Battles of Beleriand

[Tuor of Gondolin]

Following the example of a thread by Rumil discussing battles of the
late Third Age I thought I'd start one on other battles. The general
guidelines to that thread:
"In each case I'd like to discuss the 'facts' we have, and speculate on terrain, size and armament of forces and the course of the battle. Obviously this is easier in some cases than others due to lack of information!"
seem a good guide for this one.

So what of the First Battle of Beleriand (which actually merges with the
Second Battle (Dagor-nuin-Giliath), but can initially be considered seperately.

This is an interesting battle, showing Thingol in an active light, and which
goes to explain some of his resentment to the elvish "newcomers" since he
did a good bit in blunting Morgoth's first aggressions. It's helpful to
consult not only the Silmarillion and its maps but also The Atlas of Middle-earth , By Karen Wynn Fonstad.

Morgoth sent two strong forces around Menegroth. The Eastern force was
caught in an elvish pincer movement (showing Thingol's ability in both military
and diplomatic ability in involving Denethor's elves). Presumably neither side
had cavalry(?). Had Morgoth suceeded on both fronts and there had been no
Noldor intervention, he would presumably have virtually seized control of
Beleriand, and most of Middle-earth(?).

Note that the silvan elves don't seem to learn from their military mistakes,
unpreparedness, since at the much later War of the Last Alliance they were
also relatively militarily inferior to other good guys, and bad guys.

Was Morgoth also militarily an amateur here? Why would the orcish forces
have been taken by surprise by Thingols forces? Fonstad suggests: "The Orcs, beset on two fronts, must have turned back-to-back to counter" [attacks by Tingol and the Green Elves].

Even though Thingol was successful in the east, might a better strategy have
been for the Green Elves to withdraw to the Ossiriand rivers and the Taur-im-Duinath (reminiscent of the Russian use of the Pripet Marshes in World War II), with Thingol also harassing the orcs with sorties from Menegroth,
while Thingol sent the bulk of his forces west to help Cirdan?

[Aiwendil]

Even though Thingol was successful in the east, might a better strategy have
been for the Green Elves to withdraw to the Ossiriand rivers and the Taur-im-Duinath (reminiscent of the Russian use of the Pripet Marshes in World War II), with Thingol also harassing the orcs with sorties from Menegroth,
while Thingol sent the bulk of his forces west to help Cirdan?

I would say that no matter what Thingol or anyone else had done, Morgoth would have taken either the east or the west. The question then is which you would rather yield. My view is that if Morgoth had taken the east, he would have cut off the trade routes that had recently been established from Eriador beyond the mountains, through Nogrod and Belegost, and to Doriath. This would have isolated the Sindar and cut them off from the metalwork of the Dwarves. Of course, no one could have foreseen the imminent arrival of the Noldor.

I like the idea of considering each of the battles of Beleriand in turn. I wonder, though, if you might also include those battles that did not warrant a number - some of them are quite important. I mean, for example, the Battle of Lammoth, the attack of the Orcs on Hithlum from the north, the Battle of Tumhalad, the Fall of Gondolin, etc.

[Tuor of Gondolin]

"I like the idea of considering each of the battles of Beleriand in turn. I wonder, though, if you might also include those battles that did not warrant a number - some of them are quite important. I mean, for example, the Battle of Lammoth, the attack of the Orcs on Hithlum from the north, the Battle of Tumhalad, the Fall of Gondolin, etc."
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That works for me, if there's sufficent interest. Of course, it will take a little time to
work out a sequence, and I believe somewhere (in HoME?) there is more
detailed descriptions of battles, such as the Fall of Gondolin. I have at least some
of them, but haven't really read much.
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As for the First Battle of Beleriand, does anyone have any sources for
the numbers and composition of the forces?

[Rumil]

Hi Tuor,

congratulations on taking the plunge and starting the First Age Battles!

Off the top of my head (note to self - re-read the Sil ASAP!) I seem to remember that Tolkien stated that one of the reasons for the defeat of Denethor's silvan elves was their lack of warlike gear ie armour and combat weapons rather than hunting weapons. This shows that the orcs, even at this very early date, were reasonably well equipped with armour and weaponry forged at Angband.

As for numbers I'm afraid we're even more in the dark than in the Third Age battles, orcs - lots, elves - fewer, must be the closest we can come.

[Kuruharan]

...but I feel it is important to actually say it.

There would have been more elves present in these battles than would have been in arms at any time in the Third Age.

Now, it may seem silly to say this, but there is a point I'd like to make. I think that the battles described so briefly in these early chapters were at least as large as Pelennor and other familiar battles of the Third Age.

[Tuor of Gondolin]

About numbers of the elves:

Michael Martinez wrote an interesting (and as he admits, very speculative)
essay on that subject:
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/tolkien/54681

Part of it that seems relevant here is:
======================
"But 362 Years of the Trees, that gives us another 8 rounds of expansion. In total, we end up with 19 generations of Noldor, Vanyar, and Amanyar Teleri (but not 19 generations of Elves). The Noldor, at the time of their rebellion, could have numbered around 130,000. Ten per cent of them (13,000) refused to go into exile. Another unspecified number under Finarfin turned back. Just for the sake of being presumptious, let's say that approximately 1/2 of the rebellious Noldor followed Fingolfin and that 1/4 followed Feanor and the remaining 1/4 followed Finarfin.

Suppose Finarfin and half his people turned back? That would leave 7/8 of the rebellious Noldor (minus their losses in battle and storm) to continue the flight into exile. Of course, almost any set of numbers would work, but it seems likely that if there were 130,000 Noldor at the beginning of Feanor's rebellion, fewer than 100,000 would have reached Middle-earth.

There in Beleriand they would find the Sindar (the Mithrim, Falathrim, and Iathrim) and the Green-elves outnumbered them (by some ridiculous amount not worth calculating, since these populations would by this time also have suffered casualties through Morgoth's invasion).

Over the next 500 Years of the Sun (appproximately) the Noldor would continue to increase their population, suffering occasional setbacks. They would end up with a population of well over 1,000,000 Elves.

Of course, by the time you get up into the hundreds of thousands of Elves, people start raising their hands and saying, "Excuse me! What about Turgon's ten thousand?" That is, Turgon led ten thousand soldiers to the Nirnaeth Arnoediad. And he supposedly took a third of Fingolfin's people with him when he founded the city of Gondolin. Ten thousand soldiers doesn't seem like very many given the huge numbers of Elves we're looking at.

But where does it say that Turgon brought all of his warriors out of Gondolin? Did he really strip the city of all its defenders? My feeling is that Gondolin was still well defended. The Noldor had already suffered grievous losses in the Dagor Bragollach. Dorthonion had been lost, the Vale of Sirion had fallen, and the sons of Feanor had been driven out of their lands for a while. Maedhros ended up taking back the lands which had been lost, but he didn't have all the Noldor on his side. Orodreth refused to join the Union of Maedhros, and Orodreth supposedly still had one of the largest if not the largest kingdom in Beleriand. So Turgon's ten thousand soldiers don't really imply there were fewer than 1,000,000 Noldor by the time of the Nirnaeth.

Well, the numbers are about as bogus as one can get and still call it a discussion of Tolkien and Middle-earth. But no matter how you work your way through the generations, the Noldor end up with a huge population in Beleriand, and the Sindar must be even more numerous. So when Tolkien has Morgoth turn the tables on the Eldar and his legions of Orcs go streaming across the countryside, the devastation is worse than anything prior to the Napoleonic wars in true history. Perhaps it's even worse than the Napoleonic wars themselves. What the Eldar achieved in Beleriand seems fragile because we have only the one map done by Christopher Tolkien, and it names fewer than a dozen cities.

But think of a map of Europe where at most two dozen cities are named. How sparse and empty the countryside would seem to someone looking at that map. And yet we know better. Whether there were many more cities than are named in the stories, there were a lot of Elves. It shouldn't seem strange at all that Earendil would be so desperate as to abandon his wife and children to spend years seeking for a way across the Sea so that he could deliver the prayer of Elves and Men to the Valar.

And Morgoth's accomplishment also comes across as that much more horrifying and awe-inspiring. He wiped out at least a couple million Elves."
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