Q: Were Battles in Lord of the Rings Inspired by Any Historical Events?
ANSWER: This is an interesting question that has spurred debate among fans from time-to-time. There is almost certainly a 1-to-1 correlation between some of the landscapes and scenes in The Lord of the Rings (where troop movements are described) and J.R.R. Tolkien’s personal wartime experiences. He served in the British army and was stationed in France long enough to have witnessed large groups of soldiers moving around.
As for identifying specific Middle-earth battles with historical battles, I am not aware of any acknowledgments from Tolkien himself that “so-and-so battle closely resembles the Battle of X”. Nonetheless, he was very well-read in classical literature having a thorough understanding of Greek and Latin. And, of course, he had probably read every medieval manuscript that ever described any possible battle or battle formation several times.
Some years ago I wrote about Tolkien’s use of “sigaldry” in a poem and several medievalists pointed out to me that he borrowed the word from a 13th century poem called “King Alisaunder” (Alexander the Great). When I mentioned that to Dr. Jane Chance one evening she told me that a lot of Tolkien’s work borrowed from Middle English sources like “King Alisaunder”. So various scholars have drawn connections between Tolkien’s literary battles and other literary battles through the years.
Going back further, I recall an online discussion where the charge of the Rohirrim at the Battle of the Pelennor Fields was alleged by one commenter to have come straight out of medieval European warfare. However, there are not many examples of such large cavalry charges in western Europe’s medieval history. One can more easily find a plethora of examples in classical history, particularly in the career of Alexander whose Companion Cavalry often broke enemy lines by charging directly at them in exactly the same way Theoden led his Riders against the Haradrim.
Is there enough evidence to show a 1-to-1 correlation between Tolkien’s battles and real battles, though? I find that doubtful. For one thing, the landscapes in Tolkien’s stories were imagined with great precision through a process of trial and error. So the tactical movements of bodies of soldiers during Tolkien’s battles would be difficult to match to any specific battles. Rather, the tactics themselves may reflect historical practices that were documented in various ancient (or medieval) manuscripts and he simply chose the inspirations most suitable for his needs.
In fact, it has been noted that there are historical parallels to many of the incidents Tolkien describes in his battles, such as the lobbing of the heads of defeated soldiers over the walls of Minas Tirith. There are documented incidents in medieval history where attacking armies threw diseased corpses, clothing, and body parts over city walls (via catapult) to infect defenders with the plague.
The scene where an Orc-captain draws an Elvish army out into the open to start the Nirnaeth Arnoediad could be compared to a number of historical incidents, such as Hannibal’s taunting of Flaminius prior to the Battle of Lake Trasimene (the Roman army fell for the ruse and was destroyed, much as Fingon’s army was destroyed). The fall of Gondolin has been thematically compared to the fall of Troy.
Tolkien’s use of dragons in battles probably draws upon the use of tanks in the First World War. His dragons were originally metal machines that carried Orc soliders inside them. But his use of Oliphaunts probably owes more to history from Hannibal’s time onward. North African elephants were often used effectively against infantry armies in the classical period. Even the loss of a Gondorian fleet in a storm off Umbar can be compared to a couple of naval disasters, including when the first Roman fleet was destroyed in a storm.
Nonetheless, when all is said and done, despite many probable historical sources for types of troops, specific actions, and so forth I think it can be reasonably said that Tolkien’s battles were constructed to fit the needs of his stories and were never simple retellings of real or older literary battles.
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The use of the battering-ram Grond to break the gates of Minas Tirith (which is the Third Age equivalent of Constantinople), is evocative of the use of the Great Turkish Bombard–a giant cannon used to break the walls of Constantinople. This Great Bombard was still around hundreds of years later, when in the 1807 Dardanelles Operation, British forces suffered casualties from this ancient weapon, of which JRRT was surely aware of.