This innovative study by one of the leading specialists in the field examines the social and economic role of the German army in the nation's internal affairs during the First World War. This was the area in which the influence of the army was most direct and profound. Germany's wartime economic mobilisation was both planned and directed by the army, and as a consequence of this largely unanticipated responsibility, the army was compelled to cope with the great social conflicts of Imperial Germany. In the process of confronting the groups representing army and labour, the army paved the way for the establishment of collective bargaining in Germany and also created the foundations for the postwar inflation.