[Sidenote: War a contention between States for the purpose of overpowering each other.]
§ 58. The last, and not the least important, characteristic of war is its purpose. It is a contention between States for the purpose of overpowering each other. This purpose of war is not to be confounded with the ends[71] of war, for, whatever the ends of war may be, they can only be realised by one belligerent overpowering the other. Such a defeat as compels the vanquished to comply with any demand the victor may choose to make is the purpose of war. Therefore war calls into existence the display of the greatest possible power and force on the part of the belligerents, rouses the passion of the nations in conflict to the highest possible degree, and endangers the welfare, the honour, and eventually the very existence of both belligerents. Nobody can predict with certainty the result of a war however insignificant one side may seem to be. Every war is a risk and a venture. Every State which goes to war knows beforehand what is at stake, and it would never go to war were it not for its firm, though very often illusory, conviction of its superiority in strength over its opponent. Victory is necessary in order to overpower the enemy; and it is this necessity which justifies all the indescribable horrors of war, the enormous sacrifice of human life and health, and the unavoidable destruction of property and devastation of territory. Apart from special restrictions imposed by the Law of Nations upon belligerents, all kinds and all degrees of force may be, and eventually must be, made use of in war in the interest and under the compulsion of its purpose, and in spite of their cruelty and the utter misery they entail. As war is a struggle for existence between States, no amount of individual suffering and misery can be regarded; the national existence and independence of the struggling State is a higher consideration than any individual well-being.
§ 59. The characteristics of war as developed above must help to decide the question whether so-called civil wars are war in the technical meaning of the term. It has already been stated above (in § 56) that an armed contention between member-States of a Federal State and the latter and between a suzerain and its vassal ought to be considered as war because both parties are real States, although the Federal State as well as the suzerain may correctly designate it as a rebellion. Such armed contentions may be called civil wars in a wider sense of the term. In the proper sense of the term a civil war exists when two opposing parties within a State have recourse to arms for the purpose of obtaining power in the State, or when a large portion of the population of a State rises in arms against the legitimate Government. As war is an armed contention between _States_, such a civil war need not be from the beginning, nor become at all, war in the technical sense of the term. But it may become war through the recognition of each of the contending parties or of the insurgents as the case may be, as a belligerent Power.[72] Through this recognition a body of individuals receives an international position in so far as it is for some parts and in some points treated as though it were a subject[73] of International Law. Such recognition may be granted by the very State within the boundaries of which the civil war broke out, and then other States will in most cases, although they need not, likewise recognise a state of war as existing and bear the duties of neutrality. But it may happen that other States recognise insurgents as a belligerent Power before the State on whose territory the insurrection broke out so recognises them. In such case the insurrection is war in the eyes of these other States, but not in the eyes of the legitimate Government.[74] Be that as it may, it must be specially observed that, although a civil war becomes war in the technical sense of the term by recognition, this recognition has a lasting effect only when the insurgents succeed in getting their independence established through the defeat of the legitimate Government and a consequent treaty of peace which recognises their independence. Nothing, however, prevents the State concerned, after the defeat of the insurgents and reconquest of the territory which they had occupied, from treating them as rebels according to the Criminal Law of the land, for the character of a belligerent Power received through recognition is lost _ipso facto_ by their defeat and the re-occupation by the legitimate Government of the territory occupied by them.