"Tolkien's Modern Middle Ages"

[Zigûr]

I have something in the spirit of recent thread revivals. In the thread Sauron's Great Miscalculation there was some discussion of Sauron's Orc armies. A few quotes I found were as follows:

the Orcs of his own trained armies were so completely under his will that they would sacrifice themselves without hesitation at his command. (Morgoth's Ring)

many were by training as tough as Dwarves in enduring hardship (Morgoth's Ring)

a troop of heavy-armed uruks from Barad-dûr (The Lord of the Rings)

In the last years of Denethor I the race of uruks, black orcs of great strength, first appeared out of Mordor, and in 2475 they swept across Ithilien and took Osgiliath. Boromir son of Denethor (after whom Boromir of the Nine Walkers was later named) defeated them and regained Ithilien; but Osgiliath was finally ruined, and its great stone-bridge was broken. (The Lord of the Rings)

Kuruharan rightly pointed out that we see little evidence of Orcs as effective soldiers (they are not the main threat at the Pelennor, for instance) and that their tactics usually involved "human waves".

However, I've found myself lately wondering if there's a modern conceit in the conception of Sauron's Uruks. Is it at all possible that there is a latent idea, however underdeveloped, of trained soldier-Orcs being reminiscent of Great War era storm troops, who had special training and were deployed to make rapid advances into enemy territory, as the Uruks did in Ithilien in 2475?

I believe that in real life casualties were very high among such forces despite their formidable training and weapons, and this would seem to suit Sauron's callous disregard for life. However, perhaps someone who is more of a medievalist than I am can suggest a less modern alternative to whatever Professor Tolkien was musing upon when he made his observations about "trained Orcs" being utilised in this manner.

[Kuruharan]

Originally Posted by Zigûr

I believe that in real life casualties were very high among such forces despite their formidable training and weapons, and this would seem to suit Sauron's callous disregard for life. However, perhaps someone who is more of a medievalist than I am can suggest a less modern alternative to whatever Professor Tolkien was musing upon when he made his observations about "trained Orcs" being utilised in this manner.

I had not wanted to answer this as I don't possess the expertise to answer the question with a sufficient degree of reliability. However, since everyone else seems gripped with the same uncertainty, I will take a stab at it.

I don't believe that there is a good direct parallel with the German Stoßtruppen (<-- gratuitous German thrown in to make people think I know what I'm talking about) in the Medieval era(s) because the methods and tools of war were so utterly different. There were certainly corps of professional soldiers that existed in the Medieval world, such soldiers gaining greater social acceptance, mainly in the Islamic world although not exclusively so. However, that being said, the soldiers of a culture tended to be trained in a similar way to do similar things with only limited specialization.

This is the point where my knowledge grows potentially flimsy...but taking sieges as our setting, since in a way that is the closest circumstance to World War I warfare, I do not know of a particular group of soldiers being given systemic training on particular methods of siege assault that made that group of soldiers particularly more effective than other groups. I am sure that a dissemination of knowledge took place, but I would not describe it as being on a systemic level and I don't think that it was exclusive to one particular sub-group.

I think, as has been mentioned, life in Morder among the orcs is a bit of the 20th Century dropped into Middle-earth.

[Rhun charioteer]

I forget the quote but Tolkien says that Sauron was worshipped as God-King in Rhun, Harad, Khand and other parts of middle earth under his sway in a situation where he demanded both worship and absolute obedience.

Gandalf says something similar-that Sauron still had many kings, Chiefs, and nations under his sway(paraphrasing).

[William Cloud Hicklin]

The closest thing the European Middle Ages had to "specialized shock troops" were the armored knights, especially in the 11th-12th centuries when there was very little that could oppose their charge effectively. These were after all professional warriors (especially during the above era) whose entire job description was (a) fight; (b) train to fight; (c) hunt (as training to fight); (d) participate in tournaments (as training to fight). They started as young as 10 or 11 as apprentices to the military trade, i.e. as squires.

By the High Middle Ages of course the original feudal system (of both economy and caste) had started to break down; both kings and their vassals generally found it more convenient to pay/collect cash taxes which could be used to hire mercenaries, and nobles and the knightly class increasingly found things to do that didn't involve hitting people with cutlery.