Gemeinschaft, Männlichkeit und Krieg: Militarismus in englischen Colleges und deutschen Studentenverbindungen am Vorabend des Ersten Weltkrieges

What motivated male student to join the First World War as volunteers? In order to answer this question, German student associations --  using the example of the University of Tübingen -- and English college students - using the example of Cambridge University -  are examined in this book chapter in the edited volume  The Citizen as a Soldier: The Militarization of European Societies in the long 19th Century. An International Comparison. Between the turn of the century and the First World War, student associations and colleges were places of close communal life which produced a specific type of world view and masculinity.  For German and English students, their willingness to go to war was an important part of their male student identity, an element that has been imprinted in fraternities and colleges through student life practices. This comparative study highlights international similarities as well as specific differences between student militarism in Britain and Germany before World War I. The paper is based on the evaluation of student newspapers, minutes of debating clubs and corporation conventions, semester reports, commemorative publications and autobiographical documents.