Civil war

:For other uses, see civil war (disambiguation). See list of civil wars for individual examples.

Pre-modern civil wars

In the pre-modern period, there were three main types of civil war dynastic conflicts, rebellions, and peasant revolts.

Related Topics:
Dynastic conflict - Rebellion - Peasant revolt

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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.

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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, the rebel could either separate to form their own state or unseat the ruler and usurp control over the entire polity.

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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 laborers such as slaves, have been common to almost all societies dependent on such forms of labor. These would break out in response to increased obligations, cruelty by a ruler, famine, economic failure in the state, and other causes. While there are many hundreds of such revolts recorded through history, hardly any were successful and they were usually crushed by the forces of the government and aristocracy.

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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. In addition, while these are labels for types of early civil wars, they are not explanations of their root causes.

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