[5] Loreley was propelled by a single oscillating, 2-cylinder marine steam engine manufactured by the machine shop operated by the Seehandlungsgesellschaft [de], the royal merchant shipping organization.

This made her the first Prussian warship to be fitted with a domestically-produced engine, as all previous vessels, including those built in Prussia, used British propulsion systems.

Her propulsion system was rated to produce 350 metric horsepower (345 ihp), for a top speed of 10.5 knots (19.4 km/h; 12.1 mph); steaming endurance figures have not survived for her original configuration.

[2][6] The ship initially retained her original propulsion system during her reconstruction, but in 1879, she received new boilers that were built by the Kaiserliche Werft (Imperial Shipyard) in Wilhelmshaven.

She carried 34 t (33 long tons) of coal, which provided a cruising radius of 450 nautical miles (830 km; 520 mi) at a speed of 9 knots.

Under the terms of the Treaty of Paris that had ended the Crimean War in 1856, Prussia and the other European Great Powers (excluding the Russian Empire) were permitted to station warships in the mouth of the Danube at Sulina.

[9] Immediately after the start of the war, the Danish Navy imposed a blockade of Prussia's ports in the Baltic, along with those of the other German states in the North Sea.

To avoid concerns that the navy would be unable to contribute to the Prussian war effort, the fleet commander Prince Adalbert ordered Eduard von Jachmann to attempt to break the blockade at Swinemünde.

[10] The Prussians scouted the blockade line on 16 March to determine the strength of the Danish squadron, which was commanded by Rear Admiral Edvard van Dockum, that was tasked with enforcing it.

Late in the day, they spotted a group of three ships off Cape Arkona, but there was not sufficient daylight left to allow them to engage.

Jachmann ordered Loreley to leave the gunboats off Rügen, where they would be in position to cover a retreat, and to join his two vessels.

He failed to inform the captains of Loreley and Nymphe of his decision to withdraw, and they continued to steam east for several minutes before they conformed to his maneuver.

Loreley was hit once by a shell that tore off the davit for her starboard cutter, killing one man, her only casualty in the action.

Adalbert ordered all five gunboat divisions to concentrate at Stralsund on 29 March to support the Prussian Army's invasion of the island of Als, but bad weather prevented the vessels from taking part in the operation.

She was launched on 19 August 1871, after the end of the war and after completing fitting-out, was commissioned into what was now the Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy) of united Germany on 16 April 1873.

Loreley next carried Crown Prince Friedrich and his family on a cruise to the island of Föhr in late July and into August.

She went to Folkestone on 18 June 1878 to take part in salvage work for the turret ship Grosser Kurfürst that had been sunk there in an accidental collision the previous month.

At that time, she was based in Büyükdere in Constantinople, and during her service in the Ottoman capital over the next decade, she periodically steamed to Galați, Romania, where she received new crews.

Loreley began a tour of the region that continued into April 1880, which she repeated in 1881, this time extending it to include ports in the Aegean Sea.

On 2 November, she left Constantinople to rendezvous with the screw corvettes Sophie and Prinz Adalbert, the latter carrying Crown Prince Friedrich on a visit to Spain.

[15][16] The years 1884 and 1885 passed uneventfully for Loreley, with the only event of note another period in the shipyard in La Valletta from 20 January 1885 to 12 February.

The crisis abated following the intervention of the Great Powers, and Loreley instead went to La Valletta for another overhaul at the end of the year that lasted until 20 April 1887.

The following year, the new Kaiser, Wilhelm II, and his wife traveled to Greece to attend the wedding of his sister Sophie to Constantine, the heir to the Greek throne.

In May 1894, Loreley and the other European vessels stationed in Constantinople took part in ceremonies overseen by King Carol I of Romania that marked the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Danube at Sulina during the Crimean War.

In June, she conducted surveys of the waters around the Cyclades island group, followed by a visit to Alexandria, from which she returned to Constantinople on 10 July.

She embarked Kapitänleutnant (KL—Lieutenant Captain) Eugen Kalau vom Hofe, the naval attache to Russia, for a tour of the Black Sea, including Russian ports in the region.

Germany sent limited reinforcements in the form of the screw corvette Moltke and the coastal defense ship Hagen to support these operations.

She conducted a final cruise in the Black Sea in early 1896 and was then struck from the naval register on 10 August, though she remained in commission until 7 September when she was replaced by a newly procured steam yacht.

Her crew began their voyage home and the vessel remained under the supervision of the German station commander until 23 October, when she was sold.