Húrin Thalion
02-03-2003, 04:06 PM
Ok here comes the first part of my modest lecture.
Weapons and warfare in middle earth:
I have now been given the great honor to write this lecture about warfare and weapons in Middle Earth, a very delicate and interesting subject in my opinion. You will have to forgive me if I sometimes is lost in my own harangues or go of-topic a little sometimes, such nasty habits has come to me through reading works of such authors. Anyway, to the topic: I have thought of putting up this lecture in many forms but stuck for the final and present variant at last, I will first give a basic course in dark age warfare and armament and then I will compare it to Middle-earth and I think that we will see some similarities there. If that is acceptable to you all, I have decided to deal with the third age armies here since all who may be interested in this lecture haven't read the Silmarillion. To describe the form of the lecture more exactly, I have divided it into four main categories: Infantry, Cavalry, Siege and Overall Strategy although I do not doubt that this will be a little like the Silmarillion, several different threads tied together but intertwining with each other all the time, in shorter words, don't count on me to keep entirely to the subject since all these subjects are in relation to each other and would not be necessary nor existent without the others. I could have made this lecture include Middle-earth politics too, but since they don't seem to have been to developed I will not (see the debate with the mouth of Sauron, that was how sofisticated politics were in the third age. Otherwise people were bound together through marriages or oaths). This lesson will unfortunately not deal very much about weaponry in the beginning since I will leave that to those that are specially interested in that, in the weaponry piece I would like to thank Niklas N. for vital information and help on the subject. I would also like to thank those of you who have given me links, they have been most useful!
Another important thing, I am in no way an expert in either warfare or even in history, I have only read the A course in the university yet so I won't be offended if something is wrong and you say so. If you think that something is faulty, strange, wrongly expressed or just want to say what you think is good say that in the thread so that all may know what is wrong. You could also PM me if you don't want to make a statement in the thread, or email me at MansW@hotmail.com.
Wednesday the eight day of the first month in the year 2003 in Stockholm
Måns Wadensjö, also known as Húrin Thalion.
A ground course in "dark" age warfare:
The term dark age is marked because it is not a correct expression, it has often been used about periods when international relations and culture are stagnating (though often they aren't, often just turned to another way), the most famous of these is western Europe (and the one I am talking about now) during the period between the fall of the western Roman empire 472 C.E. (Common Era, European reckoning of years) and the beginning of the era in later days called the Feudal age, somewhere around 1000C.E. All these numbers should be taken with caution since a historical event is seldom or never cause by one reason alone or at once, they are almost always caused by a slow process of development (or decay indeed). But now I will go into the four topics and then compare them to Middle earth.
SIEGE:
Sieges was the most important feature in all warfare and has been so until modern times when regular sieges are often replaced by street fighting. Since an army cannot operate without supplies and strong positions to withdraw to walled cities had great importance and thus the warfare was centered there. In a great battle anything could happen and a weaker side could overcome their opponents (Azincourt for example) and many commanders were therefore reluctant to face the enemy on an open field. Moreover cities were important for their tax incomes and as cities often swore allegiance in return for protection a failure to save a city could mean that others abandoned your side.Tolkien knew this well and none of the four great battles in the war of the Ring is not originally a siege and then a relief/sally. Far over half the forces a commander controlled used to be stationed at strong points and cities and in case of a major battle some troops from the nearby keeps were called to the main army. The weapons used in sieges were (for a well organized army) catapults, siege towers/ladders and battering rams. Catapults were large engines used to sling stones at walls to damage them and shake the defenders before the assault. Ladders were simply ladders used to scale walls, unfortunately they could be pushed down and thus kill all those who climbed on them. This was a way to use the height of the wall against the defender, the larger ladder the heavier and thus harder to push down. Siege towers were basically moving towers used to cover ladders and prevent them from being pushed down. They could never be used with surprise because of their gigantic size and the time it took to get them moving. When they came closer to the city the walls would be barraged with arrows and stones from above and the assault force would storm the walls Being in that force was a dangerous but well paid job, the casualties would be extreme, often above 50 per cent but in turn you got to choose your spoils first and also get maybe twice as much as the others in the sacking of the city. They were volunteers who risked their lives for money. Battering rams could be anything from a long tree that was hurled against the walls to a wall and roof covered engine rolled to the gate and hurled against it. Pretty primitive mode of storming and involved huge casualties for those who hurled the ram, see the assault of Gondor and the breaking of the gates.
SIEGE IN MIDDLE EARTH:
Now let me at last go into the most interesting part of this topic, middle earth! The four great battles were as said really sieges and relief attempts/sallies. The attack upon the Hornburg was not really a siege but a continous and risky assault which failed because of the relief brought by Gandalf and Erkenbrand, there the forces of Saruman used ladders, rams and explosives (!). Since we do not know the nature of that explosive devilry I must leave that to be but the ladders were used as earlier said, raised against the walls and thrown down again by the defenders. Also the orcs used a pretty ineffective way to hold down the defenders, they continously fired barrages of arrows at the walls, that is a waste of arrows. The most important point of that siege is the Hornburg itself as described in the book. I have totally rejected the movie makers view of it as incorrect and unhistorical. Firstly it is a fortress used to barr the way of a valley, not a last refuge, secondly the keep should not have been connected with the wall which makes an assault upon it easier. Helm's dike is left out and the greatness of the fortress is not displayed as about 500 men is said to be enough to man it, Theoden rode out from Edoras with greater forces and even then he had not enough men to hold Helm's dike. To leave that we go to the second and more important battle where the armies of Minas Morgul assaulted Minas Tirith, the Guard Tower and great city of Gondor. Let us take a look at the process, the Black commander came to and conquered Osgiliath and then the Rammas, outer walls of MT. After reaching the city he let his forces set camp upon the plains around it after plundering them. The city was to be closed in and even more importantly, the defenders were to be shown that and despair. To do that he lit fires in tenches to ensure that no relief army could break through his forces and come into the city. After that he started firing his great engines of war at the city, not as the walls because they were built before the cunning and craftsmanship of Númenor waned in the exile. Instead he shot into the city with the heads of killed men to make the defenders despair and set fire to the two outer circles of the city with great balls taking fire when they landed. If the city would have been prepared for that they would have poured water over the tow circles and put soaked hides before the windows. When the city was in chaos he unleashed his forces upon it in the middle of the night. But in the moment that he face the only one who could stand against him in Gondor, Gandalf the white, his darkness was broken and the assault thrown aside by an unexpected relief. The assault had been extremely well planned but for one thing, one single secret road made all his precautions in vain. The pirates of Umbar were set to prevent Gondor form gathering it's strength in the great city, Saruman to destroy the Rohirrim. Naught could go wrong he thought but he counted not on the wild men living in the forests around the white mountains, they showed Theoden a way around the fortified camp of orcs that the riders of Rohan could not have ridden down and gained access to the fields where they were most effective. After that Aragorn came with many men from the sea and all was ruined. This was but one of the armies of the Black Lord but it was the one he counted on to defeat his greatest foe, and thus his enemies won time to secure Frodo's arrival to Sammath Naur. The two other sieges, The lonely mountain and Mordor I will not describe here because one was no "real" siege and about the other not much information is given.
Weapons and warfare in middle earth:
I have now been given the great honor to write this lecture about warfare and weapons in Middle Earth, a very delicate and interesting subject in my opinion. You will have to forgive me if I sometimes is lost in my own harangues or go of-topic a little sometimes, such nasty habits has come to me through reading works of such authors. Anyway, to the topic: I have thought of putting up this lecture in many forms but stuck for the final and present variant at last, I will first give a basic course in dark age warfare and armament and then I will compare it to Middle-earth and I think that we will see some similarities there. If that is acceptable to you all, I have decided to deal with the third age armies here since all who may be interested in this lecture haven't read the Silmarillion. To describe the form of the lecture more exactly, I have divided it into four main categories: Infantry, Cavalry, Siege and Overall Strategy although I do not doubt that this will be a little like the Silmarillion, several different threads tied together but intertwining with each other all the time, in shorter words, don't count on me to keep entirely to the subject since all these subjects are in relation to each other and would not be necessary nor existent without the others. I could have made this lecture include Middle-earth politics too, but since they don't seem to have been to developed I will not (see the debate with the mouth of Sauron, that was how sofisticated politics were in the third age. Otherwise people were bound together through marriages or oaths). This lesson will unfortunately not deal very much about weaponry in the beginning since I will leave that to those that are specially interested in that, in the weaponry piece I would like to thank Niklas N. for vital information and help on the subject. I would also like to thank those of you who have given me links, they have been most useful!
Another important thing, I am in no way an expert in either warfare or even in history, I have only read the A course in the university yet so I won't be offended if something is wrong and you say so. If you think that something is faulty, strange, wrongly expressed or just want to say what you think is good say that in the thread so that all may know what is wrong. You could also PM me if you don't want to make a statement in the thread, or email me at MansW@hotmail.com.
Wednesday the eight day of the first month in the year 2003 in Stockholm
Måns Wadensjö, also known as Húrin Thalion.
A ground course in "dark" age warfare:
The term dark age is marked because it is not a correct expression, it has often been used about periods when international relations and culture are stagnating (though often they aren't, often just turned to another way), the most famous of these is western Europe (and the one I am talking about now) during the period between the fall of the western Roman empire 472 C.E. (Common Era, European reckoning of years) and the beginning of the era in later days called the Feudal age, somewhere around 1000C.E. All these numbers should be taken with caution since a historical event is seldom or never cause by one reason alone or at once, they are almost always caused by a slow process of development (or decay indeed). But now I will go into the four topics and then compare them to Middle earth.
SIEGE:
Sieges was the most important feature in all warfare and has been so until modern times when regular sieges are often replaced by street fighting. Since an army cannot operate without supplies and strong positions to withdraw to walled cities had great importance and thus the warfare was centered there. In a great battle anything could happen and a weaker side could overcome their opponents (Azincourt for example) and many commanders were therefore reluctant to face the enemy on an open field. Moreover cities were important for their tax incomes and as cities often swore allegiance in return for protection a failure to save a city could mean that others abandoned your side.Tolkien knew this well and none of the four great battles in the war of the Ring is not originally a siege and then a relief/sally. Far over half the forces a commander controlled used to be stationed at strong points and cities and in case of a major battle some troops from the nearby keeps were called to the main army. The weapons used in sieges were (for a well organized army) catapults, siege towers/ladders and battering rams. Catapults were large engines used to sling stones at walls to damage them and shake the defenders before the assault. Ladders were simply ladders used to scale walls, unfortunately they could be pushed down and thus kill all those who climbed on them. This was a way to use the height of the wall against the defender, the larger ladder the heavier and thus harder to push down. Siege towers were basically moving towers used to cover ladders and prevent them from being pushed down. They could never be used with surprise because of their gigantic size and the time it took to get them moving. When they came closer to the city the walls would be barraged with arrows and stones from above and the assault force would storm the walls Being in that force was a dangerous but well paid job, the casualties would be extreme, often above 50 per cent but in turn you got to choose your spoils first and also get maybe twice as much as the others in the sacking of the city. They were volunteers who risked their lives for money. Battering rams could be anything from a long tree that was hurled against the walls to a wall and roof covered engine rolled to the gate and hurled against it. Pretty primitive mode of storming and involved huge casualties for those who hurled the ram, see the assault of Gondor and the breaking of the gates.
SIEGE IN MIDDLE EARTH:
Now let me at last go into the most interesting part of this topic, middle earth! The four great battles were as said really sieges and relief attempts/sallies. The attack upon the Hornburg was not really a siege but a continous and risky assault which failed because of the relief brought by Gandalf and Erkenbrand, there the forces of Saruman used ladders, rams and explosives (!). Since we do not know the nature of that explosive devilry I must leave that to be but the ladders were used as earlier said, raised against the walls and thrown down again by the defenders. Also the orcs used a pretty ineffective way to hold down the defenders, they continously fired barrages of arrows at the walls, that is a waste of arrows. The most important point of that siege is the Hornburg itself as described in the book. I have totally rejected the movie makers view of it as incorrect and unhistorical. Firstly it is a fortress used to barr the way of a valley, not a last refuge, secondly the keep should not have been connected with the wall which makes an assault upon it easier. Helm's dike is left out and the greatness of the fortress is not displayed as about 500 men is said to be enough to man it, Theoden rode out from Edoras with greater forces and even then he had not enough men to hold Helm's dike. To leave that we go to the second and more important battle where the armies of Minas Morgul assaulted Minas Tirith, the Guard Tower and great city of Gondor. Let us take a look at the process, the Black commander came to and conquered Osgiliath and then the Rammas, outer walls of MT. After reaching the city he let his forces set camp upon the plains around it after plundering them. The city was to be closed in and even more importantly, the defenders were to be shown that and despair. To do that he lit fires in tenches to ensure that no relief army could break through his forces and come into the city. After that he started firing his great engines of war at the city, not as the walls because they were built before the cunning and craftsmanship of Númenor waned in the exile. Instead he shot into the city with the heads of killed men to make the defenders despair and set fire to the two outer circles of the city with great balls taking fire when they landed. If the city would have been prepared for that they would have poured water over the tow circles and put soaked hides before the windows. When the city was in chaos he unleashed his forces upon it in the middle of the night. But in the moment that he face the only one who could stand against him in Gondor, Gandalf the white, his darkness was broken and the assault thrown aside by an unexpected relief. The assault had been extremely well planned but for one thing, one single secret road made all his precautions in vain. The pirates of Umbar were set to prevent Gondor form gathering it's strength in the great city, Saruman to destroy the Rohirrim. Naught could go wrong he thought but he counted not on the wild men living in the forests around the white mountains, they showed Theoden a way around the fortified camp of orcs that the riders of Rohan could not have ridden down and gained access to the fields where they were most effective. After that Aragorn came with many men from the sea and all was ruined. This was but one of the armies of the Black Lord but it was the one he counted on to defeat his greatest foe, and thus his enemies won time to secure Frodo's arrival to Sammath Naur. The two other sieges, The lonely mountain and Mordor I will not describe here because one was no "real" siege and about the other not much information is given.