The three Ariadne-class corvettes were ordered as part of the fleet plan of 1867, an expansion program aimed at strengthening the Prussian Navy in the wake of the Austro-Prussian War.

[1] The design for Freya was prepared in 1871 as a lengthened version of her half-sisters; the increased size of the ship was used to improve coal storage (and thus her cruising range) and strengthen her armament.

Severe storms in the English Channel forced the ship to take shelter in Falmouth, and she arrived in Smyrna in the Ottoman Empire on 12 December.

On 12 August, she received the order to proceed to East Asia, where she was to replace her sister Luise as a station ship in Chinese waters.

[4] After arriving in Hong Kong, Freya went into the dry dock for repairs and periodic maintenance after her long voyage from Europe.

This work lasted until 9 December, and two days later the ship moved to Shantou and then to Amoy to observe an episode of domestic unrest, and to be prepared to intervene if the situation devolved into attacks against Germans in Fujian province.

While there, she received the order to return to Germany, so she sailed to Hong Kong to await her replacement, Luise, and to prepare for the voyage back home.

[4] While on the way back, she had a serious accident where one of her boilers overheated and burst, throwing boiling water into one of the crew spaces, badly burning several sailors and killing four, who were buried in Batavia in the Dutch East Indies.

After much of the crew began to suffer from scurvy, Freya was forced to stop in Faial Island in the Azores to pick up fresh food to alleviate the condition.

She was recommissioned on 3 October; she was ordered to return to East Asia by way of the western coast of South America, where she was to assist the ironclad Hansa in protecting German interests during the War of the Pacific between Chile, Peru, and Bolivia.

Freya left Germany on 26 October, and she met the frigate Vineta several times on the trip to South America.

While in the Strait of Magellan, Freya encountered the stranded British steamer SS Maranhence and she towed her to Punta Arenas.

[5] The pressing need for warships in Chinese waters forced Freya to end her operations off South America on 14 April, and she steamed north to Panama to take on provisions for the lengthy voyage across the Pacific Ocean.

She arrived in Hong Kong on 21 August, where she joined the East Asia Squadron, which also included Vineta and the gunboats Cyclop and Wolf.

Freya began the voyage back to Germany on 30 June, and while in Batavia in mid-July, she met her replacement, the corvette Stosch, where Lepel-Gnitz turned over command of the squadron.

She then embarked a contingent of trainees and began a short training cruise to Danzig and Karlskrona, Sweden on 12 July, which ended in Kiel.

[6] On arriving back in German waters, she joined the annual fleet maneuvers on 1 September, which were conducted in the North and Baltic Seas.

The naval historians Hans Hildebrand, Albert Röhr, and Hans-Otto Steinmetz speculated that because the corvette Nixe, which had been built specifically as a training ship, had entered service by that time, the Admiralität decided that Freya was redundant.