Most Devastating Civil Wars

[Wrymouth3]

Because none of us can agree in the American Civil War thread (If you endorse the "Lost Cause" mythology, you are a terrible person BTW). I have decided to start this thread on a lighter note to discuss the most devastating civil wars in history. Keep in mind you can probably be liberal with regards to how you define "civil war," but here are some of mine below.

War of the Canudos (Brazil)
Time of Troubles (Russia)
Perusine War (Roman Republic) (Note on this one: I can't seem to find too much on this one besides some literature by Sextus Propertius)

 

[Ajidica]

English Civil War should definitely rank up there. IIRC as a percentage of population it killed more English than WWI.

 

[Wrymouth3]

English Civil War should definitely rank up there. IIRC as a percentage of population it killed more English than WWI.

Especially if you wanted to include the Cromwellian Invasion of Ireland into that equation.

 

[MilesGregarius]

The Korean War.

 

[W|M]

@OP, The War of Canudos wasn´t that devestating, it was a revolt that led to just under 30 000 people being killed (The American Civil War killed about 700 000, and was decades earlier).

I´d say the most devestating civil war was the Taiping Rebellion in China.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Especially if you wanted to include the Cromwellian Invasion of Ireland into that equation.

Not really. The Cromwellian Invasion wasn't that bad.

 

[christos200]

The Taiping Revolution. The lower number of deaths is 20 million. The highest is 50 million (more than WWI). It was started by a Chinese guy who saw a dream that he was the brother of Jesus and then started a revolution, millions died but in the end the Qing won.

 

[Domen]

Khmelnytsky Uprising (it was a Civil War, not a "Ukrainian war of liberation" as wikipedia edited by nationalists apparently says).

 

[hobbsyoyo]

The ongoing civil war in the DR Congo probably ranks up there with the worst.

 

[christos200]

Other devastating civil wars were the Yellow Turban Rebellion (7,000,000 casualities) and the Chinese Civil War (7,500,000 casualities).

 

[Traitorfish]

Does the Thirty Years War count as a civil war? The Holy Roman Empire was still at least in theory A Thing, even if most of the participants were in practice independent polities, so...

 

[Dachs]

Does the Thirty Years War count as a civil war? The Holy Roman Empire was still at least in theory A Thing, even if most of the participants were in practice independent polities, so...

It counts as a civil war from 1618 to 1635.

 

[Domen]

It counts as a civil war from 1618 to 1635.

Wasn't the Holy Roman Empire at that time a conglomerate of many de facto independent political entities which just loosely recognized the Emperor as their "representational ruler" (pretty much like nowadays political entities of The Commonwealth recognize the British Queen as their "representational ruler")?

In such case, it would be hard to call it a civil war - rather international wars between various political entities within the Holy Roman Empire. Was the Indo-Pakistani War considered a civil war? Rather no. And both states were parts of The Commonwealth and had the same "supreme ruler" - the British Queen.

Moreover, the Thirty Years War in period 1618 - 1635 saw participation of such states like Transylvania - which was not even part of the HRE.

Transylvanian army under Gabriel Bethlen besieged Vienna in 1619, it was relieved by George Druget and Polish mercenaries in Austrian service:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriel_Bethlen

While Emperor Ferdinand II was occupied with the Bohemian rebellion of 1618, Bethlen led his armies into Royal Hungary in August 1619 and occupied the town of Kassa (Košice) in September, where his Protestant supporters declared him "head" of Hungary and protector of the Protestants. He soon won over the entirety of Upper Hungary (present-day Slovakia), even securing the capital of Royal Hungary, Pozsony (Bratislava), in October, where the palatine even handed over the Crown of St Stephen to Bethlen. Bethlen's troops joined with the troops of the Czech and Moravian estates (led by Count Jindrich Matyas Thurn), but they failed to conquer Vienna in November – Bethlen was forced to leave Austria after being attacked by George Druget and Polish mercenaries (lisowczycy) in Upper Hungary.

Polish mercenaries under Walenty Rogowski defeated one Corps of Bethlen's army (7,000 men under George Rakoczi) at Humenne on 23 November 1619:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Humenné

I think that was part of the Thirty Years War - so the Principality of Transylvania was one of participant states of the war.

Poland was officially not involved in the Thirty Years War - but it sent mercenaries to support the Habsburgs.

 

[Traitorfish]

Wow, four whole sentences before you started talking about Poland. Getting better.

 

[Domen]

I was talking about the Thirty Years War - not my fault that 10,000 Polish mercenaries were involved in Habsburg service during that war.

However, first of all I wanted to point out the involvement of Transylvania in the Thirty Years War.

As well as the fact that the Holy Roman Empire was technically not one state, but many - so war between them was not a civil war.

Just like Indo-Pakistani wars in the 20th century were not civil wars, even though both states are parts of The [British] Commonwealth of Nations:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/Commonwealth_of_Nations.svg

The Holy Roman Empire was still at least in theory A Thing

In the 1600s the Emperor had no more real power over most parts of "his" Empire, than the British Queen has over India or Pakistan today.

 

[Domen]

But if we assume for a moment that - despite all the facts which I mentioned above - the Thirty Years War was indeed a civil war, then the same status can be applied to all of the Religious Wars in the Holy Roman Empire during the 16th century, between Protestants and Catholics within the HRE.

And in such case those Religious Wars in the HRE during the 1500s were among the most devastating civil wars in history.

Estimated GDP per capita of Germany (area within current borders) in years 1500 - 1938 in 1990 Geary-Khamis dollars:

In brackets, change (in %) of GDP per capita compared to previous period:

year 1500 - 1332 dollars
year 1600 - 894 dollars (- 33%) ------> while Holland: 2662 dollars; Sweden (considered "a synonym for poverty" at that time): 860 dollars
year 1650 - 1130 dollars (+ 26%)
year 1700 - 1068 dollars (- 6%)
year 1750 - 1162 dollars (+ 9%)
year 1800 - 1140 dollars (- 2%)
year 1850 - 1428 dollars (+ 25%)
year 1938 - 3665 dollars (+ 157%)

As we can see, German economy did not recover to pre-1500 level for the next 250 - 300 years after those Religious Wars.

Source for these GDP per capita statistics (for years 1500 - 1850):

http://www.notechmagazine.com/2011/...ce-as-well-off-as-todays-poorest-nations.html

And data for 1938 (within 1938 borders) is taken from a book by a Polish professor of economics W. Orłowski.

Orłowski's data was in 2000 dollars, I converted his data to 1990 dollars using this online converter:

http://stats.areppim.com/calc/calc_usdlrxdeflator.php

 

[sophie]

Do you have a source for the Yellow Turban Rebellion casualties? That number sounds ridiculously high and the only thing I can find is an unreferenced number on wikipedia.

 

[Lord Baal]

Why are we taking only casualties into account when discussing the devastation of civil wars? The Spanish Civil War left whole cities wiped off the map and completely destroyed large swathes of infrastructure, in addition to the casualties. The first phase of the Thirty Years War destroyed a huge amount of crops and several cities were sacked and burnt, the American Civil War had Sherman's march, the Yugloslav civil war led to an estimated 300,000 rapes, the Congo is a hell-hole, as is Uganda, Syria and Libya aren't exactly swimming in security right now, etc..

Civil wars tend to be pretty damn ugly, but if we're talking pure devastation I doubt anything was worse than the Spanish Civil War, except perhaps the current civil war in Syria. Infrastructure tends to be pretty necessary for a state. This is my purely subjective, highly-uninformed opinion speaking, so I'm probably wrong.

 

[TheLastOne36]

Agreed with Lord Baal. Casualties aren't everything.

What other civil wars had stark long-term political/social consequences?

Domen mentioned the Khmelnytsky Uprising which I guess not nearly as devastating as other civil wars mentioned, fits the bill in long-term political consequences. The Russian Civil War as well would have the impact of shaping the region and the world politically for the rest of the century.

 

[sophie]

Agreed with Lord Baal. Casualties aren't everything.

What other civil wars had stark long-term political/social consequences?

Domen mentioned the Khmelnytsky Uprising which I guess not nearly as devastating as other civil wars mentioned, fits the bill in long-term political consequences. The Russian Civil War as well would have the impact of shaping the region and the world politically for the rest of the century.

Are we talking the war itself or its peace settlements as well?

The Restoration of the monarchy established the major trends for the modern-day relationship between King and Parliament in the UK.