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Warning! This page contains information regarding Star Trek: Discovery, and thus may contain spoilers.
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The Breen Civil War was a civil war between six different factions of Breen for control of the Breen Imperium.
The civil war started at some point following the death of the Breen Emperor when the disparate branches of the royal bloodline began making competing claims for the throne. Six Primarchs of the Yod-Thot, including Ruhn and Tahal, fought for control of the Imperium with each other. (DIS: "Erigah")
Ruhn's nephew L'ak was a direct descendant of the emperor, making him the Scion of the Breen Imperium, meaning that whichever faction was able to control L'ak would have a legitimate claim to the throne through him. However, L'ak hated being the Scion and later rebelled against his uncle after falling in love with Moll, getting an erigah blood bounty placed upon their heads. (DIS: "Mirrors", "Erigah")
In 3191, Moll and L'ak were captured by the United Federation of Planets who attempted to use the ongoing civil war to their advantage by lying to Ruhn that Tahal had offered them a deal for L'ak, but offering to keep L'ak in their custody instead so that none of the factions would be able to control him. This way, that status quo would be maintained and Ruhn could continue fighting for the throne. However, this plan was derailed when L'ak accidentally killed himself with an overdose of tricordrazine. Ruhn plotted to use his nephew's corpse to unite the Imperium behind him and Moll offered him the Progenitors' technology which would give Ruhn the unquestioned edge over his rivals which Ruhn accepted. (DIS: "Erigah")
After Ruhn prepared to break a tergun and destroy the Eternal Gallery and Archive, an act that would draw both the Federation and all of the rest of the Breen down upon him, the Primarch's own soldiers turned on him for Ruhn's lust for power and control over all else. Ruhn was killed by Moll who took control of the Primarch's forces with the intention of resurrecting L'ak to take his rightful place as the ruler of the Breen Imperium. (DIS: "Labyrinths")
Within hours, the other five Primarchs learned of Ruhn's death and moved to use it to bolster their own claims to the throne. In particular, Tahal chased after Ruhn's dreadnaught with her entire fleet, intending to claim Ruhn's soldiers for her own service. Upon learning of this, Federation Ambassador Saru, having just returned from a diplomatic mission near Breen space, warned that such a development could cause panic on worlds near the Breen border who were already tense from the increasing aggression of the Breen. In addition, the Federation worried that Tahal would learn of and get her hands on the Progenitors' technology, but most of Starfleet was too far away to intervene in time. Although Ruhn's dreadnaught was severely damaged by the USS Discovery, taking with it his forces, Moll escaped into a portal to where the Progenitors' technology was stored with L'ak's body contained in a portable pattern buffer. (DIS: "Lagrange Point")
Using the Federation's new pathway drive, Saru and Commander Nhan intercepted Tahal and offered her a trade route through the L'Tar Nebula, a place where Saru already knew that Tahal's faction had several bases. When the Primarch refused to back down, Saru threatened to have the worlds in the region destroy Tahal's bases which would weaken her and prevent Tahal from claiming the throne. Tahal ultimately conceded, but left a cloaked scout ship behind to monitor the situation. Unable to destroy the dreadnaught, the USS Discovery managed to use its spore drive to jump both it and Tahal's scout ship to the galactic barrier which the two ships would need a couple of decades to return from.
Although Burnham and Moll found the technology, it could not be used to resurrect L'ak and Burnham ultimately had the portal thrown into the event horizon of a primordial black hole to keep anyone from ever using it again. (DIS: "Life, Itself")