can be regarded; the national existence and independence of the struggling State is a higher consideration than any individual well-being. [Footnote 71: See below, § 66.] [Sidenote: Civil War.] § 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. [Footnote 72: See below, §§ 76 and 298.] [Footnote 73: See above, vol. I. § 63.] [Footnote 74: See below, § 298.] [Sidenote: Guerilla War.]