The ship was stationed off the west coast of Mexico at the outbreak of war in 1914. She soon joined Admiral Maximilian von Spee's East Asiatic Cruiser Squadron, and participated in the Battle of Coronel, where the German cruiser squadron virtually wiped out the Royal Navy force sent to stop them.
SMS Leipzig was sunk at the Battle of the Falkland Islands a month later, where greatly superior British forces sank all but one of von Spee's cruisers.