Hello again,
been a busy couple of weeks, sorry for not continuing this thread before now.
We now move swiftly on to Aragorn's attack on Umbar...
Quote:
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and he came to Umbar unlooked for by night, and there burned a great part of the ships of the Corsairs
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Sadly not much is recorded of this, doubly so as its the only naval operation of the time we are considering. Allegedly, Tolkien once wrote an account of the journeys of Aragorn but this is now lost - AAAARRRGH!!
In or just before 2980, Aragorn, under Ecthelion II's employ as Thorongil, managed to convince the steward to authorise an attack on the Corsairs of Umbar. The Corsairs had attacked Gondor many times before, and looked likely to do so again. This attack had been opposed by Denethor (Ecthelion's son) due to his jealousy of Thorongil's success.
Aragorn gathered a small fleet, attacked the Corsairs at anchor in the harbour of Umbar and overthrew the Captain of the Havens on the quay, burnt many ships and escaped with small loss.
It seems plain that this was a surprise attack, catching the Corsairs at unawares, presumably most of the ships' crews were not aboard. Aragorn's forces would have had to defeat whatever Corsairs were guarding the ships or were quartered nearby, during which engagement he slew the Captain of the Harbour. Then he would have had to send men to fire the Corsair ships while keeping any Corsair re-inforcements at bay, before making good his escape.
What of the forces? Frankly I have no idea of the numbers involved, though it would have to be between a couple of hundred and a few thousand per side. I wonder if the Gondorian fleet transported soldiers to use as marines, or whether only the ships' crews took part?
The Corsairs were composed of the 'King's Men' of the Second Age, the renagades of the 3rd Age Kinstrife and probably many of the local Haradrim, they used slaves to row their ships, I wonder if any were rescued? We know that the Corsairs had at least 50 great 'dromunds' and many smaller craft during the War of the Ring, though this was at least 38 years later, so they could have rebuilt the fleet by then. I've found two different historical types of dromund, one was a Byzantine war galley, the other a Baltic trading ship. I favour the war-galley as it 'fits' better with my image of the Corsairs. Any opinions from nautical types?
What we know nothing about is the Gondorian fleet, a few thousand years earlier they had used galleons, but the survival of this ship type so long appears unlikely. The main problem is that no Gondorian navy is ever mentioned in the War of the Ring. I wonder if Denethor had subsequently neglected (and cut funds from) the navy due to its association with Thorongil? Maybe Thorongil's fleet was made up of impressed merchant ships, though you'd imagine it would be a rather long voyage for the fishing boats of Ethir.
We also know practically nothing about Umbar. It obviously had a harbour, but was also constructed by the Numenoreans during their years of power in the Second Age. Therefore it was probably a very heavily fortified city (though it had been taken by Gondor a couple of times). I'd expect that the port would not have been well protected due to the lack of threat to the original builders from the sea. (A sort of reverse Singapore!)
Well, there you have it, Aragorn doing a Sir Francis Drake impersonation and 'singeing the Corsairs' beards'. Shame it wasn't done a few years before the War of the Ring, allowing the Corsairs no time for re-building!
PS. Iarhen, I'm sure that Nenya would have been a liability to Galadriel if Sauron had the One Ring (as in the Second Age). If she had a fast horse and didn't stay to protect her realm, I guess she could have escaped to the Havens!
[ September 23, 2003: Message edited by: Rumil ]