Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2017 April 17

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April 17

Civil war

What examples (if any) have there been of civil wars with 5 or more different factions fighting one another? Which civil war holds the record for the most factions engaged in combat? (Question inspired by the FSX mission "Crucial Extraction" from Aerosoft's "Flight Tales 2: Adrenaline" mission pack.) 2601:646:8E01:7E0B:A5B3:F65B:DE7B:F52 (talk) 01:09, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Define "faction". Such things become hard to define, what makes a group a distinct faction versus a wing of another faction, etc. etc. The Syrian Civil War has a bewildering array of combatants, most of which aren't coordinating, but fighting for their own aims. The Russian Civil War was similarly confusing; historiographically the groups get broadly defined into the "Reds" and the "Whites", but realistically they weren't all working together, just broadly if they were pro-Bolshevik or anti-Bolshevik. If we get down to the nitty-gritty of individually named and identifiable groups, both of those have distinct factions that number in the dozens. --Jayron32 01:51, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

The ongoing civil conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Congolese Civil War) has lasted for 20 years and has involved 50 or more different factions, including rebel groups, tribal groups, government militias and foreign forces. It has involved various stages of conflict, in different areas, with groups coming and going - but is really all part of one civil conflict, which has now cost more lives than any other conflict since the Second World War. Wymspen (talk) 14:38, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

The Thirty Years' War 1618 - 1648 involved a bewilderingly long List of states in the Holy Roman Empire that contested on religious lines. The article box summary of belligerents shows 24 different flags. Blooteuth (talk) 16:30, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

You could pretty easily argue that the current civil war in Syria has more than 5 factions. shoy (reactions) 17:17, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

All right, the Russian civil war, the Syrian civil war, the Congolese civil war... any others? (Oh, and I wasn't precise enough on one point -- when I said "5 or more factions", I meant "5 or more factions at the same time".) 2601:646:8E01:7E0B:7D48:3AB5:AF2B:A040 (talk) 01:05, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

China has periodically broken up into several rival states, which have often fought against each other in the process. The Sixteen Kingdoms era would probably be worth looking at, although I've only skimmed the article, so I don't know how many of those factions were active at the same time. Iapetus (talk) 09:55, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Also Warring States Period, Warlord Era in the 20th century, Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, etc.

In Japan, there was the Sengoku period.--PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 16:52, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

• There's The Battle of Five Armies but this was more one of conquest than a civil war between factions of an existing polity. μηδείς (talk) 19:00, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

  It's also fiction. Therefore, it has no reason to be except "that's what the author made up". We've also got the War of the Five Kings while we're at it. The sex is better in that one, at least. --Jayron32 23:42, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

The OP specifically referenced fiction as the inspiration for his question. μηδείς (talk) 19:06, 20 April 2017 (UTC)