Civil war was probably unavoidable. Egged on by scheming courtiers and generals, relations between Atawallpa and Washkar spent several years swinging through the emotional valence from concealed suspicion to overt hostility. Washkar, in Qosqo, had the machinery of the state at his disposal; in addition, his claim to the fringe was generally accepted. Atawallpa, in Ecuador, had a wartested army and the best generals but a weaker claim to the throne (his mother was merely his father’s cousin, not his sister).
