Teutonic was the first armed cruiser, being built specifically for the Admiralty to use rather than having to requisition merchant ships for use as auxiliaries, which was a costly business. Thomas Ismay, founder of the White Star Line, came up with the plan whereby ship owners would be paid an annual subsidy in return for building crack liners under Admiralty supervision, and keeping them constantly in readiness to be used as cruisers in the event of war. Approval was given to the plan and work was started on the Teutonic in March 1887 by Harland & Wolff, who were instructed to produce "the finest ship afloat".

At her launching in 1889 she was the world's largest ship at 582 ft long, with twin screws, the port side propeller being 6 ft ahead of the other due to a lack of space in the engine room to accommodate the 2 giant engines. She took 22 months to build with 2 funnels and 3 masts, but was without sail for the first time in a WhiteStar liner. Armed with eight 4.7 in quick firing guns, she was later fitted with 8 heavy machine guns.

Her maiden voyage was on the 7 August and she was joined in 1890 by her sister ship the Majestic. There followed a period of intense rivalry between the White Star and Inman Lines and in August 1891 she and the City of New York raced across the Atlantic in one of the most famous contests of the Blue Riband. They both sailed from Liverpool within an hour of each other, calling at Queenstown for passengers and mails, where the City of New York had a 35 min start. After 2 days Teutonic had overhauled her and was 10 miles ahead, and on arrival at Sandy Hook it was announced that Teutonic had broken the record by just 13 minutes! Her passage had taken 5 days, 19 hours and 5 mins with the City of New York just 4 hours behind her.

She lost the record in 1892 back to City of Paris but regained it shortly afterwards and held it for another year before the Campania beat her in 1893.

In 1898 she collided with the US transport Berlin sustaining slight damage, but lived to perform trooping duties in the Middle East until she was scrapped in 1921 at Emden in Germany.

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