Battles of the late Third Age

[Numenorean]

Good to see you are back Ru, and with a brilliant analysis of this battle and the geography too.

The thing which initially struck me about this clash was that despite the festering schemes and subterfuge of Saruman and Grima, the Rohirrim were still able to offer and put up a vigorous level of mobilisation when the need arose. Given the four years or so of dotage that Théoden endured prior to the attack, credit for this must lay primarily with Théodred and Éomer, though the other Captains of the Rohirrim that get a mention, Grimbold, Elfhelm and Erkenbrand also come across as being highly motivated, well trained and more than able to act upon their own initiative.

The pretext to Sarumans offensive is exactly as Rumil pointed out:

this was a prelude to the full-scale invasion of Rohan and was, apparently, fought with one aim in mind -
Saruman had given special orders that Theodred should at all costs be slain

To this end he deployed a special "company of men or orc-men...ferocious, mail-clad, and armed with axes." I wonder what race this company actually was? Tolkien describes them rather ambiguously as great orc-men in one breath then great axemen in the next, and he holds them distinct from the Uruks who charged down the eastern bank. At any rate these fiendish axe-wielders were successful in that they killed Théodred, but failed in their secondary objective of returning his body to Saruman as "Elfhelm himself...sprang up towards the knoll; and there he found Grimbold fighting two great axemen for possession of Théodreds body. One Elfhelm at once slew, and the other fell before Grimbold."
Then as Rumil states

Surprisingly, at a horn signal, the uruk-hai drew off and disappeared into the night. Likewise at the western end of the ford, Saruman's troops drew off. They had failed in their military objective to take the fords, but had succeeded in their political objective to kill Theodred. From Saruman's point of view this was a reasonable outcome

Reasonable for Saruman in the short term, but in the grand scheme of things it must surely go down as a disasterously missed opportunity for the Wizard. Rohan may well have fallen entirely had the Isengarders pressed on in full force instead of retreating under the assumption that killing the Kings Heir was enough to demoralise the proud Eorlingas.
For the Rohirrim however, I feel the opposite view holds for the outcome. In the short term they were badly beaten, and the loss of Théodred was great, yet if anything their resolve was hardened and their military structure remained intact as Erkenbrand immediately assumed command of the West-mark. All-in-all they were far from defeated, as they never actually withdrew from the west bank or the Fords of Isen, and more importantly still - they never lost hope.

[Tuor of Gondolin]

This is quite an interesting thread. As to maps covering areas of battles in Middle-earth, The Atlas of Middle-earth , by K. W. Fonstad, is useful.

The numbers in Saruman's army are interesting, and perhaps somewhat
inconsistent. It does seem probable that there were 6,000 + in the Battles of the Fords of Isen. So perhaps his withdrawal after killing Theodred was necessary to
regroup and reorganize, since he had just 10,000 + at Helm's Deep. And why
would a Rohirric rout in far western Rohan necessarily have been decisive, given that the basis of a 10, 000 + Rohan force still presumably existed in central and eastern Rohan, and you would think that a considerable portion could have been mustered in the Edoras/Dunharrow area.

Also, a military error is not necessarily the same as a mistake. An example is the failure of General Ewell at Gettysburg to attack Culp's Hill on July 1st. An attack might have taken it, but given the general situation as he knew it
he was probably right to regroup and attack the next day. Similarly, Saruman
and/or his commander (not elephant-man orc ) may have felt it both prudent and militarily correct to withdraw and regroup, although of course that did turn out to be an error.

[Numenorean]

Hi Tuor, you asked:

why would a Rohirric rout in far western Rohan necessarily have been decisive, given that the basis of a 10, 000 + Rohan force still presumably existed in central and eastern Rohan, and you would think that a considerable portion could have been mustered in the Edoras/Dunharrow area.

I see your point, but I was just extending the premise that JRRT lays out in U.T, before the account of the battle he says:

Saruman made the mistake, fatal as it proved, of not immediately throwing in more forces and proceeding at once to a massive invasion of Westfold; though the valour of Grimbold and Elfhelm contributed to his delay. If the invasion of Westfold had begun five days earlier, there can be little doubt that the reinforcements from Edoras would never have come near Helm's Deep, but would have been surrounded and overwhelmed in the open plain; if indeed Edoras had not itself been attacked and captured before the arrival of Gandalf.

[Rumil]

Hi all,

Thanks for the welcome back ! (and to Saucepan Man on another thread)

Nilpaurion Felagund, I think you hit the nail exactly on the head in your description of this battle as a double envelopment. On maps, the one in the book itself shows the general layout, but for specifics like the hills and rough ground I've used the accounts of 1st and 2nd Isen in UT and for the narrow cutting, the account of Theoden et al crossing the river in LoTR.

As to the axemen, as Numenorean said, 'Men or orc-men' and 'axemen' are the phrases used. I'd guess that both 'races' might be included in this unit, as orc-men or halforcs are also mentioned at Helm's Deep and there is the halforc-esque charcter in Bree who was spying for Saruman. Perhaps this elite unit comprised the taller, more man-like halforcs if you know what I mean! They seem to have been Saruman's most fearsome fighters.

As Tuor said, its only with the benefit of hindsight that we can spot most 'errors'. The Rohirrim evidently expected Saruman to attack at a later date. I wonder if that was his original plan and he brought forward the date of the main invasion when he realised that hobbits were around, potentially carrying the ring. Maybe it would have suited him better if Wormtongue had a few months to confuse the war effort of Rohan without Theodred and Eomer able to interfere?

Saruman's numbers and the mobilisation of Rohan are linked subjects brought up by both Numenorean and Tuor. I'd agree that Erkenbrand, Grimbold and Elfhelm were courageous leaders but I doubt if they had sufficient political authority to defy Wormtongue's commands. Therefore Theodred and Eomer were Saruman's main initial targets, either for character assassination or real assassination!

On the numbers of Saruman's troops, the numbers I've come up with here are no more than guesses really. If I recall, the only real evidence we have for Saruman's main army is from Merry or Pippin, who descibe it as 10,000 at the least. Therefore I see two possibilities-

Maybe the hobbits greatly underestimated Saruman's force. This is apparently a very easy mistake to make, though usually numbers tend to be over-estimated when you compare eyewitness accounts with paylists etc for historical battles. Untrained observers (unlike Ghan-buri-Ghan) are often 10-fold out in their reckoning. Imagine trying to guess the number of spectators at a football match if you didn't know the capacity of the stadium! Also 'at least 10,000' seems quite a casual statement. Maybe some contingents of the army (eg. the Dunlendings) didn't meet up with the army until later?

Alternatively, perhaps Saruman only had 10,000 troops, give or take a few thousand. In that case, he was really exceptionally bold in launching an invasion of Rohan when numerically outnumbered by the Rohirrim about 2 to 1, and qualitatively outnumbered by lots more, as a knight of Rohan was ceratinly superior in combat to a bunch of snagas. (Rohan had 10 to 12,000 cavalry plus a number of local levies on foot, which may have totalled nearly 10,000 according to one reference in HoME). The only way he could hope to win in that case would be to demoralise and confuse the Rohirrim, which was going qiute nicely through Wormtongue, then to strike at the main centres of Rohan, Helm's Deep and Edoras, before a general mobilisation of Rohan took place. In this scenario, Wormtongue's interfering would be absolutely crucial. What a strange thought to have the good guys outnumbering the bad guys in one of Tolkien's battles!!

Just thought I'd add a link in to an old thread with some Battles of the Isen discussion, and lots of nice info from Bill Ferny mostly on Page 2 - where is the old horse thief these days anyway?

Visualising Middle Earth

PS. Ignore all the rubbish I was talking about panzerstecher swords!

By the way, Saruman seems to have a big reconnaisance advantage in these battles - the palantir and the crebain perhaps?