On August 27, 1916, Romania declared war on Austria-Hungary. A former officer, he volunteered for the Romanian army, but his request was not approved. On December, the German armies occupied Bucharest. The "fugitive" was in a difficult situation. Locked up in the house, he continues to write the novel Ion.
Between 12/13 May 1917, his brother Emil Rebreanu, an officer in the Austro-Hungarian army, was accused of desertion and espionage, being sentenced to death (echoes in the world of the novel The Forest of the Hanged). In the spring of 1918 he was arrested and investigated by the occupation authorities, but Liviu finally managed to escape. In May, with the help of socialists, he moved to Moldova and lived for a while in Iasi. In November he returned to Bucharest. During the summer vacation of 1918, he traveled with his wife to Transylvania, and Rebreanu carefully documented Emil's tragic end. Returning to Bucharest, the prose writer tried to write at Pădurea spânzuraţilor, without being able to complete the novel.
In December 1929 he was appointed director of the National Theater in Bucharest, a position he held for a year. In 1929, at the behest of the Prime Minister, he worked on projects for the organization of the Directorate of People's Education, whose leader he became at the beginning of the following year. On November 19, 1930, following terrible disappointments in the management of public affairs, Rebreanu resigned from the leadership of the Directorate of People's Education. He bought a house and a vineyard in Valea Mare, near Pitești, where most of his books have been written since then.
In early 1941 he was again appointed director of the National Theater. He accepted the appointment of director of the daily Viața (without an essential participation). In January 1942, he took part in a conference tour on Romanian culture in Berlin, Munich, Stuttgart, Leipzig, Dresden, Görlitz, Breslau, Vienna. In March he traveled to Zagreb and Weimar, on the occasion of the establishment of the Pan-European Cultural Society. Here he claimed that we do not want any kind of politics, only literature.
He was decorated on January 27, 1942 with the Order "Crown of Romania" in the rank of Grand Cross.