The War of the Ring - The First Battle of the Fords of Isen 

I feel it really does show how powerful Gondor used to be and how far they have fallen at this stage that they can equip elements of another nation yet don't have enough troops to wear that equipment themselves.

I never realised there is so much detail in the Tolkienverse

Excellent video. There is something of the spirit of the wars of Anglo-Saxon England in the infantry tactics of the Rohirrim in the Battles of the Fords of Isen. It is almost as though you can see Tolkien's knowledge and love of this era in English history, resonating in the Rohirrim themselves. This is no accident of course; the Rohirrim are essentially an idealised version of the Anglo-Saxons, with a lot more emphasis on cavalry. Tolkien always mused on the potential for the Anglo-Saxons to have done better against the Normans; if only they had a bigger emphasis on cavalry tactics, and proper cavalry forces at Hastings 1066. But it is a 'what if' speculation that can go far further than that. Perhaps had Anglo-Saxon Ængland been known for heavy cavalry, then they could have swept the Normans back into the sea at Pevensey Bay beach, before they could secure a beachhead. While the Anglo-Saxons were busy fighting the Vikings in the North, the Normans were waiting for the winds to change to allow them to sail towards Southern England from Normandy. The Anglo-Saxons had been preparing for invasion from Normandy, when the Vikings arrived and had to be dealt with separately. The Anglo-Saxons were valiant at Hastings but it was a lot to ask of them, run ragged, exhausted, having won a great victory against the Vikings, but then having to face the technologically superior and arguably even more dangerous Normans to the South. They fought at Senlac Hill until nightfall, and acquitted themselves with honour; the Royal Huscarls of King Harold Godwinson, defending his corpse until the last man, cut to pieces to a man, surrounded on all sides. The Normans were ruthless and did not reciprocate any semblance of honour; dismembering King Harold's corpse which had been defended so fiercely, and denying the families of the fallen the right to collect their family members from the battlefield, deliberately wanting to terrorise the Anglo-Saxons by having their bodies rot on the battlefield. Under pain of death if caught, people still made their own grim journeys to what must have been an absolutely horrific battlefield, drenched in blood which pooled in places, and with limbs, decapitated heads, entrails and viscera strewn all over the place. The Normans took their dead from the battlefield but denied the Anglo-Saxons the same right, to make a point against the Anglo-Saxons. According to legend, Edith Swanneck, the lover of King Harold, identified _one_ of the several dismembered parts of his body, due to seeing tattoos which were, 'only known to her in the marital bed'. There are varying versions of the story, regarding how exactly Harold fell, yet however he was killed, he was definitely dismembered. His Huscarls refused to retreat and held on, defending his body. The Normans would continue the trend of appalling behaviour for the years to come; going on to massacre an innocent crowd of civilians gathering outside Westminster Abbey, upon the rushed coronation of King William I the Conqueror/Bastard, in London (they were not hostile, though Norman Knights were edgy and panicked that the crowd was a mob coming to attack the coronation, when really, they'd just come to watch out of curiosity - charging into them swords drawn like reckless thugs, cutting people down in the chaos) The Normans would go on to inflict the Harrying of the North on the Anglo-Saxon rebels resisting Norman oppression, in the Northern shires. The death toll was considered catastrophic, even at the time; with the depopulation essentially amounting to the Normans trying to carry out what we'd now see as an attempted genocide of the Anglo-Saxons in the North (potentially hundreds of thousands were murdered, in a matter of a year running into 1067 and beyond) In previous centuries, the North - not the South - was the centre of culture and the height of art, during the pre-unification, Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy (Seven Kingdoms) of Ængland. For instance, during the height of the Northumbrian Kingdom, in the 7th-8th century AD, they were considered the leading power and heart of Anglo-Saxon culture. During Medieval times, the North was a more sparsely populated place, largely thanks to the impact of the Norman Conquest. It took literally centuries to recover in truth, playing catch up with the South. Being overrun by the Vikings more than once, then by the Normans, and then with the imbalance of power firmly solidified by the Normans in the South, the North was essentially administered by the Normans in a colonial manner; with them building their ubiquitous Motte and Bailey castles all over the country, including in the North. Outposts and hubs of Norman rule, akin to how the Romans would raise forts to divide and conquer too. Indeed, the Normans even built forts on top of the older bones of old Roman forts, as they did at Rochester and Dover both. The Normans would operate the same way in Ireland, when they went there, leaving a contentious legacy which long outlived Norman culture itself, and numerous castles in Ireland. There had existed a paradigm, all of it's own, and the Normans replaced it with theirs. 10,000 Normans lorded it over 2 million leaderless Anglo-Saxons, with practically 99 percent of their entire noble classes wiped out at Hastings. Regime change was swift, sudden and devastating. The Normans gave/stole the land to their own baronial lords, and the nobles among their Breton allies. What scarce few older Anglo-Saxon landowners survived Hastings, were soon kicked off their own land in aggressive legislation enforced by the Domesday Book. Essentially, an itinerary list of all the farms, homesteads, villages, towns and ports in the land (sometimes as specific as recording how many animals they owned, to surprisingly exacting detail) A world which Tolkien knew and loved, and knew for it's strengths, flaws and unique characteristics, had gone. Tolkien was keenly aware of this world having essentially come to an end, and was openly bitter about how it had unfolded in those times, convinced that the Anglo-Saxons could have defeated the Normans (I agree) given slightly different circumstances. History changed forever. The tragedy echoing through the Anglo-Saxon poem of 'The Wanderer', resonates in Tolkien's writing ('Where is the Horse and the Rider' etc) The sense of a civilisation that is old, fading and of people later on, not realising what had come before. A world changing, inexorably. There is often a sense of great sadness and grim purpose, in the free peoples of the Late Third Age; and indeed, far from just the Rohirrim. Pretty much everyone is suffering, in a world increasingly falling back into the hands of evil. The civilisations are declining across the map and as time passes, much that once was, had now been lost; for none now lived whom remembered it. There is always the reminder in Tolkien, that once things are gone, they are so often are far good. How can you go back? How can you pick up the threads of an old life, after such loss and grief, individually? Let alone, collectively, on a civilisation-wide level. There are tragedies within tragedies on a massive scale across the map. And all they can do, is step forward and endure, even if the power of evil grew greater by the day, which it did. This sense of hope in the face of unimaginable change, the attrition of time, the nostalgia of the ages, was deliberately - and masterfully - interwoven into all of Tolkien's writing, like a golden thread of remembrance and respect for the past now lost forever. It's the heart and soul of the Tolkien Legendarium; a sense of majesty beyond measure and moralistic nostalgia beyond the count of grief. Entire civilisations have come and gone, and mistakes have been repeated more times than most realise. The Rohirrim are far from the oldest culture on the map, even among Mankind. Though they are indeed, a microcosm of the duality of intense nostalgia and subtle romance in the writing of Tolkien. He understood history and language, people and culture, in a gifted and insightful way, better than most. Of course, he was writing within the inevitable frameworks of his day, and hardly flawless; yet these quibbles are utterly irrelevant in the face of the visionary brilliance of the overall masterpiece he created; his universe out of time, his legendarium. The Rohirrim are deliberately intended and designed to behave and even speak like the Anglo-Saxons, though with tangential differences. The Rohirrim going to Minas Tirith, is _really_ Tolkien's take on the idealised 'Super Anglo-Saxons' on horseback, going to save the idealised Eastern Roman Imperials/'Byzantines'. The Battles of the Fords of Isen are so reminiscent of how armies manoeuvred and skirmished in the time of Anglo-Saxon England, though of course, with notable twists and differences. They aren't exactly the same, but a notable similarity is the use of the shield-walls. Saruman was smart enough to know he wasn't powerful enough militarily to be too wasteful, but that it was worth _appearing_ to be defeated at the First Battle of the Fords of Isen, to ensure the death of Prince Theodred. As you correctly point out, strategically, Isengard was in an interesting situation of being militarily superior on paper, though not by as big of a margin to be comfortable with taking Rohan lightly. Indeed, the fact Saruman had to resort to what he did to King Theoden, in such a sly and underhanded way via Wormtongue, is indicative of how dangerous the Rohirrim were to his plans, in spite of all his talk of them being 'peasants' as though they were no challenge. He obviously knew that, especially early on, Rohan would be too dangerous to fight openly, so needed to subvert and weaken them, to maximise Isengard's own chances. Makes sense.

Theodred should have visited a lecture of Caesar how to properly fortify and dug in to withstand superior numbers 😂

Great Video well explained not only with facts but also Interpretation that makes sense

Nailed this video dude, this battle is always glossed over in the films so to see it has such detail is amazing! :)

I love all Tolkien work and carry on with awesome videos can’t wait to hear next part already

Man this was good. Could be wrong/strictly opinion but I always felt this was one of Tolkien’s best written battles from a tactical stand point. Wish it got some screen time!

This is why Isengard was built. To guard the other crossing of the river. It meant that Gondor, and later Rohan, could not be attacked from both sides of the river if it was attacked from the west by land.

Great video! Glad you are covering your favorite battle! You did a good job!

Quick correction - Theodred says, "Let me lie here", not, "Let me die here". In other news, I have a Twitch - www.twitch.tv/darthgandalftv - If you're bored, looking for a laugh or want to make yourself more depressed, feel free to stop by and join the fun. I'll be streaming stuff like Divide and Conquer, Battle for Middle-earth, Lord of the Rings Online - we can talk Tolkien, the weather, the geopolitical situation in South Sudan etc. I'll be starting up sometime over the next few days (in case you haven't noticed I'm awful with schedules). If I get to 100 followers, I'll buy a webcam and start doing hot tub streams as an added bonus. Cheers.

It's always going to be hilarious to me that anyone ever trusted someone with the sobriquet "Wormtounge". "Meet my most trusted advisor, Sliptounge the Liar."

Damn, I love this.

A new video! Nice!

love it man, cheers!

You should do some videos on divide and conquer, its a mod for medieval 2 you defenitly now it

Cheers

I don't understand this battle. After his attack on Isengard fails, why defend the Fords if the river can be crossed near Isengard? Theodred should have fallen back towards Helm's Deep or Edoras while waiting for Eomer.

Two parts good choice

I wish you a good morning!

Why is it your favorite battle?

1th