If you'd asked me a year ago, I would've been very surprised to learn that this video would eventually have 200,000+ views, so thanks to all who have liked it, commented on it or subscribed. Just because this video is bringing in the most views, I thought I'd sticky a comment - yes, I'm fully aware the sound quality and general production value on this video is quite low. I was a noob at movie-making at the time, and I'm still kind of shit, but it's definitely improved to a much more watchable level and most importantly, most of the videos I've published this year have been done with a good quality microphone, so don't let the toaster mic scare you away. Thanks everyone.
E excellent video bro and Haters relax he didn't expect to blow up this quarantine is making myself and other late twenties and early 30s year olds time think about all the stuff that we used to love. So a lot of people are starting to blow up who made fun videos about SW, GOT, and.LOTR vids. They were just do it for fun, dont.be a hater its not.cool
Oscaka 007 in any given battle Morgoth put 150-300k Orcs on field with other things such as Balrogs, dragons etc. He did have a million Orcs but spread out in different armies. Morgoth waged war on massive fronts. Remember Morgoth was the highest Angle, much stronger than say Sauron, so in a sense he was a God. Morgoth dwarfs anything Sauron could do. It took the literal world to beat him. This was a time where men, elves and dwarfs were at their strongest.
@@Frank-il3kt The Silmarillion right ? Getting one of them Tolkien books is rather hard in my country . Wish PJ could've make a trilogy out of that one . With proper funding and preparation time this time around and less , less that horrendous CGI . Can't wait for Morgoth to appear on the big screen and watch Sauron trembles before him .
Oscaka 007 Yes the Silmarillian. Where are you from? And I agree the Hobbit Movies were laziness and crappy CGI, nothing compares to the Lord of Rings. It’s sad PJ can’t do the Silmarillian because of copy rights I believe or something to do with that. If done right it could be the greatest movie of the next 20 years, kinda when Lord of Rings came out in 2001. Sauron would have been Morgoths chief Lieutenant. He was huge, but there were things much bigger even than him. By the time the events of Lord of the Rings happened the giant dragons, and spiders had died. I think Gandolf killed the last remaining Belrog, who would have fought with Morgoth in massive massive battles.
Aren't Men supposed to be mightier than orcs? (Mordor orcs at least) and Men of Gondor mightier still? It really was frustrating seeing Gondor soldiers outnumbered AND outclassed.
Factor in Nazgul and the Madness of Denethor to lower moral. Then each soldier is worth 2-3 orcs, but trolls account for 5-10 men (easily) depending if they are armored or not. And again, Nazgul. If there are wargs, the are probably equal to 1-5 men (depends on the type of soldier). I think one of the failures of the movies was its difficulty to portray time passing. Rohan shows up about 6-7 days after they're summoned and the battle is started about 5-6 days after. The Gondor army would have been on high alert for much of that time and had little to no rest during the battle. TL;DR if it was just orcs and Gondor was rested, they'd be fine. It wasn't just orcs...
If I recall those knights in Gondor actually aren't bad. We do see them holding their own in the background. It's just the up close shots that are usually them getting killed by orcs. In the book I think they were actually beating the orcs pretty bad to the point that even when the gate went down they kept the fight there.
In the book they do nothing of the sort. In the book they're driven off the Rammas fairly quickly and chased across the Pelennor in a mostly disorganised manner. When the siege starts and goes, the Gondorians abandon the walls in fear and desperation and seek shelter in the second ring. When the orcs finally attack, the wall is empty. Except for one spot. The gate. Held by the Knights of Dol Amroth. These are the proper badasses and the heroes of the entire siege. They held yhe gate, they drove back the orcs on the Pelennor and saved Faramir's life, they joined the relief effort and figured out Eowyn wasn't actually dead.
@@christianhaegler4817 Really? I guess it's been a long time since I've read it then. I could of sworn that they actually held the orcs back at the gate even when it was knocked down.
@@AdeptKing Nah. While you are right, they defended the gate well, as I had mentioned before, it was not due to their defense that no orc passed through. In the book, right aftee the gate falls, the Witch King rides in for his faceoff with Gandalf...conversation ensues and then the horns of Rohan were blown and the Witch King fled. Gandalf stood alone, having none but Pippin on his side. Everyone else fled before the sight of the Witch King.
@Joakim von Anka The Rammas Echor is a very defensible position. If you have the troops to man it which Gondor had not. Technically EVERY fortification is just a delay. A delay till back-up arrives to lift the siege. That's why they exist. Regardless of it, the soldiers lf Gondor still performed fairly poorly in the books untill the Hordes lf Sauron were suddenly experienced withdrawal symptoms after having lost their Sauron mind drug.
@Joakim von Anka uhm...you do notice that I agreed? As said, every defensible position is just a delay. And the Rammas was primarily defended only at Osgiliath's side, where the attack was most likely. The battles for Osgiliath, Cair Andros and the Rammas Echor were all delays with the best possible defensive positions to hold the enemy for a time and hopefully cost him dearly. I do not agree on your view of Rohan on the other hand. Denethor was very mucy aware that Rohan would not come in time to man his walls, as Theoden said. Even with the aid of the Palantir he would have known that Rohan, which was already prepared, could not come before a week was over...more even considering that he sent Ingold before their preparations had progressed that far. Nay, he very much counted on a relief effort. And even that could've still come too late, hence why he probably urged them so much to hasten their approach.
Yeah the entire Trilogy of LotR was only 1 year... so that doesn't sound very impressive. They haven't fought against Mordor for the entire Third Age, but they have been fighting essentially endless wars for the entire like 3000ish years against various factions. Essentially Easterlings, Haradrim, Corsairs, Dunlendings, Agmar, the kingdoms that use to belong to the other Ring Wraiths, themselves in various civil wars, possibly the elves and dwarves at some point in border skirmishes.
As far as I know, a vanguard was very rarely more than a tenth of the army size and usually even smaller than that, it was not unusual that an army of 30k would have a vanguard of 500 knights. A vanguard is just some guys that ride ahead to check out the terrain and possibly seize good positions and try to hold them against nearby militia until the main host can catch up and reinforce the position. The vanguard was often not even a fighting force at all but just experts that rode ahead to look for good camp sites and possibly to demand the surrender of nearby towns or castles before the main host even arrived. I like to imagine Gondor at its height to be somewhat like Rome was around the time of the first and second punic wars 250-200BC where Rome when it was nesscesary could field armies of 50k+ men.
@@razagoulbruce3044 an army that huge would be a waste anyway. I mean, many soldiers in most wars in history died more of diseases than the actual battles.
@@razagoulbruce3044 Yes but good luck trying to raise such an army on an Empire that had already integrated people who were angry for being part of them anyways. Plus the logistics to field such an army, the resources. And there are no known enemies that would require such a force. Like Jehiah said, they would probably die on marches, on camps, on sieges, before even getting a taste of battle.
@@JeyC_ In a single formation yes, Rome did in fact have around 450k millitary men around year 200AD but they were ofcourse split up in many different field armies and combat areas aswell as guard duties around the entire empire. I believe @Razagoul Bruce meant that they had total army not single field army of 450-500k men. You should also provide a link to the information and assumptions you are suggesting. What is "many" soldiers? I would argue about the"most wars in history" but that is impossible unless I know if by "many" you mean 1% or 50% of an army.
So detailed. I love it - great job. Also in the books, it said Gondor kept 10,000 men to guard the entire coast at all times. Even though there were attackers in the north. If that is true, then Gondor’s armies would maybe be closer or little more then 30,000 soldiers. But that’s speculation.
I made an estimate of 30000 as a teenager back in the 1970's. Years later I came up with a smaller figure like this: As for troops that came with Aragorn, the text refers to ships as dromunds, which is a variant of dromon, the Byzantine galley. The text refers to 50 great ships which would be full size dromons, which carried 150 rowers and 50 marines. So that would be 2500 fighting men. The text also says there were innumerable smaller ships. Dromons came in two smaller sizes, one with about 100 men and the other with about 150 men. I'll assume 25 and 35 fighting men per ship and 50 of each. So Aragorn brought 5500 to the relief of the city. We have more information We know they the composition of the force sent to Morder had 3500 troops drawn from X, 2000 drawn from the 5500 that came north with Aragorn, 500 out of Imrahils 700 and 1000 out of the Rohirrim. Another 3000 Rohirrim were sent to waylay enemy forces in Anorien. So this suggests that X is roughly 3500/2000 times bigger than the 5500 Aragorn brought or about 10000. This gives total Gondorian strength as 10000 + 5500 with Aragon + 4000 with Angbor + 3000 outlanders to give 22500. Then if you add the 3000 assumed left in the other fiefs I get 25500. So a tad higher than your figure.
I don't think innumerable should be read as twice more (50 large, 100 smaller) like you estimated, 100 is far too close to be uncountable. furthermore the larger dromons could get bigger than 150 rowers and 50 marines. they could get up to 240 rowers and 80 marines. aditionally dromund isn't a variation of dromon, it as an middle english term that dervives from dromon but means any large military ship, not a specific type of military ship like the orginal dromon.
@@martan1414 we also have to clarify the period, because the medieval period is quite extense. If were talking about the last period 1200 - 1500, those numbers are quite possible
That last bit was interesting, with Prince Imrahil's quote about how the current army was only a fraction of what a Gondorian field army used to be. It reminds me a lot of late Roman history, where the Byzantine Empire's army was considerably smaller than the old Empire's armies at their height, but they kept shrinking in size as the Empire's size (and revenues) shrank in the aftermath of the Plague of Justinian and the Islamic conquests. In many ways there are similarities between Byzantine history and the lore surrounding Gondor; a weakened but resilient and determined empire that holds invaders at bay for many centuries even though it's only a shadow of its former self.
Look how much screen time we got of gondor vs rohan actually fighting. Rohan may be seen as better just because they are involved in tide turning events and provide groundbreaking shock value. But in the end its gondor that Has tougher stationary units and can actually hold off heavy attacks. Rohan probably wouldnt do that as well which was kinda proved by them fleeing to helms deep.
I do think Gondor's full army is larger than you estimate as Lossarnach which you referenced only sent a tenth of what was expected. I say that Gondor's full muster was probably much larger, because not all fiefs are equal and some would have larger contingents that had not been sent. If we estimate that based on the reactions in the books that only a tenth of the total strength of each region was sent to the Battle of Pelennor Fields, and even with Aragorn taking a sizeable number on the boats he took from the Corsairs, I'd say at most we saw maybe 20-30% of the total army size at the Battle of the Black Gate. Based on that I'd say the total strength of Gondor at full muster would be around 42K. But this would be a total muster, not the small musters we saw in the books.
Well thought out and done. The portrayal of Gondor in the Return of the King movie always bothered me. Like you said, it was still the most powerful free kingdom in Middle Earth and had been holding back the tide of Mordor for centuries by that point. I would have much rather the whole mini "side quest" of Pippen lighting the beacon been left out and replaced with a scene showing the beacons already lit and Gandalf explaining to Pippen (and thus, the audience) who the lords were and what was happening. That, and a proper Battle of Pelennor Fields.
@@alphalegionary7646If you pay attention to the background there are lots of Gondorian soldiers who absolutely body the orcs (some literally beat them to death lmao). It's just in the foreground that they get destroyed :/
@@bosertheropode5443 yeah I saw a gondorian soldier literally pick an orc by his hands and slam him against the wall, punching the shit out of him. That's lote accurate in my opinion.
I don't know why you would say you are not making amazing stuff. The videos you make are an absolute delight for any Tolkien nerd or to pull another guy into the rabbit hole of middle earth. Thank you so much for your awesome work, I hope you never stop making videos.
It is honestly a shame that Jackson wasn't able to showcase the various feifdoms that are loyal to Gondor and are duty bound to raise banners in times of war. Prince Imrahil and his Knights of Dol Amroth, Dol Amroth Men at Arms, and also the Axemen of Lossarnach, fiefdoms of Anfalas, Belfalas, Lebenin etc etc. In the 3rd movie I felt as though there was a feeling of emptiness or lack of character with the Gondorian Army; one that was permeated by fear (not that they shouldn't have feared), but there didn't seem to be a major rallying defiance in defense of the city....no ANGER and battle lust to slay the orcs or aggression. Just my thoughts.
Yeah, the movies somewhat portray Gondor as a buffed up city state, although I realize that hiring that many extras, and making that many sets in an already expensive and long enough movie would be difficult at best.
I broadly agree with your number crunching. Karen Wynn Fonstad's "Atlas of Middle-Earth" arrives at similar numbers. She argues that Gondor's troops that participated in the Battle of the Pelennor fields numbered about 5,250 (11,250 total, minus 6,000 from Rohan). That doesn't count Angbor's troops and the other coastal folk coming up the river to reinforce Minas Tirith after the battle; nor does it count the troops that stayed behind in Gondor's fiefs. If we also consider the host marching on the Morannon being about 6,000 Gondor troops, and Minas Tirith being left "better defended" than before the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, and the troops still in the outlying fiefs, you are looking at a minimum of 6,000 on the Black Gate, 6,000 left behind in Minas Tirith, and probably 6,000 to 12,000 still in the outlying fiefs (especially if we consider Lossarnach alone would have 2,000 troops, considering Forlong's 200 men arriving at Minas Tirith were only "a tenth" of what was hoped for), for somewhere between 18,000 and 24,000 total. Perhaps a few thousand more levies could be scrounged up if things became even more dire and Gondor's hinterlands were being overrun, but I'd guess that the fiefdom troops had already raised what levies as they could, as some of the troops arriving from the outlying fiefs to Minas Tirith are described as being not incredibly well-equipped, and if there's any time that levies would be raised, it would be during the War of the Ring when Minas Tirith is about to fall. Gondor's population probably totaled less than a million in all, so 24,000 would be a very reasonable 2.4% of the population engaged in arms. (Hard for medieval-level societies to go far beyond that without running into problems supplying their armies with food and weapons, unless you are like the Rohirrim where almost all of the fit male population is expected to be answerable to muster on short notice, and where shield-maidens are expected to bear almost the entire responsibility of protecting and supplying the home front. Rohan likely had only 100,000 or so in population total, so their 12,000 cavalry would have represented about 12% of their total population, or almost every fit adult male that could be spared who had access to a horse).
ROHAN ARMY BIFORE 2 ISEN BATTLES MAST ARIVE TO MINIMUM 20000 ARTER FULL MOBILIZATION NOW THAT GONDOR HAVE MORE TERITORY BETER DIET LIVING AROUND 50% LONGER THAT ROHANS GIVE TO GONDOR A TOTAL ARMY 0F 30000 O SOLDAIRES TUGETHER WITH DRU CONTINGENT , OLSO IS LOGIC THAT AROUND OF 1000 OF NORTH RANGERS CAME MEIBI IN UMBAR SHIPS OLSO SAME MEN FROM DORVINION SO FOR THE ENTIRE SOUTH WAR CAMPAIN WITH MINIMUM 3 BATTLES OF ROHAN 2 OR 3 BATTLES FOR OSGHILIATH PELENOR BATTLE PELAGIR BATLE AND IN FRONT OF BLACK GATE BATTLE MAST HAVE FROM 51000 TO 52000 SOLDAIRES FOR 8 OR 9 BATTLES.
I think you the way that you thought through this to be very clear and while open to interpretation presents us with a reasonable assessment for the purposes of comparison.
I have to say I share your frustration at the soldiers portrayal in the movies. They just bumble about like idiots and totally takes me out of the battle scenes for Minas Tirith every time. Sauron might as well have only sent 20 orcs to beat that mob of stumbling spazoids
Gondors lands and armies were huge and vast from when the the faithful arrived and settled from Numenour. Before the Stewards 32 kings ruled`, there land stretched from north field of Celebrant to southern Mirkwood, west to the Greyflood, inland to Rhun and and the ruled Umbar. - but there realm grew smaller as it due to a mixture of reasons after the death of King Hyarmedacil around 1050. Firstly the kings didn’t have many children or heirs and numenorean blood was weakened, then they lost Umbar in the kinstrife civil war were many soldiers died and Osgiliarth was pretty much ruined. Then the great plague swept through killing huge numbers in Gondor including the king and his children - there wearn’t enough soldiers left to guard the fortesses watching and defending against Mordor. Then attacks by the Wainriders for about 100 years shrunk Gondors armies further - and their lands shrunk even more. The last king, Earnur went to fight the Witch king and never returned - in 2050 the first ruling steward replaced the kings rule`. 3019 was the year of the attack on Minas Tirith - so thousands of years had past since Gondor was a truly huge and vast kingdom with enormous armies `- this is probably what Denethor is referring to IMO - the slow decline of this one mighty kingdom.
From the Gwathló to the sea of Rhûn, from the fields of Celebrant to Umbar, everything in between used to belong to Gondor, and after Aragorn reunited the kingdom it became even bigger, adding almost all the lands of Eriador to it.
Liked the video! It's hard with guesswork can be frustrating as all hell but I think you made some really good choices. Keep it up! I like seeing discussions about those little topics you didn't realize you needed lol helps to get a better picture of events and enriches the experience of reading the books. I really didn't like how weak they made the Gondorian soldiers seem. Overwhelm them if you have to but it seems like every two seconds you were seeing men run up to an orc, he gets his sword parried and then the orc runs him through. They weren't farmers, farriers, and stable boys and yet Rohan did way better! (Don't get me wrong, I personally find Rohan more interesting) but still!
I can not understand that everyone complaining about gondor soldiers in the movies. My opinion is that PJ did a pretty good job with them. Many forget that the battle of Gondor was more psychological, despair was Mordor's best weapon. PJ shows us the chaos and horror just as it was in the book. They fight for days against odds 10 against 1. Remember that in the book when Grond approached the gate, the defense was already broken, the men had already begun to retreat to the second level, before the enemy took the gate, except Dol Amroth's soldiers. The soldiers in the movie even do a better job when they meet the enemy at the gate, and fight every street all the way up to the third level.
There is a disconnect in the films between what is implied to be happening and what you actually see. At Osgiliath the Orcs attack at night and in the morning Faramir's very small force is still fighting, suggesting they have held the orcs off all night. Again at Minas Tirith they are implied to be holding the enemy off from the afternoon all the way to the next morning. But in the close-ups you almost always see them getting killed. I don't think there was ever a deliberate decision to make Gondor's soldiers look weak, just that extras are given directions like 'you guys are on the back foot' so if you had nothing else to go on you would allow yourself to lose.
They're supposed to be hardened veterans of war wearing high qualify plate armour with quality steel weapons, and you'd assume some training. They use very little in the way of organized tactics and show almost no skill against the orcs. They get ploughed over. The only time men of Gondor fight well in the movies is the ranger ambush on the Haradrim. The Rohirrim save the day are always super awesome despite Gondor's better equipped and likely more experienced soldiers.
@@MJFAN666 look at the numbers.They had 5000 men stationed at Minas Tirith.They excpected ten times the number of men to come and defend the city.That means that they excpected 30k men.Let's say most of them were levies.Also Aragorn brings a lot of men from western and southern Gondor.
@@DarthGandalfYT I suspect so. Gondor also seems like 17th century Austria. There are some similarities between the siege of Minas Tirith and the siege of Constantinople 717 - 718 AD, when the Bulgarians helped the Bysantines hold off 2 Arabian armies. It is even more similar to the siege of Vienna 1683 AD, when the hussars helped the Austrians to drive back the army of the Ottoman empire. This event marks the beginning of the end of the said empire.
Imagine the last alliance with how big that battle was. Gondor is pretty large they have a lot more numbers then we think just at the time Gondor was being pushed back ever so slowly
When England was invaded in 1066 the Saxons mustered 7,000 men for the battle of Hastings, just a few weeks after defeating the Northmen at Stamford Bridge. While some of the core units would have been the same, most were local levees. Prior to the agricultural revolution it took a lot more men working the fields to feed the country and they could not all go off to fight without starvation happening. 25,000 would be a sizable army to put in the field considering the long decline of the population and the ever more harsh conditions for farming.
Yup, if you notice, a lot of ancient and medieval armies have their average sizes. During ancient times a full scale military operation would be around 40,000. During Medieval times the average amount was just 20,000-30,000. This was not just because of population sizes, but mainly due to the ability of army to be fed. So Gondor's could have been larger, but the army could only feed fewer than 25,000 at a time.
I disagree The Pellenor fields were a great bread basket in The books it almost looked like Verdun since they brought food, weapons, people into The City with such haste that stuck wagons would be thrown off The road
In the year 960 the Byzantine Empire- aka the Eastern Roman Empire- fielded 40,000 men transported via hundreds of assaults ships for the reconquest of Crete. And this was at a time when the Empire was nowhere near the height of its power. Army sizes varied from state to state. The Eastern Roman Empire was far more centralised with a well-oiled bureaucracy compared to the Western European kingdoms of the time.
Wow I’ve always wanted to know this. And I like the logic that you bring with it about the different fiefdoms and how they would also have to defend them selves. I agree with the numbers as well that seems to be right. I’ve seen speculations that Gondors total population is 2 million. So 20-25 thousand would be a very small portion of their male population. But yeah man what an awesome video.
just came up in my feed, liked and subbed. good content! Maybe look at getting a better mic and processing since you sound pretty distant, but you have the right voice for this sort of material. I'll watch more. And your 20k-25k estimate is right around where I would have put them as well if they could muster their complete army. If they armed all able citizenry, what could they swell to? How many people lived in Gondor at this time? 250k is likely on the high end. A complete last ditch levy militia could swell the ranks to almost 100k, but most would be easy prey for Orcs and Sauron's allied Men.
What I really would like is a video on how big could Isengard's army be without the haste to attack and how big could it become had Saruman suceeded on his campaign on Rohan.
Thats one thing that dissapoints me a little about the movie. In the book, its quite clearly said that gordon soldiers and knights are really good and elite-like. True, they got spooked by dark magic and nazguls, but still. Its a just a small nitpick, but they did the rohan right so what happened?
Gondor was so strong that when Sauron first fought them he surrendered without a fight. makes the one ring and still fails in battle against them, manages to be in superior numbers against them for decades as an immortal maia and still fails lol
The biggest mistake in the movies was having the Gondorians constantly lose fights and get killed easily. I wanted to see scenes where the Gondorians rallied during Minas Tirith and started to retake the lower levels after Rohan arrived, or where the Gondorians push the orcs back to the boats and only start to lose when they get flanked in Osgiliath. Every single scene, Gondorians in full plate armor are being clowned on by orcs. Heck, some of the more memorable scenes are. Gondorian gets shot with arrow which pierces his plate armor and dies instantly, Gondorian gets smacked in the head by a hammer, Gondorian easily gets knocked several feet into the water, a Gondorian gets killed before the orc bleats like a goat, a Gondorian gets knocked over and winces in pain, a Gondorian in full plate gets lifted up and slammed to the ground by a single orc, and that's just in Osgiliath. In Minas Tirith, a single orc kills 3 Gondorians before running for Pippin. A Gondorian gets hit in the crotch with a Mace, a Gondorian gets smacked upside the head by a Mace while another gets thrown by a troll, a Gondorian getting dragged around by a warg, Gondorians blocking doorways and getting cut down with no resistance. Heck, the Rohan peasants had less embarrassing moments during Helms deep. And that included a guy getting clotheslined by a door and a guy getting hit with a comically sized harpoon!
PS- I also am thinking of the time of Alexander the Great. When he went about conquering "the world", he "only" took 30,000 soldiers when doing so. So maybe that might need to be applied to the reasoning here. Otherwise you're left using numbers more akin to Dark Ages European kingdoms as opposed to barbarian hordes, IMHO.
Very good video, hope this channel picks up, subbed, only criticism I have is the mic quality, if you want to pick up a better one down the line you can get some great usb dynamic mics for very little, combined with a pop shield and you’re sorted :)
It gives you something of an answer for this in the Book. Minas Tirith obviously has a standing garrison at all times. The book does not specifically state how many men comprise said garrison. However 2100 troops reinforce Minas Tirith right before the siege starts. They come from what was described as Gondor’s populous Southern region. It also states that they expected 10 times that number but that the bulk of the men were tied up fighting the corsairs or other enemies. So Gondor expected roughly 21,000 men to reinforce them before the siege started. Obviously even if everything went to plan and the South did not become tied up with the Corsairs they would not have marched 100% of their men to Minas Tirith and left the South undefended. However by the same token if Minas Tirith fell all of Gondor would have fallen so its reasonable to assume they would have marched somewhere around 70-80% of their strength to Minas Tirith if they had not been delayed. Leaving somewhere from 3-5,000 troops in places like Dol Amroth and other fortresses across the Southern region of Gondor. Drawing from these estimates and taking into account the fact that Gondor was in a decline and had been plagued from war after war the size of their army was at least 25,000 troops and was more probably 30,000 plus. As there were at least 21,000 in the Southern Region, the Standing garrison at Minas Tirith, Osgiliath, and Cair Andros. As well as a few other sporadic forces such as the Ithilian Rangers.
I'm not sure what the pieces look like, but I reckon the Minas Tirith soldiers would look cooler. And also the Swan Knights of Dol Amroth would probably look pretty sweet too. A lot of fiefdom troops are described as being feudel, ie. dressed more like hunters or peasants than soldiers.
For the defense of the entire realm at the beginning of the War of the Ring, balance of forces between Gondor and Mordor, my best estimates, would've been ~100,000 Men to ~250,000 - 300,000 Orcs, not even counting additional forces sent by Mordor's allies, the Men of Harad, the Corsairs of Umbar, and the Easterlings of Rhun. Keep in mind that it takes considerable time for a medieval army to march anywhere, and Gondor is a very large territory, and Gondor's military situation is further exacerbated by the Corsairs of Umbar attempting to conduct amphibious raids along the coastline of Anfalas, tying down Gondorian forces there, thus leaving less reinforcements to fight in the East. Gondor's sole strategic advantage is that the Anduin is too violent for Mordor to ferry troops across with tiny rafts, and that Mordor possesses little to no knowledge of ship-building, leaving only two feasible attack routes; Osgiliath and Cair Andros. This means that Gondor, as long as it controls those two cities, can dictate the order of war from the safety of prepared, fortified defensive positions. Losing East Osgiliath was strategically, and by propaganda value, a major blow to Gondor.
Someone actually found some material that claims that the amount of men that the garrison that defended Minas Tirith during the siege numbered just under 10,000 soldiers. A more reasonable number for the size of the city and all the defensive points that prevented the gondorian defense to be cut off from the next levels.
A very nice video... I agree it's sad to see how Gondor was portrayed, likely so Jackson could put up Aragorn as the one hero. Showing Denethor as a neglectful dictator was a waste. Book Denethor was indeed a master tactician, who did what he could, with what he had, only falling to despair when he saw in the palantir that actually Mordor had three or even four times as many forces in waiting East of Anduin, or assaulting the North. My only comment is about Vanguard sizes.My impression was that the vanguard; the Forward Guard, was functionally an army ready to fight, and always on patrol, clearing enemies, removing obstacles, and holding the line, should an enemy army be encountered. Armies are huge. And move at roughly 2mph when heavily laden with supply wagons. Having a mobile force to enter and hold terrain is key. The rear guard does the same at the rear. So Gondor having a vanguard of 7,000 in the olden days, would imply to me a standing army of 50,000... And that's just one army... Rarely can a nation attack in one place. They may have been able to field twice that.
Tolkien actually gave a minimum number to Aragorn's forces which came with him from the south, it is at the end of the chapter The Last Debate, Imrahil would take 3500 men from minas tirith and Aragorn would take 2000 men. So Aragorn brought at the minimum 2000 men, and since it would not make sense send with Angbor the larger part of the forces he gathered in the south, i believe the army of Aragorn was larger than that of Angbor, maybe 6 to 10 thousand.
I myself played around with these numbers. My personal guesses put a theoretical max for Gondor’s armies at around 40,000 though that was assuming similar situation with Lossarnach for the other fiefs who were worried about the Corsairs an sent only about 1/10th of their army to Minas Tirith. Of course population can vary wildly in some regions and some groups may have sent proportionally more of their force so i choose to treat my estimate from way back when as the high end. I felt this number made sense as the Army Gondor sent to fight Angmar was supposed to be almost 50,000 which still gets across how far Gondor has fallen from its heyday. I’ve seen some estimates here in chat for as much as Thirty thousand or figures similar to what you proposed which I think are probably more realistic. I personally now go with about 30,000as it leaves a bit more wiggle room just in case some parts of Gondor are withholding similar amounts of their forces to Lossarnach.
In short, they had roughly in my opinion 14,000 - 17,000 men. 6k was left at minas tirith when Aragorn marched on the black gate and this was more than what minas tirith had before the battle. So let's roughly say the had 4k during the battle that's 10k altogether. 7k were at the black gate but this was mixed with rohan forces so let's say half which is 3.5k which so far is 13.5k. Then roughly all the reminding defenders for the other main cities and forts which could possibly make it up to 17k
In the books gondor was the most elite army besides the elves in middle earth the films show them to be incompetent i suspect to add to the dire setting. But in the books they were the most elite in middle earth.
You're right about that. I imagine the scene where the Rohirrim showed up wouldn't have been anywhere near as heroic if they had shown the Gondorian soldiers winning in every scene leading up to it.
This should really speak to the effectiveness of faramir's rangers. They caused so many casualties among the men of harad and rhun. Without the work of the rangers the forces of darkness would have had a huge army to march on the pleanor
In larger armies, the "vanguard" sometimes only applies to a forward, central unit where the king or general is during a march or battle. The total size of the force can make the number in the vanguard seemingly inconsequential, like a vanguard of 7-10 thousand in an army of 50 to 100 thousand. A vanguard, or any unit, can only be so large, or it becomes impossible to maneuver cohesively. In an army of a hundred thousand, there are companies, battalions, brigades, and divisions. No one would call 33,000 men a vanguard. That's absurd. Between the much larger, more prosperous, more populous Gondor of the second age, and its northern counterpart in Eriador (Arnor), the army of men alone during the war of the last alliance could've easily been 100,000 strong, maybe more. We're talking about two massive kingdoms, that are practically extinct by the war of the ring. There are abandoned towns, houses, castles, fortresses, crumbling walls, deserted ports-- all over western middle earth. There's a huge "east bite" into mirkwood-- that's one more good example of how populus men once were. The sheer numbers of orcs that were previously assembled by Morgoth easily numbered a million or more-- the elves of the first age were seriously screwed, like, all the time. Sauron, at his height, going into the war of the last alliance, very likely had similar numbers, though I might be massively underestimating Morgoth's full strength. To say there were less than a half a million orcs at the time of the last alliance would be a ridiculous assertion. A hundred thousand men and say, half as many elves, against a half a million orcs would be amongst the typical ratios seen in Tolkien's wars and great battles. That's only 3 to 1. Orcs often outnumber their foes by 10:1 or more, and are still cut through eventually by elves, dwarves, and men.
Well said... I always have one trouble with the Tolkien legendariam, which is when Numenor was destroyed, seven ships carried Erendil and the faithful away. And then they landed, and started building cities, and within a couple hundred years had the war of the last alliance... Those Numenoreans must have been screwing so much as to leave every woman from 15-100 years (they live a long time) constantly pregnant... Even a huge ship could not carry more than 1000 people, surely, so those 7000 refugees turned into nations big enough for 100,000 fit and fighting warriors in 200 years.... Those were the days...
The other commendable point that the movies always miss, is that orcs are horrible, but they're not big or strong.. I'd guess between 4 and 5 feet tall. When the uruk-hai are described as huge orcs, nearly man high... or when 4ft tall hobbits are mistaken for orc-deserters in Mordor. Their power in in numbers... And in trolls, which are also only 8-9 feet tall. It's no wonder the men and elves cut them down "like leaves".. but a million orcs (very realistic) is still a horrifying challenge
Super video! I think that Gondor's Army was big enough (small enough really) to pretty much be defensive only. Rohan was really the closest thing to a free people superpower but they were mostly a reserve army that had to be called up (aka mustered) which, in any system like that, will basically shut the nation down economically. I always got the idea that Gondor was once this fairly affluent nation with a lot of trade and that, by the time that LoTR occurs, is pretty constrained and limited. The Army seems like it's pretty much there to defend Minas Tirith. Lots of things said about Gondor basically being that nation that was the closest to Mordor and that it was a nation in decline. The Rangers, whether those south or those Gondor-estranged in the north, are not really an army per se but seem to be more like a bunch of commandos or special forces. Highly capable for their size but simply not enough numbers to march against another nation. I think that those other Gondorian sub-states were expected to maintain their own militaries. None of them were able to send really significant numbers to help Minas Tirith. Continued good luck to you in your Tolkien nerd-dom!
I always got the impression that Rohan's advantage was it was much more centralized due to having a proper king. Gondor was much wealthier and had a far larger military than Rohan but the Stewards of Gondor didn't command the fiefdoms with absolute authority. This meant they weren't able to properly muster the full strength of the nation.
@@hngbros8346you're probably right on pure #s. The advantage that I think Rohan had on LoTR is that their military was highly mobile and mobility was a huge thing. You also have a great point in Gondor being led by a Steward. I think the bottom line is that I don't think Gondor was capable of carrying out a campaign away from Gondor. Rohan was capable of this. Even though they themselves left some defensive #s in Rohan, they deployed enough folks that I think even Sauron had counted out. I am sure he though that Saruman had Rohan wrapped up.
Problem I have is how Gondor somehow managed to recolonize all their lost regions as well as Arnor, and not only that but defeat the Haradrim and Rhun armies later on. That math doesn't add up at all for not only the troops but the colonists as well that all would require.
But Angmar was destroyed, so recolonizing Arnor shouldn't be a problem, plus with Mordor gone, a lot of people would unite to Gondor right? I mean after the main enemy is gone they could grow their number to larger ones, or maybe the easterlings just ran away?
@@tomasalvarez9309 It is a problem because Arnor is large with multiple cities, there simply isn't enough people to repopulate all of them like it is implied. And the easterlings didn't just "run" away, if you look at the map of the reunited kingdom, aragorn annexed all of rhun, half of harad and all of umbar. So all together, hes managing a rebuilding campaign for a new total land 3 times its original size, while conquering new lands when he originally had a mere 7000 men to fight at the black gate?
@@MaXiMoS54 the map is not canon. Aragorn does fight with Eomer in Rhun but at a distant time in the future, and to put down some Easterlings who still want to fight. There is no way he will take Umbar, that land is Harad land now. Aragorn does rule Arnor but there are no real cities left hence only the small towns like Bree and settlers from elsewhere will live in Arnor for the time being. It's not a problem because Gondor is strong enough for the both of them.
@@SantomPh From what I can tell every source says Umbar is annexed and at the minimum harad and rhun are made to pay tribute to aragorn after being defeated. Also they say fornost and annuminas are rebuilt. So yeah I don't see all of that as being possible.
