Constructing Elite Identities: University Students, Military Masculinity and the Consequences of the Great War in Britain and Germany

Did the First World War lead to a crisis of masculinity, or was the masculine ideal strengthened by the war? Were the returning soldiers shaped by a longing for domesticity or rather by a lust for violence? In what circumstances was a demilitarization of the masculine ideal possible, and how can its further militarization in Germany be explained? These questions are highly contentious in research on gender relations in the inter-war period. Recent studies have tended to stress that men's reactions to war varied along lines of class, region, religion and generation, and have often questioned the extent of war's impact on gender relations. This article analyses  the ideals of manliness of two elite groups, English and German university students, and seeks to demonstrate that conceptions of elite masculinity, which had been remarkably similar in both countries before 1914, developed. in different direction during and after the war: the war experiences made British student volunteers more war critical and German student volunteers often more nationaist.