service in the Italian Regia Marina (Royal Navy) in 1915, she served in World War I, playing an active role in the Adriatic campaign.

[2] Arranged in a radial pattern, the three destroyers first followed the route between the point of the attack and the Austro-Hungarian Navy base at Cattaro, then zigzagged in a northerly direction, and then headed south.

[2] On 3 August 1916 Giuseppe Cesare Abba, under the command of Capitano di fregata (Frigate Captain) Petrelluzzi, got underway with the destroyer Ardente to support an attack by nine aircraft against Durrës, but during their voyage to the Albanian coast the two ships were diverted to Molfetta, Italy, which had come under bombardment by an Austro-Hungarian force composed of the light cruiser Aspern, the destroyers Warasdiner and Wildfang, and the torpedo boats TB 80 and TB 85.

[2] At 23:00 on 22 December 1916 Giuseppe Cesare Abba, Ippolito Nievo, and Rosolino Pilo got underway from Brindisi and headed for Cape Rodoni to intercept the Austro-Hungarian destroyers Dinara, Reka, Scharfschutze, and Velebit, which had attacked the Otranto Barrage in the Strait of Otranto and were returning to Cattaro after a clash with the French Navy destroyers Boutefeu, Casque, Commandant Bory, Commandant Rivière, Dehorter, and Protet.

At 01:40 on 23 December Giuseppe Cesare Abba sighted smoke on her port bow and turned north to investigate, accelerating to full speed.

[2] On the night of 13–14 August 1917 Giuseppe Cesare Abba left Venice with Animoso, Ardente, Audace, and the destroyers Carabiniere, Francesco Stocco, Giovanni Acerbi, Giuseppe Sirtori, Pontiere, and Vincenzo Giordano Orsini to intercept an Austro-Hungarian force made up of the destroyers Dinara, Reka, Sharfschutze, Streiter, and Velebit and six torpedo boats which had supported an air raid by 32 aircraft against the fortress of Venice which had struck San Giovanni e Paolo Hospital, killing 14 people and injuring around 30 others.

[2] On 29 September 1917 Giuseppe Cesare Abba put to sea with Francesco Stocco, Giovanni Acerbi, Vincenzo Giordano Orsini, the scout cruiser Sparviero and a second formation made up of Ardente, Ardito and Audace to support a bombing raid by 10 Italian airplanes against Pola.

They encountered an Austro-Hungarian force composed of Streiter, Velebit, the destroyers Huszár and Turul, and four torpedo boats on a similar mission against an Italian airbase.

Another Austro-Hungarian destroyer took her in tow and both sides returned to port after an inconclusive exchange of fire inside the minefields later that night during the predawn hours of 30 September.

[2][4] On 18 November 1917 Giuseppe Cesare Abba, Animoso, Ardente, and Audace bombarded the Austrian-Hungarian lines on the Italian front between Caorle and Revedoli.

[2] On 10 February 1918, Giuseppe Cesare Abba, Animoso, and Audace departed Venice to participate in a raid on Bakar (known to the Italians as Buccari) on the coast of Austria-Hungary.

At the end of November 1918 Giuseppe Cesare Abba escorted two steamers loaded with Austrian, German, and Polish soldiers from Fiume to Venice.

[6] On the morning of 6 August 1928 Giuseppe Cesare Abba, serving as flagship of the 5th Destroyer Flotilla, got underway from Poreč (Parenzo) to take part with numerous other ships in an exercise in the Adriatic Sea.

[8][9] Efforts to rescue men trapped aboard the wreck of F14 failed, and they eventually died of asphyxiation by carbon dioxide and chlorine gas.

With the light cruisers Giovanni dalle Bande Nere and Bartolomeo Colleoni and the destroyers Grecale, Libeccio, Maestrale, and Scirocco in distant support,[13][14] the convoy arrived safely at Benghazi, Libya, on 8 July.

[16] At 23:50 a lookout location at Derni sighted a flight of six British Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers approaching the harbor to attack the ships, and at 23:58 a listening station at Sazan (known to the Italians as Saseno) also detected them.

[16] At midnight the British planes arrived at the Bay of Vlorë, and Giuseppe Cesarae Abba and Andromeda, hearing their engines, opened fire on them.

[16] On the night of 18–19 May 1942, Giuseppe Cesare Abba departed Augusta, Sicily, and escorted the motor torpedo boats MAS 451, MAS 452, MTSM 214, and MTSM 218 to Malta, where they disembarked the Maltese irredentist, National Fascist Party member, and Maritime Artillery Militia sottotenente (sublieutenant) Carmelo Borg Pisani, who was supposed to gather information to help in preparation for Operation Herkules, a planned Italian-German amphibious landing on the island.

[12][18] On 9 November 1942 Giuseppe Cesare Abbe and the torpedo boats Cigno and Lince escorted the crippled light cruiser Attilio Regolo, which was returning to port under tow by the tug Polifemo after the British submarine HMS Unruffled torpedoed her in the southern Tyrrhenian Sea off Capo San Vito Siculo on the northwestern end of Sicily at 38°14′N 012°41′E / 38.233°N 12.683°E / 38.233; 12.683, blowing off her bow.

[12] Giuseppe Cesare Abba subsequently fought on the Allied side as a unit of the Italian Co-belligerent Navy through the end of the war in Europe in May 1945.