The Great Eye In Dol Guldur?

[Rhod the Red]

I don't know if the storyline would have changed since Sauron was basically ready to leave for Mordor when driven out by Saruman, anyway.

[Rune Son of Bjarne]

I don't think the answer is as simple as you all make it out to be. . .

Scenario1: Sauron keep Dol Guldur as his main base . . .This will most likely mean that Mordor will be easier to get to, still quite a task though. Now we don't know how strong Dol Guldur actually was, but it seems certain that it could not hold the ammount of troops as Mordor and Sauron would not be able to get re-inforcments un-noticed. So it is likely that the North would actually be prepared for a fight and I am not at all sertain that Lothlorien would fall. Sauron would also have to fight the Elves of Mirkwood! It could very well be that the main difference would be that traveling down the Anduin would be a very dangouress action.

Scenario2: Dol Guldur is kept as a fortress, but Mordor is the main base of Sauron. . . . .well, yeah then the fellowship would probably fail.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Rune, I agree with you on what you present here. But this is the minimalistic point of view. And I don't think Gandalf was unreasonable or paranoic, so I'd stick to the theory I have presented in my previous post

[Rumil]

I think Galadriel has a useful part to play in this discussion.

She maintained that although the White Council had driven Sauron from Dol Guldur, by the time of the War of the Ring, Dol Guldur had been reoccupied by the forces of Sauron with seven-fold their previous strength. I'd imagine it must have been full to bursting with the extra snagas and uruks!

These forces were unleashed in a number of directions during the war. They definitely attacked Lothlorien three times and were soundly defeated, they attacked Rohan while the main force of Rohirrim were in Gondor, but were caught by the ents on the Wold and massacred (this was probably part of the force that was repelled from Lothlorien). Forces attacked the Woodmen, Thranduil and possibly the Beornings in Mirkwood and maybe forces were sent to attack Erebor. Some of the attacks on Lothlorien and Mirkwood were no doubt supplemented by the goblins of the Misty Mountains, but you get the idea.

[The 1,000 Reader]

If I'm not mistaken, a main problem with Sauron's direction of his armies is that he spread them out too much and thus made it more difficult to effectively manage his attention on such forces. 45,000 troops? What about the strength of Mordor? Cirith Ungol to go with that? That was Sauron's main problem: he never tried to focus his attention and resources to take out a land. All he did was make many attacks of less focus and less strength at the same time. If he simply used both the strength of Minas Morgul and Mordor against Gondor, it would have surely fallen. Gondor would be overwhelmed and faced with many more attackers, meaning an easier siege. Once that was complete, Sauron could have focused all three of his armies together to sweep the north.

Though I believe Lothlorien to be too well-defended to take either way by the time of LOTR, If he used more than one army and flanked the land with his forces, he could stand a chance of taking it out. Once Lothlorien fell, he could have gone back to the eastern lands to recover (or, depending on the casulties,) pressed forward to swarm Mirkwood, which would likely suffer from tremendous loss of morale with the fall of Minas Tirith and Lothlorien. Afterwards, The Corsairs would guard Mordor and Minas Morgul from south-bound foes on land and from sea while the hosts of Dol Guldur, Minas Morgul and Mordor would regroup and then sweep down on Rivendell, possibly recruiting some goblins from the Misty Mountains.

[Rhod the Red]

He overstretched his forces and focused away from finding the Ring, that is clear. He payed for it with his life and so did his servants. With exception to the men of Rhun and Harad, who surrendered and accepted tribute to the Reunited Kingdom

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

The main problem was that the events (Aragorn...) made him act faster than he otherwise would. He'd surely make things happen better for him, better prepared, better strategy, better numbers. But he had to crush Minas Tirith before the Heir of the Kings would come in the city with The One Ring and then form something like a second Last Alliance (or so, in my opinion, Sauron thought) - thus, he must also have stopped everyone else from helping Gondor (no Elves from Lothlórien in Minas Tirith - if Sauron didn't attack Lórien, Thranduil and the Dwarves, we might very well have a Peter Jackson-ish scene in the RotK). So that's why all the other fronts were needed.