REBELLION  , the

act or continuance in act of a rebel or rebels (Lat. rebellio, rebellis, a compound of ye-, against, and bellum, war) . A rebel is one who engages in armed resistance to the government to which he owes allegiance . For the distinction between Civil War and Rebellion, see WAR, LAWS OF . Where individuals as distinguished from groups of men are concerned the character of rebel is easier to determine . That the alleged act of war was done by order of another cannot be in principle an excuse for a subject or citizen of any state taking arms against it . Under the rules of war adopted at the Hague in 1907, moreover, any excuse for doing so is removed by the provision that a belligerent is forbidden to compel nationals of the hostile party to take part in operations of war against their own country, " even if they were in the belligerent's service before the commencement of the war " (art . 123) . In the case of R. v . Louw, known as the " Calvinia Flogging case " (Supreme Court of the Cape Colony, Feb . 18, 1904), the question of the validity of the excuse of acting under orders contrary to allegiance was discussed in an uncertain spirit, and in a previous case, the Moritz case, tried before the Treason Court at Mafeking (Nov . 7, 1901), the court held that insurgent nationals " who had joined the burghers must be placed on the same footing as burghers fighting against us." There may be special circumstances operating to qualify the application of a principle, but the above stated principle, as such, must be regarded as the only legal basis of argument on the subject . (T .