The White Council

Re: Gondor at the end of the Third Age

Tolkien and Inklings Discussion

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: : First, there were fifty great ships and many smaller vessels : : at Pelargir. We are not told the numbers of ships (or : : relative size) at Linhir, though the greater force was at : : Pelargir. "Smaller vessels beyond count" are the exact words : : Legolas used. Well, "beyond count" is pretty inspecific but : : it must be greater than 50. So there were more than 100 : : ships (50 big ones and at least 50 smaller ones) at Pelargir.

: Tolkien uses the word "drumond," a small medieval galley, to : describe these small ships.

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I recall seeing "dromund" somewhere but I'm not sure of where. I could not find it in "The Last Debate", I was rushing through.

Legolas speaks of the masted ships hoisting sail when the wind changes, implying that some were not masted. He also says some of the ships were "drawn up" at Pelargir while others were anchored in the harbor. And many of the smaller ships were burned, it seems.

I have a book on ships somewhere, but I may have left it in Albuquerque. It had some information on dromund capacities, but I suspect there were many types of ships in the harbor.

: : Secondly, you're assuming there is a medieval connection, and : : there is none. Tolkien compared Gondor to classical : : civilizations, and the Corsair fleets are more similar in : : their threat and history to the great pirate fleets which had : : roamed the Mediterranean Sea during the classical period. : : 20-30,000 men would not have been uncommon among such forces.

: Medieval maritime technology was not significantly different : from that of the ancients, however. As for numbers...I think : 20,000+ men transported for maritime invasion would have been : atypical (though not impossible) for the ancient world.

These large numbers are recorded in ancient texts and apparently accepted. The numbers I cite came from John Warry's WARFARE IN THE CLASSICAL WORLD. Classical armies and navies were considerably larger than medieval armies and navies.

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: : Pompey is said to have raised 500 warships and 125,000 men to : : go against the 1,000 ships of the pirates. He captured 90 : : warships with full equipment in his campaign to clear the : : seas of their menace.

: I have always found the claims for Pompey's force, like so many : of the ancient world, difficult to accept. Most historians : tend to shave the numbers claimed for ancient armies.

I'm aware of this tendency. However, recent research bears up some of the claims, and I cannot tell if Warry accepts them or merely provides his own numbers. I suppose I could look for my Suetonius, but I'm pretty sure I left that in Albuquerque, too. When I moved across country I only brought a few books with me.

: : What can you possibly know about the population of Harad, : : and where do you get your information? Tolkien says : : virtually nothing about Harad except that it has many : : countries and kings.

: It was mostly desert, for one. I think that if Gondor (to : accept your numbers) had difficulty mustering over 30,000 men, : a more primitive, less organized society in far less hospitable : land (over an admittedly larger area) would have difficulty : raising such a massive force.

Harad was not desert. The only place where "desert" occurs is on one map referring to the "debatable and desert land" of Harondor between the Anduin-Poros and Harnen rivers. However, "desert" in this context does not necessarily imply desert (sand, scrub, brush) -- it could just as easily imply a deserted land where no lives any longer.

Harad had to support forests and grasslands. Otherwise the Mumakil would not have had a habitat in which to live, and the horses as well. Also, the Haradrim had to have wood for their ships, and the Numenoreans conquered many lands in Harad, building many cities and fortresses down there. The lands had to be appealing to them.

: For the moment, I think I could stretch and accept a total : Corsair force up to... 15,000 or so. We have little to go on, : so I can't really argue against raising the ceiling a little.

If you mean 15,000 warriors on top of the rowers and mariners you mentioned previously (I inadvertently cut that from the text), we may be able to compromise there. But I would accept that only as a bare minimum. 15,000 men could easily have been overwhelmed by Gondor's forces in a pitched battle.

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: : 10,000 is extremely small by Middle-earth standards.

: 10,000 is how many soldiers Turgon led from Gondolin into the : Nirnaeth Arnoediad -- "extremely small" may be an unwarranted : exaggeration.

Turgon's army existed in the First Age -- and it was by no means the largest army. The Edain alone probably constituted around 10,000 warriors in Fingon's army -- and I suspect they may have been considerably more numerous than that.

The Second Age armies probably numbered in the hundreds of thousands, especially in the War of the Elves and Sauron and the War of the Last Alliance of Elves and Men.

: : Sauron had assembled somewhere in the neighborhood of 100,000 : : soldiers and Corsairs just for the assault on Gondor by the : : most conservative of estimates. That doesn't include the : : forces he sent against Dale, Lorien, the kingdom of Northern : : Mirkwood, and the Beornings. Nor does it include Saruman's : : relatively small army of 10,000+ Orcs, Half-orcs, and : : Dunlendings.

: You forgot the force sent across the Eastfold, destroyed by the : Ents. :-)

Ah, yes. :)

: 100,000 total against Gondor may not be that far off.

: [snip]

: : : But everything Tolkien says points toward the greatest : : : effort being made at Minas Tirith -- not the coastlands.

: : No. Minas Tirith was just a minor battle.

: Sorry, I don't agree at all with that. You can say that the : attack on Minas Tirith was one of many. You can say that a : majority of Sauron's forces and allies were employed elsewhere : or held in reserve. But to call it "just a minor battle" : stretches things too far, and not merely because it marks the : climax of the action in LOTR.

The climax of the action should be either the battle on the Dagorlad or the conflict between Gollum and Frodo. At Minas Tirith the odds were more in Gondor's favor. They had the element of surprise TWICE come in on their side. And yet by our best estimates, there were fewer soldiers involved in the Battle of the Pelennor Fields than in the Battle of the Morannon. Oddly, Gondor ended up with a much smaller force at Dagorlad than it had at Minas Tirith.

: He may have been simply trying to build up his case for : Theoden, but Hirgon, errand rider for Denethor, makes clear : Denethor's opinion (which may have been tinged with conceit and : pride, but true nonetheless): "For it is before the walls of : Minas Tirith that the doom of our time will be decided..." And : Beregond: "Here the hammer stroke will fall hardest" -- and as : he rightly points out, it is where Gandalf makes haste for when : the war breaks out. It is to save Minas Tirith that Aragorn : sets out on the Paths of the Dead.

Yes, but in the event, the battle really didn't decide anything. Sauron's power was not broken. He wasn't even really stopped in his tracks. He was already preparing the next assault.

: Sauron used considerable forces in attacks on the Eastfold, : against Lorien, against Thranduil, against Dale and Erebor, : and of course against the southlands. But there's no evidence : that any one of these forces matched the army led by the Nazgul : against Minas Tirith -- collectively, perhaps, but not : individually. And taking Minas Tirith held for Sauron the best : chances of capturing the Ring and destroying the new Ringlord : before his strength was full grown.

Sauron probably lost around half his Gondorian campaign forces (100,000+) in the battles at Linhir, Pelargir, and Minas Tirith. But those were three separate battles.

But if we assume no more than 10,000 in any army for the other campaigns, we're still looking at at least than 50,000 soldiers (Lorien, Northern Mirkwood, Dale/Erebor, Beornings/Woodmen, Rohan).

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: : : : The Lord of the Nazgul by no means had the largest army.

: : : That's not my impression. It seemed to me that of all of : : : the first wave of attacks made by Sauron (Dale, Erebor, : : : Lorien, Eastfold, Minas Tirith, Pelargir & the coastlands) : : : the one directed at Minas Tirith was the greatest.

: : The largest army was that which Sauron unleashed against : : Aragorn and the Lords of the West at the Morannon. The Lord : : of the Nazgul had maybe 30,000 troops (Karen Fonstad : : estimates as many as 45,000 but her numbers are largely : : bogus). Sauron's army had at least 50,000.

: Tolkien says the Lords of the West were outnumbered more than : ten to one, so Sauron's armies should number more than 60,000.

Yes, good point. But that also pushes my "conservative" estimates up. At the start of the war, Sauron may have been moving 200,000+ soldiers and mariners into position to strike at the Free Peoples.

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: It seems to me that the exact balance is left ambiguous, but : certainly a large component was the army of the Easterlings : "that had waited for the signal in the shadows of the Ered : Lithui." The rest -- orcs, trolls, Southrons, and possibly : other Easterlings -- issued from the gates of the Morannon -- : exact origins and numbers unknown.

Agreed.