Hey all -- thanks for agreeing to participate in this panel.

My question is mainly for the Europeanists, though the Americanists can certainly chime in.

Here in the U.S., the Civil War crystallized two mutually exclusive romantic cultural identities: the Northerner fighting to preserve the Union and the Southerner rebelling against the tyranny of the North. These cultural identities were reinforced for generations by (mostly) divisive commemoration of the war that celebrated either one identity or the other, and because of that manner of reinforcement, these identities are still prevalent among sections of the population today.

[someone feel free to critique that, I wrote it hastily]

My question is this: with the European civil wars represented here in the panel, including the Roman ones (see below, my second major is classics), was there a similar subsequent formation of a cultural identity based around groups' involvement in the war? Was there similar divisiveness in commemoration? Was there a similar romanticization of "the lost cause" in these defeated groups?

I understand that the Republican cause in the Roman civil wars and its heroes were romanticized by aristocrats during the early Principate (victrix causa deis placuit sed victa Catoni), but I'm yearning for a more nuanced description of the phenomenon.

Edit: subject-verb agreement.

When and why are the English Civil wars of the seventeenth century first referred to as "Civil Wars"? And are the Wars of the Roses ever referred to as "Civil Wars" by any of the sources and histories written since then?

Thanks for participating in the AMA everyone!

I got a question about the russian civil war. I know that there was a number of nations that intervened in the russian civil war, but how much did those expeditionary forces fight the Bolsheviks directly?

The Irish Civil War came hot on the heels of the War of Independence. So close, in fact, that it could be argued that it was simply an extension of the War of Independence by the folks who didn't think the country became independent enough the year before. On the other hand, the US took most of a century before it got around to settling its disagreements over the nature of the country.

The flip side, as I see it, might be something like the Roman civil war, maybe the Russian one, where the argument was instead over who, internally, got to run the country in the manner that they wished.

Questions thus:

1. Is this a valid division? Nature of country vs who gets to run it. Do all civil wars fall these two categories?

2. Is there a trend over time as to which of the two is more common?

3. Has any country had both kinds?

4. Finally, where is the dividing line between a revolution and a civil war?

Two questions, one generally and one for a specific example:

Guns N' Roses famously sang "I don't need your civil war. It feeds the rich while it buries the poor". How accurate is this claim in the sense of do modern civil wars posses the same dynamic of international wars in terms of profiteering? Is there such a thing as the "Civil War Profiteer" within the context of the country affected by it? Do Civil Wars differ in this regard from wars fought between two states?

And now specifically for /u/Itsalrightwithme : I have seen it alleged that in the second half of the 19th century, the Austrian army did not serve as an armed force poised for international conflict but rather saw its main function in the oppression of potential rebellion or civil war within the Empire. Can this interpretation be backed up?

building off of American Revolution and Dutch Revolt: how do historians separate out colonial (or subject peoples/nations) struggles from civil wars? I struggle to get a good definition that also then includes something like the american civil war under the heading "civil war"

Do civil wars normally start with a visible divide between a country's people, or is it more often a less visible divide that suddenly becomes an issue because of a certain individuals action?

The Taiping Rebellion – as it's more commonly known in English – in China is also sometimes referred to as the Taiping Civil War. I wonder if there's such a difference in terminology with other civil wars, or historically if there was, for example with the US Civil War, where it was characterised even well after the fact not as a civil war but more as a nuisance. The Taipings have the added issue that the Opium Wars, the Hakka-Punti Wars, the Nian Rebellion and various other events were happening at the same time, which might detract from the perceived reality of the Taiping fight as a civil war.

Not a terribly well formed question here. Sorry about that.

Put simply, how typical is this sort of difference of terminology and the corresponding ways in which civil wars are characterised? Does the same thing happen with any of the above that we now generally call "civil wars"?

How common was it that non-Roman military leaders interfered in Roman civil wars in Late Antiquity, either by invitation or at their own initiative?

I realise that the definition of Roman might be problematic, but I'm primarily thinking of warlords without citizenship crossing the limes.

Hello All !!! Thank You for doing this AMA.

Is it fair to say that Civil Wars ( thr Roman civil wars, the Spanish civil war, the American Civil War, the Taiping Rebellion) of an empire or single country are more bloody and ruthless than a conflict between two separate state actors? Why?

If not, why may some have that perception?

I suppose this one is a bit too simple, general and more about terminology, but - do we recognize a conflict as civil war as opposed to a revolution or a rebellion, mainly in the cases where an overarching identity of the people who fight prevails? Is calling something a civil war (or not) a way to tell a certain narrative? By which I mean - do civil wars often find themselves being called "crushed rebellions" and such in the hands of ideologies, attempting to revise history?

If civil wars are between two groups of the same polity, how do they claim authority? What distinguishes moral 'right to rebel' versus 'right to rule'?

Question for all:

It seems that Civil Wars revolve around questions of legitimacy (moral, legal, etc.). What were the general and specific questions of legitimacy around which your civil war revolved? How were the questions resolved (if at all)? How successful was the victor in legitimizing his or her perspective? What methods other than war (and victory) were used?

Were the Jacobite rebellions in Scotland considered as civil wars? I've never heard them referred to that way even though they fit the normal definition, being post act of union.

Do the good guys ever win? Are there ever goodguys? Does stuff ever get better for the people, or is it just a different flavor of bad? How about the rulers?

Why did the Siberian Intervention fail?