Siege of gondor extended edition pt.2

This is actually a clever use of fantasy airborne assets — rather than rushing them uselessly into clouds of arrows, the Witch King is using their tremendous speed and mobility to try to cut the line of communications between Minas Tirith and its forces.

Alas for them, Gandalf has brought his AAA did you not know? His staff packs Bofors! Denethor then recommits to the defense in depth strategy, sending Faramir back to Osgiliath with reinforcements RotK , His disordered mass of cavalry and infantry retreating over open ground trust me, we will get to that in a later post — why is Minas Tirith surrounded by grassland?

For some reason, while all of this is happening, the orc army does not actually advance, but just opts to chill out in Osgiliath, giving Faramir the time to ride all the way to Minas Tirith and then ride all the way back. Denethor now orders Faramir to retake Osgiliath. Denethor then launches Faramir on a cavalry charge against a city , albeit a ruined one. This attack makes no sense on multiple levels. First, the distance is nonsense — Osgiliath is thirty-some miles away.

Faramir could ride half the day, camp , sleep out the night , and still be too far away to charge in directly. Second, the terrain is nonsense — cavalry need open spaces to operate in, but the enemy has not left Osgiliath. Surely one would wait for the orcs to get into the open field before attempting to charge them. Thirdly, the size of the cavalry force that is sent out is ludicrously small. Finally, the overall purpose of the charge makes no sense.

But a ruined city cannot panic and run away. The orcs Faramir is charging cannot flee even if they wanted to — they have their backs to the river. Moreover, while standing against a charge in open ground is hard horses are scary! But as tactics, we have to assume that Denethor is either stunningly incompetent or already a touch mad at this point something Gandalf more or less says earlier in the film.

Book Note : This sequence runs very differently in the book, both because of the more detailed military topography of the battlespace, but also because Denethor is not actually a mad fool yet. So instead of sending Faramir on a suicide charge against some stone walls, Denethor is instead sending Faramir out with what reinforcements can be spared to Osgiliath.

He is aware Faramir has indeed just told him that any troops sent at this point to defend the crossing are likely to suffer high casualties. Faramir is the finest captain he has, and this is a difficult but necessary assignment.

No one — not even Faramir — suggests calling back the forces at Osgiliath or further north at Caer Andros which has, in fact, at this point already fallen, but this is not known yet. This order also makes sense of the transit time — Faramir is not charging 30 miles into a stone city, but leading a force along well-controlled roads to reinforce a friendly outpost — he is not in combat until two days later, and not wounded until a day after that.

The orcs swarm the Anduin in small boats RotK 99 , Faramir bleeds them for crossing and then withdraws, apparently in good order, to the Rammas Echor and the Causeway forts.

Faramir holds there long enough for retreating forces from Caer Andros to reach him RotK By keeping part of his army intact and ready to fight, he forces his enemy to advance in slow, plodding battle formation — remember, this plan is all about friction and delay. Faramir is also able to send wounded and exhausted soldiers ahead. Denethor — having coolly observed all of this — now releases his sortie which he had held prepared all morning like a boss. The less disciplined Anglo-Saxon fyrdmen the levy infantry charged down the hill after them in a pell-mell pursuit much like the one Faramir just lured the orcs and Southrons into.

Thereupon William, having gotten control of his forces, promptly wheeled them around and charged the Anglo-Saxons out in the open, annihilating them. Infantry out of formation is extremely vulnerable to cavalry. The sortie is crushing , as you would expect it. The enemy cavalry is exhausted and all of their forces they have supporting infantry are out of formation. Denethor is quick not to let his men get overeager and he calls the charge back swiftly. Good command there — successful cavalry charges have a tendency to overreach.

At Magnesia BC , for instance, the Seleucid cavalry, after breaking the Roman left flank, proceeded to charge straight off of the field towards the Roman camp, both removing them from a battle in which they were sorely needed the Romans were triumphant in the center and on the right, winning the battle and leaving the Seleucid cavalry isolated and vulnerable to counterattack. Denethor makes no such mistakes. Denethor is willing to coldly sacrifice his son for a military advantage, but he is not mad.

We then pick up again with the orc army having reached Minas Tirith and Denethor viewing them from atop the city. Denethor then rants like a madman something he does not do at this juncture in the books and gets clubbed by Gandalf while his sworn guards do not-a-damn-thing.

Much of the tension in the books is carried by dialogue — we are told how badly outnumbered Faramir is, how many men he has lost, and how callous and demanding Denethor is being. In a filmic medium, however, we need to see this and we need to see it much more quickly and more clearly. The way film treats time is also creating demands for Jackson. Denethor, especially, is a complex character in the books — he opposes Mordor and never considers betraying the good guys, but he is also vain and arrogant.

Nevertheless, Denethor, as Gandalf notes, sees further than other men, and has a deep cunning to him RotK The film, however, reduces Denethor to a mad villain almost immediately. At each stage, the army of Mordor is forced to sustain casualties and disorder to surmount one set of defenses, only to be presented with fresh defenses and troops. Thus for all of their pains and delays, the Army of Mordor faces a Minas Tirith fully defended, having lost the chance to destroy a good part of the army of Gondor in the field.

Instead, Gondor executes its plans admirably, and yet it is so outmatched in military might that it remains in peril. He can make his heroes militarily clever, because he has taken the time to understand these very mechanics. View all posts by Bret Devereaux. I will note here that Constantinople, until 11th century at least, had up to three lines of walls. Surely none of your readers would be so ignorant as to think the beacons ahistorical. That scene is straight out of The Oresteia.

Though I suspect Mulan is a more direct inspiration. Some of us readers are ignorant. I vaguely knew Byzantium had a beacon system but not how efficient or far reaching it was. On the peak of great mountains up in the clouds seems a bit unlikely. The Chinese beacon system was also famed.

There is an old folk-tale of the Zhou emperor who lost his kingdom by crying wolf with his beacons in order to impress his mistress she thought the spectacle of a hundred thousand harried men rushing to defend the capital amusing, apparently.

Thank you, JRRT. The beacon-hills Gandalf names off are all locatable on the map, running roughly parallel to the Road as far as the Halifirien on the border of Rohan.

They were not, however, stuck on top of Alpine peaks as in the movie, which would have been colossally dumb. This of course has ample historical basis. While not concentric circles, but linear, there is a historic european castle that has five outeryards — the whole area is over 1 kilometer long!

And now you will never be able to unsee it. He might even have been humming the music to himself as he charged. In that case, the walls have astrological significance, each one corresponding to a planet in the old sense, including the Moon and the Sun.

Maybe Tolkien took inspiration from that source. I think seven is a suitably impressive number which has meaning in Tolkiens own world. The seven stars of the valacirya, the seven gates of Gondolin etc. Three os too less, five feels too exact and humdrum, seven has that impressive legendary air. Oh, and the Book of Revelation uses it a ton, alongside other theological and folkloric sevens. Though three is even more common, which is probably a quirk of human psychology considering how omnipresent it is.

I remember hearing that the human brain can identify immediately without counting or something like that, so the fact that those numbers are apparently handled differently than larger ones. Thanks for doing that. So many things I never knew! After reading the book, I was immensely dissatisfied with how the films depicted this chapter. On the beacons. One other note although OT to the Military history is Jackson tone deaf and makes Pippen break his oath to light the beacon.

It seems to me for example that it hard to ignore that neither book Aragorn nor book Farmair are tempted by the ring because they swore an oath to Frodo. Because the military outpost designed to hold the anti-Mordor garrison was Minas Ithil later Morgul , on the edge of Mordor itself. Minas Anor was built to defend against threats from the northwest, the ancestors of the Dunlendings and Men of Harrowdale.

Osgiliath was between the two strongholds, as a major river-crossing and port which all RW cities of any size had to be, before railroads. Of course. I must not have been thinking right; Minas Anor was the original outpost, you are right. Sorry for the double comment. WordPress was acting up on doing authentication to a different site. I had forgotten about Minas Morgul once being Minas Anor. Thanks for the reminder, now it makes sense again.

Minas Morgul was originally Minas Ithil. The region ithilien was named after it, as the fortress was originally the command center for the whole region. Morgul means sorcery, and it got renamed to reflect how sauron corrupted the place. Minas Tirith was originally the sister fortress, Minas Anor. The tower of the Sun, in Anorien, the land of the sun. Hmm… traditionally, Sun Tzu believes that sieges are the least profitable form of warfare.

Gandalf arrived to give heart to the defenders, remaining there for most of the day, before escorting wounded back to Minas Tirith. Although Faramir and his men resisted stoutly and inflicted heavy casualties on the enemy forces, the Witch King's army began to breach the wall, forcing Faramir to retreat with most of his remaining men, but was soon overtaken by Orcs and Southrons pouring onto the fields.

Prince Imrahil and Gandalf led a cavalry sortie which allowed the retreating men to regroup and return to Minas Tirith, but Faramir was wounded by a Southron arrow and was carried by Imrahil.

Upon arriving at the city, the enemy sprawled before the main walls of Minas Tirith. They quickly put up siege equipment and dug trenches.

A large force of Orcs and Easterlings was sent to guard the northern roads against possible reinforcements from Rohan. It put trenches and stakes on the road, enough to halt any charge.

On March 13, the Witch-king began to soften the defences of the city. The siege engines of Mordor, while not penetrating it, were able to launch incendiary missiles into the lower city, setting it ablaze.

The heads of casualties and prisoners taken in Osgiliath and at the Causeway Forts were also hurled into the city to demoralise the defenders. A distraught Denethor refused to command the defence, as he thought the entire city was to be destroyed and Faramir was doomed to die. Gandalf and Imrahil then took charge, and inspired hope whenever they went.

The main assault was launched against the Great Gate - the only vulnerable point in the wall - by a huge battering ram, Grond. However the resistance was stoutest at that point, and the forces of Mordor suffered high casualties.

Grond was hurled against the gate three times, but on the third try, it and the Witch-king's magic managed to destroy the gate completely. The Witch-king entered the city, with only Gandalf upon Shadowfax confronting him. At this moment, the horns of the Rohirrim sounded, forcing the Witch-king to leave and confront the new foe. With the arrival of the Rohirrim, the men of Gondor were encouraged and sortied from the city to attack their besiegers, beginning the Battle of the Pelennor Fields.

After the coming of the Grey Company and reinforcements from southern Gondor, the siege was completely overthrown. There is no darkness to represent the Dawnless Day in the movie, and no one sees the sun until the Rohirrim arrive.

However, artificial dark clouds created by Sauron are shown in the film. In the film, the battle starts when the Orcs begin to launch the severed heads of their human prisoners of the defenders of Osgiliath towards the city to frighten and demoralize both citizens and soldiers alike as a means of psychological warfare.

Denethor orders the army of Gondor to flee, but Gandalf knocks him unconscious, taking command of the fleeing soldiers saying, "Prepare for battle! He then rides through the streets shouting, "Return to your posts! The siege towers did reach the walls, but the soldiers of Gondor were able to hold them off, while sustaining some losses as well. At the same time, the Orcs attempted to break the gate with a small wooden battering ram, but it had no effect. Meanwhile, archers of Gondor archers mercilessly shot down at the Orcs, and hundreds were felled.

The Orcs eventually brought out their largest battering-ram -- Grond, which by nightfall breaks the city's gate. About soldiers of Gondor engage the trolls, Easterlings, and Orcs at the gate with Gandalf's aid. Despite fighting bravely, the soldiers of Gondor were overwhelmed, and were forced to retreat to the second level of the city.

The Orcs then began to swarm through the broken gate torrentially. Despite dozens of archers firing at the Orcs, the invading party heavily outnumbered them.

The next day at dawn, the Orcs began to engage in melee combat with the soldiers of Gondor, who were then being slaughtered due to their exhaustion, earned by fighting non-stop through the night. The soldiers of Minas Tirith used the tactic "defend and retreat", which required the Men of Gondor to defend each level shortly, before retreating deeper into their burning citadel.

Pippin alerts Gandalf of Denethor's madness and plans of suicide.