Belle Epoque in Arms? Armed Associations and Processes of Democratization in Pre-1914 Europe

During the belle epoque, many thousands of male European citizens joined military youth groups and paramilitary units, volunteer and private police forces, company defense groups, student battalions, civic militias, and shooting clubs throughout the continent. This article investigates the features, aims, and impact of armed associations in Europe in the approximately thirty years preceding the outbreak of the First World War. The legal context within which armed associations could prosper, their involvement in strikes and in the fight against crime, and the development of patriotic armed groups are the main lines of inquiry pursued in the article. Examination of armed associationism in pre-1914 Europe, a long understudied topic, has the potential to stimulate fresh thinking on crucial aspects of modern statehood, the balance between private rights and public prerogatives, crucial forms of nationalism and patriotism, and deep-seated fears and hopes, and possibly also to shed new light on the Great War and its aftermath. The article argues that armed associationism was a specific social phenomenon with a particularly European dimension and was a response to the profound reconfigurations in social and political balances that were taking place throughout the continent.