Like many of the late armored cruisers, Yorck was quickly rendered obsolescent by the advent of the battlecruiser; as a result, her peacetime career was limited.

[1] The launch of the British battlecruiser HMS Invincible in 1907 quickly rendered all of the armored cruisers that had been built by the world's navies obsolescent.

Her secondary armament consisted of ten 15 cm (5.9 in) SK L/40 guns; four were in single-gun turrets on the upper deck and the remaining six were in casemates in a main-deck battery.

For close-range defense against torpedo boats, she carried fourteen 8.8 cm (3.5 in) SK L/35 guns, all in individual mounts in the superstructure and in the hull.

[3] Yorck was ordered under the provisional name Ersatz Deutschland and built at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg under construction number 167.

Fitting-out work was completed by late 1905, when the ship began builder's trials, after which a shipyard crew transferred the vessel to Kiel, where she was commissioned into the fleet on 21 November.

On 2 April, she replaced the armored cruiser Friedrich Carl as the group flagship, under the command of Vizeadmiral (VAdm—Vice Admiral) Gustav Schmidt.

After 1907's autumn maneuvers, Yorck went into drydock for an extensive overhaul from 11 September to 28 October, during which time Friedrich Carl temporarily replaced her as the flagship.

While she was out of service, Pohl was replaced by KAdm August von Heeringen, who raised his flag aboard Yorck upon her return from the shipyard.

Prince Heinrich had pressed for such a cruise the previous year, arguing that it would prepare the fleet for overseas operations and would break up the monotony of training in German waters, though tensions with Britain over the developing Anglo-German naval arms race were high.

After the ships' return to Germany, Scharnhorst was detached to the East Asia Squadron on 11 March, vacating the flagship role, which Yorck again filled.

By early 1910, the new armored cruiser Blücher was ready for service with the fleet, and so now-VAdm Heeringen hauled down his flag from Yorck on 25 April and transferred to the new vessel two days later.

[11] While in the shipyard for maintenance on 31 March 1911, a benzene explosion in the ship's aft-most boiler room killed one man and injured several, preventing Yorck from taking part in unit maneuvers.

On 1 October, KzS and Kommodore (Commodore) Franz von Hipper replaced Spee, after which the ship joined a cruise to Norway and Sweden in November.

The torpedo boat S178 attempted to pass in front of the ship but failed to clear her in time; Yorck's bow tore a hole into S178 that flooded her engine and boiler rooms.

Upon returning to Wilhelmshaven late that day, the German ships encountered heavy fog that prevented them from safely navigating the defensive minefields that had been laid outside the port.

[16][17] Yorck's commander, KzS Pieper, believed the fog to have cleared sufficiently to allow the vessel to return to port, so he ordered the ship to get underway.

The pilot refused to take responsibility for maneuvering the ship owing to the great danger of trying to pass through the minefields under the foggy conditions.

[19] The naval historians Hans Hildebrand, Albert Röhr, and Hans-Otto Steinmetz concur with Gröner on the number of fatalities and note that 381 men, including Pieper, were rescued by the coastal defense ship Hagen.

During a series of construction programs to expand the entrance to the Jade after World War II, the ship's turrets were removed in 1969 and the remaining parts of the hull were demolished in 1983 to further clear the sea floor.