The ship's service career was limited; tight naval budgets precluded an active fleet policy in the 1870s, which did not markedly improve in the 1880s.

Romako incorporated the lessons of the Battle of Lissa of 1866, and decided the new ship should favor heavy armor and the capability of end-on fire to allow it to effectively attack with its ram.

Vice Admiral Wilhelm von Tegetthoff, the victor of Lissa, approved Romako's proposals for Erzherzog Albrecht and Custoza, allowing construction to begin.

According to Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships, she was the second iron-built vessel to be built for the Austro-Hungarian fleet,[1] but the historian R. F. Scheltema de Heere indicates she had a composite iron and wood hull.

[1] Her propulsion system consisted of one single-expansion, horizontal, 2-cylinder steam engine that drove a single screw propeller that was 6.324 m (20.75 ft) in diameter.

Late that year, Erzherzog Albrecht, the unarmored frigate Laudon, and several smaller vessels were sent to Cattaro Bay to help suppress a revolt there.

[9] In June and July 1889, Erzherzog Albrecht served as the flagship during fleet training exercises, which also included the ironclads Custoza, Tegetthoff, Kaiser Max, Prinz Eugen, and Don Juan d'Austria.

Renamed Feuerspeier, she served in this capacity until October 1915, when during World War I she was repurposed for use as a barracks ship for German naval personnel operating U-boats in the Adriatic Sea.

She was renamed Buttafuoco and served as a hulk in the Italian fleet; she survived World War II and was eventually broken up for scrap beginning in 1950.