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A civil war is a war in which the competing parties are segments of the same country or empire. Civil war is usually a high intensity stage in an unresolved political struggle for national control of state power. As in any war, the conflict may be over other matters such as religion, ethnicity, or distribution of wealth. Some civil wars are also categorized as revolutions when major societal restructuring is a possible outcome of the conflict.
In the pre-modern period there were three main types of civil war dynastic conflict s, rebellions, and peasant revolts.
Conflicts of succession between the monarch or ruler and a pretender occurred in almost all pre-modern systems of government. These conflicts for control of a state could take international form, and often even in civil disputes the factions would have the support of outside powers. Most historians believe that these conflicts were generally rooted in squabbles between the aristocracy and ruler, or a product of economic or social change and upheaval.
Early states of any great size had difficulty controlling their regions and relatively decentralized rule was the norm. This left local administrators, landowners, and other nobles a great deal of sovereignty. In most cases this extended to having control of their own armed forces. If so motivated these vassals could decide to overthrow their sovereign and rebel if successful they could either separate to form their own state or unseat the ruler and usurp control over the entire polity.
While in the traditional literature the above two types of conflict were the most written about, modern historians are increasingly looking at peasant revolts. Revolts by the peasantry, and other indentured labourers such as slaves, have been common to almost all societies dependent on such forms of labour. These would break out in response to increased obligations or cruelty by a ruler, famine or economic failure in the state, among other causes. While there are many hundreds of such revolts recorded through history hardly any were successful and they were almost always crushed by the forces of the government and aristocracy.
Of course it is impossible to subdivide civil wars into neat categories. Many conflicts were a mix of these groups. Peasant revolts would often catalyze around a pretender. Disputes over succession would almost always involve the revolt of vassals. While these are labels for types of early civil wars, they are not explanations of their cause.
What is general agreed upon is that factors such as nationalism, religion, and ideology, played little role in pre-modern civil wars. While it is quite common for nationalists to read past revolts, such as those of Scotland against BritainThe word Britain is used to refer to the United Kingdom (UK): i. the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (from 1927), the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland ( 1801- 1927) or the United Kingdom of Great Britain ( 1707- 1801). as early stirrings of nationalism, this is a somewhat suspect notion. Religion is more contentious, there are some civil wars that can be seen as fueled by religion in early years, such as the Jewish Revolts against RomeRome ( Italian and Latin Roma is the capital city of Italy, and of its Lazio region. It is located on the lower Tiber river, near the Mediterranean Sea, at 41°50'N, 12°15'E. The Vatican City State, a sovereign enclave within Rome, is the seat of the Roman, but these an also be seen as revolts by a servile people against their oppressors or uprisings by local notables in an attempt to gain independence.
Civil wars over religion are unlikely in polytheistic societies where religions tend to be flexible and accommodating enough to prevent intercine violence. Even with the arrival of monotheism in ZoroastrianismZoroastrianism was adapted from an earlier, polytheistic faith by Zarathushtra ( Zoroaster) in Persia between 1400 and 1200 BC (although, in the absence of written records, some scholars estimate as late as 600 BC). Its alternative name, Mazdaism comes fr and the Abrahamic religions religious revolts were rare. In earlier times a nation's religion was defined the religion of the sovereign and the elite and it was not dogmatically imposed by upon the mass of the population. Thus even in Europe through the Middle Ages the Christianity of the great bulk of the population was limited and still much infused by pagan traditions. With religion so loosely applied it was rare for people to feel like they must rebel against it. The one exception in Medieval Europe was the occasional rise of heresies such as that of the AlbigensiansAlbigensians are the inhabitants of Albi, France. Albigensians was the usual name given to the heretics, especially the Catharists, of southern France in the 12th and 13th century. Their doctrines is believed to be of Gnostic origin. The name originates f. These tended to be the product of peasant revolts rather than themselves motivators of a civil war.
Religion did not begin to play an important role in the causation of civil wars until the religions stressing individual salvation were introduced. The first of these is arguably IslamCairo Egypt Islm (In Arabic: , "submission (to God)"; In Persian and Urdu: ) is a monotheistic faith and the world's second-largest religion. Followers of Islam, known as Muslims believe that God (or, in Arabic, Allh revealed His Will to Muhammad (c. which saw a rash of uprisings against non-Islamic rulers soon after its appearance. Subsequent Islamic history has been marked by repeated civil conflicts, mostly stemming out of the Shi'ite Sunni divide. In Europe the Protestant Reformation had a similar effect sparking years of both civil and international wars of religion. Civil wars between Catholicism and Protestantism consumed France in the Wars of Religion the Dutch War of Independence and violence between Protestant sects played an important role in the English Civil Wars. Some historians both Marxist and non argue that even in these eras religion was never the root cause of civil war but merely a justification and rationalization for wars that were fought for reasons of economics or power politics.
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