Regele Carol I was initially built as a passenger steamer and was completed by the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company in Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom.

[5] In 1916, after Romania joined World War I, Regele Carol I was leased to the Imperial Russian Navy and converted into a warship.

After briefly being renamed Ion Roate in early 1917 (she was also known as Korol Carl in the Russian Navy), she was returned to Romania at some point between 1917 and 1919.

[6] At the start of Operation Barbarossa in June 1941, Regele Carol I and two other Romanian minelayers (Amiral Murgescu and Dacia) laid a flanking barrage of mines off Constanța for the protection of the port.

On 10 October, Regele Carol I was sunk off of Varna, Bulgaria, by a mine laid by the Soviet submarine L-4.