Sympathy for the Kaiser: Students Facing the Great War in Revolutionary Mexico

Abstract

This article explores how Mexican students faced the Great War and decided to adopt a collective attitude towards the international conflict. It analyzes their visions of the war in times of Revolution and to what extent the conflict contributed to shape their national movement, its organization and its goals. In 1917, when the European war stopped being an object of fascination and suddenly appeared a national question, Mexican student leaders decided to organize a great mobilization against the international conflict and in favor of neutrality. Because they considered themselves genuine revolutionaries and patriots, as true anti-imperialists, students believed they had to intervene in the public sphere to maintain Mexico’s neutrality. However, the struggle for strict neutrality eventually created divisions among the student movement. If the mobilizations in favor of neutrality stopped at the end of 1917, the Great War generally triggered a wave of student politicization and radicalism.