Posted: December 28, 1999 at 22:12:25: by Michael Martinez
We have no precise numbers for the soldiers outside of Minas Tirith, but we do know that at least some of those who marched to reinforce Denethor's garrison were "quality" troops: Prince Imrahil and his 700 men-at-arms, plus the knights of Dol Amroth, are portrayed as very professional, extremely well-cultured men of full or nearly-full Numenorean heritage.The reinforcements, numbering maybe 2700 men (I'm not going to look it up), were considered by the (admittedly poorly informed) people of Minas Tirith to be only a tenth of the strength that could have been sent to help in the war. The vast majority of Gondor's forces, therefore, were left in the west (not the south) to defend the coastlands. And Aragorn only encountered a part of those forces. He did not pass through the Anfalas or enter Belfalas. He gathered up what men were available at Linhir and led them to Pelargir, which had already fallen. Presumably Gondor had already suffered many casualties in those battles. Aragorn gathered many men out of Lebenin and from the lands of Ethir Anduin, but he had little time in which to wait for them to arrive. And Aragorn's hope wasn't to overthrow Sauron by military force, so with his 50 large ships and innumerable lesser vessels he may have brought 5-10,000 men to Minas Tirith. Angbor led another 4,000 up the road to reinforce the city. How many remained behind? We don't know. But by no means did all of Gondor's available manpower reach or even attempt to reach Minas Tirith. We've been unable to agree on a size for Denethor's army in Minas Tirith. I think we sort of implicitly agreed that an upper limit would be around 11,000 men. This would include: 1) all the Rangers of Ithilien (at least several hundred, but Faramir's company may not have been the only one) 2) the force of unknown size at Cair Andros (mostly destroyed or captured -- only a few fugitives reached Minas Tirith to inform Gandalf the island had fallen) 3) the garrison at Osgiliath 4) the garrisons of the two causeway forts where the road to Osgiliath passed through the Rammas 5) the main body of troops in Minas Tirith itself 6) the guards of the citadel 7) and whatever small garrisons were stationed at or near the various beacon towers and perhaps at watch-posts along the Rammas Those are just the forces we know of. Denethor could well have had other forces under his direct command which didn't enter into the story (but to assume so without any textual evidence is rather pointless). Faramir sent most of his Rangers to reinforce Osgiliath, and he led more reinforcements as Denethor felt could be spared from the main garrison in Minas Tirith, but Boromir had already lost many men the year before when the Nazgul crossed Anduin.
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