By this time, Tolkien was already extremely fluent in Latin and Greek and was also learning Gothic and Finnish. He also started making up languages on his own, purely for fun. (Rogers 2).
In 1911, Tolkien left for Exeter College, Oxford. He then studied Classics, Old English, Germanic languages, Welsh and Finish until 1913 (Friesen 1). He obtained a degree in Honour Moderations, the half point stage of a 4 year Oxford "Greats" course. He also obtained a "alpha plus" in Philology. In 1914, war broke out but unlike most of his classmates, Tolkien did not rush out to join the army. (Hammond 2) He returned to Oxford instead where he worked hard to achieve a complete degree in June 1915. He was also working on many different types of poems and creating his own languages. His main focus at this time was the language created by his own mind called "Qenya," which was influenced by Finnish. Tolkien eventually enlisted in the army as a second lieutenant. For many months, Tolkien was kept in England. Eventually he was sent to France. (Carpenter 88) .
Before Tolkien left for the war, he decided it was time to marry Edith Bratt, a woman whom he had met earlier at his boarding school around the age of 16. At the time of their relationship, Father Francis stepped in and forbade Tolkien to correspond or see Edith for three years. When he left for Oxford he had little difficulty picking up ties with Edith. Since the nations were coming so close to the chaos of war, they decided that it was time to marry. Tolkien and Edith married on March 22, 1916. (Rogers 2).
Tolkien was sent to active duty on the Western Front. After months of being in and out of the trenches, he finally came down with "trench fever," an infection which is very common in unsanitary conditions (Friesen 3). In early November, he was sent back to England where he spent the next month in a hospital in Birmingham. Some of Tolkiens" friends from his earlier years, had been killed in action.
