Orcs in Minas Tirith

[Revan Shan]

How many orcs attacked Minas Tirith?

[Brego]

Mordor's troops consisted of more than 30,000 Easterlings and Haradrim, numerous oliphaunts, and tens of thousands of Orcs; The defenders' numbers were considerably less despite the addition of about 2,800 men from southern Gondor in the days before the battle.

As for enemy losses, again, the size of Sauron's great army is not definitely known. There were at the very least 60,000, and this is almost surely an overconservative estimation. In Peter Jackson's movie adaptation, the enemy numbered over 200,000, and this may be accurate with the number present in the text. It is known that there were some 18,000 Haradrim.

http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Battl...elennor_Fields

[Revan Shan]

Mordor's troops consisted of more than 30,000 Easterlings and Haradrim, numerous oliphaunts, and tens of thousands of Orcs; The defenders' numbers were considerably less despite the addition of about 2,800 men from southern Gondor in the days before the battle.

As for enemy losses, again, the size of Sauron's great army is not definitely known. There were at the very least 60,000, and this is almost surely an overconservative estimation. In Peter Jackson's movie adaptation, the enemy numbered over 200,000, and this may be accurate with the number present in the text. It is known that there were some 18,000 Haradrim.

http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Battl...elennor_Fields

Thank you very much. It will no doubt help in my writing activity.

[Costin_Razvan]

I think 12.000 Easterlings is a tad too much , remember they also had sent a force of about 20.000 to take Erebor , considering Harad was about the same size as Rhun I doubt Rhun could field such a giant army.

Arround 3.000 or so would be the number Rhun sent to Minas Tirith , mostly used to try and stop Rohan from coming from the North

[desean]

I think 12.000 Easterlings is a tad too much , remember they also had sent a force of about 20.000 to take Erebor , considering Harad was about the same size as Rhun I doubt Rhun could field such a giant army.

Arround 3.000 or so would be the number Rhun sent to Minas Tirith , mostly used to try and stop Rohan from coming from the North

comparing Rhun to Harad is just rong, the full extent of the easterlings isnt well known, and remember that most of harad was just desert, probably the most populated zones were the umbar heavens and those fielded corsairs mostly, not regular haradrim units, while the easterling lands werent as much hostile so its easy to assume the easterling forces were way superior to the ones from Harad, anyways i think all the easterling forces went to Eriador and Dale, the only easterling forces that stayed to suport mordor were the Variags from Khand, probably to use theyr cavalry skills to face any Rohan force that might show up

[Olifantenstaart]

1 Check the map scale, Middle Earth isn't that huge.

2 In demographic ways you should compare Middle Earth with the Middle Ages, not with
the 21nd century...

For example Europe: after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the population of Europa shrunk to a
tiny 15-20 million people. Today, even Holland alone has such a population. Middle Earth wasn't
industrialised, and farming wasn't very effective yet. Because of the poor farming there simply wasn't
enough food for many millions, that's why the population was low.

If the population is low, then off course the armies are small too...

[Swanny777]

Why did Tolkien give everyone such low numbers?

[Blackorc]

Why did Tolkien give everyone such low numbers?

I think they got pretty much numbers if you compare them to Gondor

[|Sith|Duke_Spartacus]

imo tolkien underpowered gondor way too much, figuring they got many towns and citys to draw manpower from. Also not 150-200 years before, 7000 men would be considerd only a small expedition force. Cant be gondor lost THAT many man :S

[abbews]

They needed men to repel the Corsairs, read your homework.

[|Sith|Duke_Spartacus]

They needed men to repel the Corsairs, read your homework.

are u kidding me? dont you think its absurd that a nation that could field 40-50.000 troops in the (far)past would be reduced to an army of at most 8000 men and maybe 6000 of them regulars? I hope that you did not tell ME to attend my homework, i can say with certainty if u go on a population basis, gondor would have at least triple the standard army in peactime.

[tup]

That's what I often thought, too. And I don't get why the Haradrim, coming from the desert and such, can easily field way more soldiers than Gondor.
I guess Gondor lost many in other fights, such as Osgiliath, but even then the population should be large enough to conscript thousands and thousands, especially considering it's something like the last stand!

[Scorpion]

Due to the plague (which affected most of the "good" areas of middle earth) and other machinations of Sauron, Gondor was in decline, Arnor devestated and the areas east of the Misty Mountains nearly depopulated. Ithelian had become a wasteland, Osgliath a ghost town. Gondor no longer had the strength to garrison Minas Morgal and the the other towers that were built to maintain watch over Mordor. Also no longer able to garrison Orthanc, it was given over to Sauroman. Gondor's glory days were well past, and they were only able to field modest forces. This was the case throughout the west.

[Arthur Artorius]

They remind me a bit of the Byzantines and the Turks. As one gets stronger the other gets weaker. By the end the formerly mighty Romans could only muster 7000 men to the Turks 80,000+. Although Gondor's borders have shrunk they still have a large population to draw from, but taking into account the men needed to defend against the Corsairs and those lost at Cair Andros and Osgiliath it isn't too much of a stretch to imagine how dangeriously undermanned Gondor becomes by the seige of Minas Tirith. In comparison, the Haradrim and the Easterlings have only been getting progressively stronger. Look at the Muslim invasions or the barbarian invasions at the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Hordes of enemy troops can still come out of harsh places, and as they take peices of their neighbors territories they only get stronger.

[|Sith|Duke_Spartacus]

They remind me a bit of the Byzantines and the Turks. As one gets stronger the other gets weaker. By the end the formerly mighty Romans could only muster 7000 men to the Turks 80,000+. Although Gondor's borders have shrunk they still have a large population to draw from, but taking into account the men needed to defend against the Corsairs and those lost at Cair Andros and Osgiliath it isn't too much of a stretch to imagine how dangeriously undermanned Gondor becomes by the seige of Minas Tirith. In comparison, the Haradrim and the Easterlings have only been getting progressively stronger. Look at the Muslim invasions or the barbarian invasions at the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Hordes of enemy troops can still come out of harsh places, and as they take peices of their neighbors territories they only get stronger.

True, but even gandalf questions denethor where gondors proud well trained field armies are. Even western rome had a dozen or more legions when the empire fell. Where the hell is the Gondorian army? It should be much larger. And Gondor at this time has a FAR bigger empire then the very late byzantine empire. Gondor extends far to the west too, dont forget. anfalas,calembel,erech,dol amroth,lossarnach. Gondor is old, so they should have several larger cities to draw from. I would say that realisticly Rome could field as many as 20.000 trained men at once if Denethor had concentrated on building the army.

[Outlawstar15a2]

Well the Lord of the Rings Wiki holds "Sauron's Army" as 450,000 strong (http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/War_of_the_Ring). Though I personally felt it should be closer to 800,000 but thats something I have to mill over more in my head before I can give a detailed explanation as to why. But the 450,000 count includes all of Sauron's minions (Isengard, Mordor, Rhun, Harad, miscellaneous, and the vast hordes of evil creatures throughout Middle Earth...)

[Costin_Razvan]

Middle Earth is perhaps as a whole as large as France or Germany ( well the known part of Middle earth , but not beyond the sea of Rhun )

Gondor has such a small army because of three things :

First it was a PROFESSIONAL Army NOT conscripted ( or that's how I understood it correct me if I am wrong )

Secondly , even though Gondor COULD muster a army with a vanguard of over 7.000 after kin strife and plague that is not to say that they didn't lose a great deal of their population AFTER those events , Ithilien fell to Sauron's army , so did Osghiliat until Boromir retook one shore , do you truly think Gondor gave those without massive pitched battles in which they lost a great deal of soldiers?

Third : Although Tolkien never gives exact numbers I am going to assume the Gondorian army was arround 10.000 in size , and might I remind you they had lost thousands at Cair Andros and Osghiliat , also only the towns/cities near Minas sent men , those that where farther away came with Aragorn ( arround 4.000 strong )

Rohan on the other hand has such a small army because their kingdom had only been formed five hundred years ago by tribesman who didn't have great numbers to begin with but they also fought a great many wars along side Gondor

On the other ahdn Rhun and Harad never faced such great odds stacked against em and lived in relative peace , even though Gondor did launch some military expeditions there which where somewhat succesfull

[A1_Unit]

If Gondor could only muster 10,000 men then it would not have existed as long as it did.

[Costin_Razvan]

If Gondor could only muster 10,000 men then it would not have existed as long as it did.

Did you even bother READING what I said?

They where in DECAY , yes they fought long and hard against Mordor , Harad and Rhun but they never where able to win a decisive victory , they also lost a LOT of land and soldiers over time

And btw only Cressy and Poiters happened close to each other , of a diference of almost 10 years but still relativly close , and in those battles combined France didn't have more then 50.000 men

[Andrik]

This topic is one of my favorite.

The Orcs at Minas Tirith were only a portion of Sauron's strength; and the same can be said for Gondor's forces at Minas Tirith.

Through inept rule, the Steward on the throne had most likely alienated most of his more independently minded nobles...especially the Prince of Dol Amroth (a semi-independent noble at any rate). The same could be said for many of the selfish nobles of Gondor. They simply refused to send "their" men to defend Minas Tirith.

Now, for the professional armies; let us assume that Gondor has as many as 30,000 men under arms. Would it be reasonable to assume that perhaps a quarter of these men were lost in Osgiliath against the swarming horde from Mordor/Rhun/Harad? Would it be ok to assume that 7,500 men were lost trying to hold that rubble strewn city? I think it would.

That leaves us with 22,500 men under arms.

If Gondor had 7,500 MORE men in the area of Minas Tirith; that accounted for HALF the military of the Kingdom...so we are down to 15,000 men.

Where are the Corsairs going to land? Who knows! We better garrison major cities like Pelargir and Dol Amroth with sufficient strength to counter them if they land and lay siege to those cities. We will leave 5,000 men in each so that they can watch the southern coasts.

We are down to 5,000 more men only.

Well, those White Mountains are a nice border to the north and Rohan beyond there; so we are good right? Wrong. The farthest areas West are easily infiltrated by "barbarians" similar to the Dunlendings. Lets at least garrison our northern borders and western holdings with a sufficient garrison to repel any possible attack from an Orc Horde out of the Misty Mountains or Dunlending raiders that might be rampaging in the area since the sack of the Westfold! How about 5,000 men in about ten garrisons of 500 men each?

We have no men left...

Ruling a Kingdom as large as Gondor means that many areas have to be watched after, and local nobles aren't ones to get the job done...especially if they don't like their ruler. Perhaps the Steward had 100,000 bodies he could pull up to bring under arms...but if he didn't recieve the full measure of taxes he was due (from local nobles skimming his rightful share) then perhaps 30,000 is the best he could get done! Maybe the Steward was corrupt himself...influenced by agents of Sauron to squander his treasury on meaningless projects to "glorify Minas Tirith" and re-equip existing units with finery (tabards, new armor, fine blades, etc) to the point of having no treasury left.

We can't leave out paranoia! Denethor WAS a paranoid fella. If the thought crossed his mind that Aragorn, by influence of Gandalf, might try and come to take his throne (which Denethor didn't want to let go of) then the Steward might have installed wide reaching garrisons in his other cities to "keep them honest" and unable to "rebel" against the Steward.

Ruling a nation is never simple, and that is why I think that a LOT of things were happening behind the scenes that cut the number of Gondor's military to a point that only the right sequence of events could prevent Sauron from taking Minas Tirith and then all of Gondor.

Too bad for the baddies that just such a thing happened.