Conquest

For other uses, see Conquest (disambiguation).

The Triumph of Victory by Peter Paul Rubens (painted c.  1614)

Conquest involves achieving control of another entity's territory through war or coercion. Historically, conquests occurred frequently in the international system, and there were limited normative or legal prohibitions against conquest.

The onset and diffusion of nationalism (the belief that nation and state should be congruent), especially in the 19th century, made the idea of conquest increasingly unacceptable to popular opinion. Prohibitions against conquest were codified with the establishment of the League of Nations following World War I and of the United Nations at the end of World War II.

Scholars have debated the strength of a norm against conquest since 1945. Conquest of large swaths of territory has been rare since the end of World War II. However, states have continued to pursue annexation of small territories.

History

Military history provides many examples of conquest: the Roman conquest of Britain, the Mauryan conquest of Afghanistan and of vast areas of the Indian subcontinent, the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire and various Muslim conquests, to mention just a few.

The Norman conquest of England led to the subjugation of the Kingdom of England to Norman control and brought William the Conqueror to the English throne in 1066. Conquest may link in some ways with colonialism. England, for example, experienced phases and areas of Anglo-Saxon, Viking and Franco-Norman colonisation and conquest.

The ancient civilized peoples conducted wars on a large scale that were, in effect, conquests. In Egypt the effects of invasion and conquest are to be seen in different racial types represented in paintings and sculptures.

Improved agriculture production was not conducive to peace; it allowed for specialization which included the formation of ever-larger militaries and improved weapon technology. This, combined with growth of population and political control, meant war became more widespread and destructive. Thus, the Aztecs; Incas; the African Kingdoms Dahomey and Benin; and the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Babylonia, Assyria and Persia all stand out as more militaristic than the less organized societies around them. Military adventures were on a larger scale and effective conquest for the first time became feasible.

The Ottomans used a method of gradual, non-military conquest in which they established suzerainty over their neighbours and then displaced their ruling dynasties. This concept was first systematized by Halil İnalcık. Conquests of this sort did not involve violent revolution but were a process of slow assimilation, established by bureaucratic means such as registers of population and resources as part of the feudal timar system.

Norms against conquest

Scholars have debated the existence of a norm against conquest since 1945. Conquest of large swaths of territory has been rare, but states have since 1945 continued to pursue annexation of small swaths of territory.

The Russo-Ukrainian War can be considered a contemporary example of a war of conquest, taking into account that during the conflict there was, even if illegally in the eyes of international law, the Russian annexation of Crimea and parts of four southeast Ukrainian oblasts in 2014 and 2022, respectively. On the Russian precedent, Tanisha Fazal writes,

Norms die slowly. Attempted land grabs as big and brazen as Russia’s in 2022 are likely to remain rare, at least for now. But as aggressors go more or less unpunished, states may increasingly act on territorial claims in murky jurisdictions—those least likely to trigger a significant international response. These small-scale attacks may prove most damaging to the norm against territorial conquest. As violence ticks up, the larger web of rules and institutions that make up the international system could begin to come undone. Although far from inevitable, the norm’s demise would leave the world in dangerous terrain.

Leading to migration

Military conquest has been one of the most persistent causes of human migrations. There is a significant influence of migration and conquest on political development and state formation. Conquest leading to migration has contributed to race mixture and cultural exchange. The latter points influence on conquest has been of far greater significance in the evolution of society. Conquest brings humans into contact, even though it is a hostile contact.

Plunder

William the Conqueror leads his troops at the Battle of Hastings, 1066, Bayeux Tapestry.

Looting by a victorious army during war has been a common practice throughout recorded history. In the wake of the Napoleonic Wars and particularly after World War II, norms against wartime plunder became widely accepted. In modern armed conflicts, looting is prohibited by international law, and constitutes a war crime.

The state

Vasily Vereshchagin, The Apotheosis of War, 1871; dedicated "to all conquerors, past, present and to come", a pile of skulls in a wasteland.

In the formation of the modern state, the conspicuous immediate causes are the closely related facts of migration and conquest. The state has increased civilization and allowed increased cultural contact allowing for a cultural exchange and stimulus; frequently the conquerors have taken over the culture of their subjects.

Subjugation

With subjugation, further class distinctions arise. The conquered people are enslaved; thus the widest possible social classes are produced: the enslaved and the free. The slaves are put to work to support the upper classes, who regard war as their chief business. The state is in origin a product of war and exists primarily as an enforced peace between conquerors and conquered. From slavery and from conquest, another result of war, sprang differentiation of classes and occupations termed the division of labour. Through conquest, society became divided into a ruling militant class and a subject industrial class. The regulative function devolved upon the conquering soldiers and operations side to the serfs and slaves.

Recapture

The right of countries to engage in self-defence against a war of aggression is enshrined in the Article 51 of the UN Charter. Military occupation can be seen as a continued attack against the self-determination of the occupied country. Some argue the right to armed recapture of illegally occupied territories increases with the passage of time.

See also

• Decolonization
• Invasion
• Right of conquest
• Victory