Gondor’s War Strategy
The Realm of Gondor was the most important and dangerous of Sauron’s enemies. It was also the closest, and thus the first to be attacked. Yet despite being the greatest military power still opposing Sauron, by the late Third Age it was in its twillight, having fallen into decay long ago. Gondor had been in retreat for centuries, losing all the lands it once held across the Anduin. Plague, civil war, attacks by orcs and wild men had all taken their toll, reducing Gondor to a fraction of its former power. Even Minas Ithil, a twin to Minas Tirith, was lost to Nazgul, while once-capital Osgilliath was reduced to a contested ruin. And what remained of the kingdom was constantly threatened by war. To East and South, only Sauron’s servants existed, looking for ways to bring down the last bastion of the heritage of Numenor. Gondor thus had to prepare an elaborate defensive strategy.
But Gondor still controlled significant territory, if only a fraction of what it used to be, and a good defensive position. While its capital of Minas Tirith was close to the front line, majority of population was in Belfalas and Lebennin, as well as in Lossarnach, Anfalas and Lamedon. Anorien had been apparently abandoned.
Strategic situation for Gondor was relatively straightforward in that it was always obvious where and how Sauron would attack. Gondor was a relatively centralized state of the Byzantine model, which meant that basically entirety of its administrative apparatus was in the capital of Minas Tirith. The capture of capital may well end the war then and there. This is the reason why premodern warfare was mostly about sieges: objective of the campaign was capturing administrative centres (local, regional or national), or raiding enemy territory to soften resistance before the sieges. Pitched battles usually were a result of attempting to either set up or prevent either a raid or a siege, especially in ancient world where greater organizational capability meant that the city was unlikely to withstand a siege on its own anyway.
But while administration may have been centralized, Gondor’s military was organized on a regional basis, with each province having essentially its own army. When Sauron mounted his attack against the capital, Minas Tirith would call to these regions for reinforcement. This was done through the beacon system, which unlike what was shown in the movies, was not used to call for assistance from Rohan. It stretched to the south of the White Mountains, allowing Minas Tirith to quickly send out a cry for help to other regions of Gondor, allowing them to send reinforcements in the timely manner. By contrast, Rohirrim had to be summoned by sending a messanger with the Red Arrow. But both Gondor’s own armies as well as those of the Rohirrim would take time to arrive.
There is a significant problem with this approach. Minas Morgul, a major staging point for armies of Mordor, is much closer to Minas Tirith than any of Gondor’s major regions. This meant that the crucial aspect of Gondor’s strategy was buying time for reinforcements to arrive. The way this goal was achieved was by organizing a defense in depth, spreading Gondor’s forces across four layers. Aim was not to stop the advance of Mordor – this could not be done in any realistic way save at Minas Tirith itself. The aim was to delay Mordor’s progress by causing constant friction, interference with advance of the armies of Mordor.
Of course, Sauron – not being an idiot – was aware of this strategy. Denethor too was aware that Sauron was aware. It is thus logical that both sides attempted to interfere with enemy reinforcements. Rangers of Gondor ambushed at least one group of Sauron’s allies who were marching through Ithillien, while from Sauron’s side, he used the threat of Corsairs to prevent many coastal regions from sending significant number of troops to Minas Tirith. Due to this threat, Lossarnach only sent a tenth of available manpower to Minas Tirith, and other areas also sent but a fraction of what they could have.
Gondor’s defense was, in principle, defense-in-depth. This was, especially in premodern times, primary defense against a militarily more powerful opponent. In essence, defense in depth sacrifices space to gain time. Instead of trying to stop the attacker with a single powerful defensive line, defense in depth yields space while imposing friction, slowing down and disorienting the attacker in the process. This is in fact the goal. Gondor had no ability to destroy the army of Mordor in the field with forces available on the eastern front alone. It had to wait for reinforcements, from the rest of the country as well as from Rohan. And this meant buying as much time as possible. Problem is that there was simply not enough distance between Minas Morgul and Minas Tirith for defense in depth to work merely based on time. Some Arab raids into Anatolia penetrated as deep as 600 kilometers, whereas the distance between Minas Tirith and Minas Morgul is nowhere close to that (and while most such raids did not aim to capture fortified cities, there were in fact cases where Arab raiders had sacked a city; the most prominent case being sack of Amorium in 838).
[Pippin] lifted his eyes above the River, and it seemed to him that all he could see was a vast and threatening shadow. Perhaps it was mountains looming on the verge of sight, their jagged edges softened by wellnigh twenty leagues of misty air; perhaps it was but a cloud-wall, and beyond that again a yet deeper gloom. But even as he looked it seemed to his eyes that the gloom was growing and gathering, very slowly, slowly rising to smother the regions of the sun….
“Wellnigh” twenty leagues could be 15 – 20 leagues, or some 72 to 97 kilometers. On the other hand however, army of Mordor was going in for a siege, not a large-scale raid, and so would move more slowly. Even so, this meant that if Gondor was to have a chance, it had to actively interfere with Mordor’s advance. This meant defense in depth, and a layered defense at that instead of a Cunctator-type defense. In essence, Gondor had to actively inflict friction onto forces of Mordor, slow down and disorganize them before the siege.
First layer of Gondor’s defense were the Rangers of Ithillien. They kept watch over their old homeland of Ithillien, now an enemy territory ever since the Minas Ithil had been taken by the Nazgul. Rangers kept the Stewards of Gondor informed of the events in Ithillien, and were also responsible for harassing and wearing down the enemy armies marching through the Ithillien. To do this, they relied on deception, camouflage, and hidden bases scattered through Ithillien.
Second layer of defense was River Anduin itself. The lynchpin of the river defense was Osgilliath, the former capital of Gondor, although position at Cair Andros was also of crucial import. These two areas were the only places where Anduin could be relatively easily forded, as other places were simply too wide, and would require too many boats and time. And time was one resource Sauron could not really afford: any army too large to effectively take or even just blockade Minas Tirith could not remain in the field indefinitely. He also needed to take the bridges at Osgilliath for supply purposes. Osgilliath was thus the key to siege of Minas Tirith and conquest of Gondor, though Cair Andor was crucial for defense of Anorien, through which any help from Rohan would have to pass in order to reach Minas Tirith. By forcing the forces of Mordor into an amphibious attack, defenders would also be able to use fortified positions to compensate for their numerical disadvantage and inflict heavy losses on forces of Mordor.
This strategem worked very well. The forces of Mordor had in fact captured the eastern part of Osgilliath a year prior to the War of the Ring. But Gondor had fortified the western half and also destroyed the bridges across the river. Thus the forces of Mordor were forced to mount an amphibious assault against prepared defenses. It is clear that Sauron was aware of the difficulty of the task, as the assault was well prepared. Even so the orcs had suffered extreme casualties in crossing the river, though Sauron was unlikely to care – orcs were an expendable resource.
And even if Sauron, by some accident, did care about his troops, logistical requirements of keeping an army capable of taking Minas Tirith in the field would have forced him into an attack regardless. If Sauron did not want to have his army starving to death, Osgilliath – and Minas Tirith – would have to be taken in a very short span of time, so that most of the army could be sent back to Osgilliath or even Minas Morgul.
This however meant that any force retreating from Osgilliath and Cair Andros would have to cross the open plains to Minas Tirith while under close pursuit. Considering numerican superiority of the armies of Mordor, likely outcome of such a pursuit would be complete destruction of Gondorian force – something that Gondor could ill afford. This is where the Rammas Echor becomes crucial. This was a wall which encompassed much of the Pelennor Fields – the entire countryside of Minas Tirith, in fact. The side of the wall facing Osgiliath had gates through which the army could retreat, and was also reinforced with the Causeway Forts. These forts allowed a strong position from which the rear guard of the retreating army could impede attacker’s advance. Two other gates existed in Rammas Echor, on the northern and southern ends of the wall, thus allowing reinforcements to reach Minas Tirith even if the eastern side of the wall was under attack. And while the main purpose of the wall was to buy time for Gondorian forces to retreat across the vast areas of Pelennor, the wall and the Causeway Forts allowed forces of Gondor another chance to inflict significant causalties against the attacker. But even more important than the casualties inflicted was the time bought: any attack against the wall, much like as with crossing the river, would require time to overcome the defenses. It would also disorder the attacker’s forces, forcing him to reorganize them before advancing again. If the forces were not reorganized and simply unleashed to pursue the retreating enemy, they were vulnerable – as was in fact shown when cavalry of Gondor threw back those forces that became disorganized again while pursuing Faramir across Pelennor, causing armies of Mordor significant losses and buying time for Faramir’s men to reach the safety of the city walls.
Rammas Echor also served a secondary purpose: if the enemy decided to raid instead of mounting a full-scale assault, the wall of Rammas Echor would provide a major barrier to any raiders. In this, it served to protect the fertile fields of Pelennor which were filled with farms and hamlets, providing the main source of food for Minas Tirith itself.
The final, and greatest, of Gondor’s defences was of course Minas Tirith itself. The city’s layout was designed to repeat the above strategy in microcosm. It consisted of seven circuit walls, one within another. Each of these walls would have to be taken in a successive attack for the city to fall. And this was no easy task. While the gates were an obvious weak point in any city wall, main gate to Minas Tirith was protected not only by powerful bastions but also by a fortifications atop the stone outcropping, overlooking the gate from the 7th level. If the main gate was breached, the attackers now faced a harrowing fight through the city streets while constantly under attack from the second wall, before reaching and having to fight to breach the second gate – which itself was located on the southeastern part of the second circuit. If that gate was breached, the attackers would then have to advance again through the streets and a tunnel undernearth the outcropping in order to reach the next gate, where they would have to repeat the whole procedure. Again, and again, and again, until finally reaching the citadel at the 7th level. Exhaustion, constant bombardment by archers and repeated fighting at the gates and walls will have taken their toll on any attackers, while defenders will have been able to rest behind the next level, at least to an extent.
And the first level itself was a uniquely difficult obstacle. Built before the skill of Numenor had waned in the exile, the main wall of Minas Tirith was akin to the tower of Orthanc: black, smooth, stone that was impregnable to any conceivable breaching technique. The only way to breach it was by breaking through the gate. The gate itself was made of iron and steel, and guarded by a complex system of impregnable towers and bastions.
At fifth level there was a narrow outcrop of stone which connected the mountain of Mindolluin with the hill that Minas Tirith was built on: the Hill of Guard or Amon Tirith. This outcrop formed a passage which enemies could, theoretically, use to infiltrate the lower levels. But the architects of Minas Tirith were well aware of this weakness, and had built the great ramparts to prevent any enemy from actually doing so.
The most obvious way of taking the city was by siege. But this was an incredibly difficult task, as an army that could concievably besiege such a major city was unlikely to be able to remain in the field for long. Minas Tirith itself has massive stores of food, and before the assault had began, Denethor had sent most of the population to safer areas westwards so as to allow the city to maintain itself for as long as possible. So long as Minas Tirith remained an active threat, forces of Mordor would not be able to mount a large-scale campaign of conquest against remaining territories of Gondor or Rohan, and also remained vulnerable to a counterattack by whatever forces Gondor and Rohan had elsewhere.
And while the fall of the city would spell the end of Gondor, in time, it would not spell an immediate doom to all of the inhabitants of the city. There were secret passages in the city that could be used to escape into the mountains and their hidden valleys.
EDIT: Discussion thread on The Tolkien Forum:
https://www.thetolkienforum.com/threads/gondors-war-strategy.30349/
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