The Dúnadan Kingship in Exile

A Tolkien topic that my thoughts have been coming once and again to is the nature and reach of the Númenórean kingship in exile, and the configuration of the crown of Elendil under his successors, at the highest level.

One of the issuing points of this topic is the apparent contradiction between two texts by Tolkien himself, dealing with the geographic extension of Gondor.

On the one hand, the Appendices of The Lord of the Rings where we are told that the Ship-kings expanded Gondor to the west and south of the Mouths of Anduin.

On the other hand, “The Tradition of Isildur” in Unfinished Tales pt. III. II. iv, where we have “a tomb and memorial of Elendil the Faithful. Here it shall stand at the mid-point of the Kingdom of the South” in Amon Anwar, which later fell in the boundary between Gondor and Rohan.

Michael Martinez's keen deductions, particularly those in “Razing Arnor: How Real Were the Dunadan Conspiracies?” have decisively pushed my thoughts on the subject. Here, Martinez basically says that Gondor’s expansion and policies might have indirectly influenced the partition of Arnor.

Those are several points that made me wonder about the more general topic I’m dealing with now. Some of the questions were:

• If the oldest male heir of Isildur’s line was the High King, and the Númenórean kingship was sacred, how could it be that different independent realms, with their independent kings, were established through the partition of Arnor?
• What did it mean to be High King at all? What was de iure and de facto the geographical reach of High Kingship?
• Which way was the governance of Gondor included in the attributions of the High Kingship? Had the High Kings anything to say regarding the expansion of Gondor?
• And, most intriguingly, does the apparent documentary contradiction on the boundaries of Gondor play any role in all this?

Putting together the sources and the deductions by Michael Martinez and others, and using my own invention to give answers to those questions to cement all that together, I have outlined the following thread of the history of Middle-earth:

When Elendil was cast by the great wave on the shores of Harlindon, he was received by the Elves. Elendil himself said that in those times he thought of spending the rest of his life among the Elves; so heavy was the grieve in his heart for the loss of the millenary homeland, even though that homeland was his enemy, and of his people.

But comforted by the Eldar, and with the friendship and counsel offered by Gil-galad, Elendil started to change his mind, and came to conceive an ambitious idea: to keep united the Númenórean nation, though at that moment it was made of colonists and exiles. For he was the heir of Elros’s firstborn line and head of the Faithful, so if anyone was to establish a new kingship of the Dúnedain, that was him.

But the Kingdom of Númenor had been established by the Valar themselves, and Elendil could not dare to take that step without their approval. And he could take counsel from them directly, since one of the Palantíri he had brought to Middle-earth in his ship was the one with its view fixed in Valinor. Through the stone, Elendil received the ruling of the Máhanaxar: that the sacred functions of the Númenórean Kings passed to him and his dynasty.

Keeping all Dúnedain under a single crown was a most difficult task, not only because of the blasphemy of the Black Númenóreans, who were the majority of the old King’s Men left, but also because of the destructions brought by the great cataclysm.

Elendil was proclaimed as King by Gil-galad himself, and acclaimed by the nearest Númenórean colonies, those most favourable to him, which were the ones of the Arthedain, the pious colonists living in Eriador closest to Lindon. Gil-galad ceded all the lands in Eriador that he protected but were sparsely populated by Elves to the new Kingdom, which was called Arnor, “King’s Land”, as a kind of augmented reproduction of the Arandor in Númenor. Since lesser men were under the protection of Gil-galad, Arnor was intended to comprise all Men in Eriador and their affairs, not only Dúnedain. That was the first foundation of Elendil’s rule.

The kingship had yet to be extended to other Númenóreans in the south, a task started by Elendil’s sons themselves after he counselled them, through the Palantíri, to divide their areas of action. Isildur and Anárion had spent their military service in the colonies of Gondor, and there they had tried to steer their ships. The waves kept them from reaching the great colony and naval base of Pelargir directly; instead they were stranded in the Ras Morthil, a part of the coasts dominated by Tharagrond. The lord of this fortress were among those King’s Men who, in spite of his old friendship with Ar-Pharazôn, had managed to avoid declaring himself for the religion of Melkor, since he deeply rejected it, and now he offered his support to Elendil and his sons.

Now the Númenórean sway over the hinterland was tiny, and when news spread of the end of Númenor, there was unrest among the native Gwathuirim (whose descendants three millennia later were the Dunlendings), since a part of them still wanted to come back to the worship of Sauron, their god of old. So Isildur decided to deal with the Gwathuirim, and took the Covenant Stone of the Lords of Andúnie to the core of the native lands. Knowing of the natives’ superstition, he thought it to be the best instrument to keep their loyalty to the Númenórean lords (the other Covenant Stone was the globe of Umbar, on which Ar-Pharazôn had taken Sauron’s oath of fealty). Isildur planted the Stone in the place where the Gwathuirim had a temple (erech, in their tongue), and got too their oath.

Anárion chose to go to Pelargir, their first intended destination, to ask for the support of his friend Eldarion of Eldalonde, a lord of the Faithful. He was heir of the noble house of Hyarnustar, military men of renown, and in Middle-earth, as many other like him, he had found a place where his military skills were well valued over the fact of being one of the Faithful. He became commander of the Pelargirean forces in Ar-Pharazôn’s grand operation to beat Sauron, and on that occasion he had been mentor of Elendil’s sons, Anárion being his favourite. Eldarion had married Imrêth of the old house of the founders and lords of Pelargir, but had himself founded Linhir as a colony of his own. He had gained more ascendancy over the Faithful of the Bay of Belfalas when he refused to obey Ar-Pharazôn’s summon to the Great Armament, and instead attacked some of the Black Númenóreans coming to join that blasphemous force.

If there was anyone to whom the people of Pelargir could have raised to the throne before the coming of Elendil, that one was Eldarion; instead, as soon as he got word of the arrival of Elendil and his sons he did not hesitate to proclaim them as Kings. Uinen confirmed the righteousness of Eldarion’s deeds appearing before Anárion’s ship, calming and opening the whirls in the changing Anduin of those years. Enthusiasm exploded: the Kings were acclaimed by the people, bells rang along the coasts with joy for the new lord whose name alone made them feel back to the most blessed times of Númenor, the true children of that ill-fated land, liberated from Ar-Pharazôn’s madness, and the most powerful nation on Earth.

In spite of Uinen, there was not the same enthusiasm among the Pelargirean nobles, many of them officers in the armed forces, were King’s Men unwilling to accept a king of the Faithful. First among them were Herumir and Fuinur, Eldarion’s sons —that was the pitiful state of the Númenórean people, in which even families were torn apart by the Kings’ rebellion against the Valar. Herumir, a tradesman, and Fuinur, commander of the XXIII Division “Minulthôr”, main army of Umbar at the time, had plans to control both Pelargir and Umbar through their combined influence. Their father’s quick cession of the government of Pelargir and the command of the XXIX “Starry” Division, main land force of that colony, to Anárion, shattered those plans.

Maybe they had at that time already fallen under the dark religion, by which at last Herumir would change his name for Herumor, but the fact is that they rebelled against their father and, conspiring with other officials in Pelargir, they usurped the VI “Starry” Fleet, the naval forces of Pelargir, and brought it to Umbar, establishing there a stronghold against Elendil’s reclamations.

After that, Elendil’s efforts to communicate with the Númenóreans beyond Umbar were blocked by the rebel brothers. There were Faithful colonies in the Inner and Eastern Seas, but next to Umbar were the King’s Men of Bellakar, who would not accept a Faithful king, and they also were of no help. Therefore Elendil’s rule, though theoretically encompassing all Númenóreans of Middle-earth, was effective only in the old colonies of the Northwest, of strongest Faithful presence.

There, to ensure the loyalty of the small colonies of Anfalas, Elendil gave the title of “Prince” (meaning they had sovereign rule within their lands, only owing loyalty to the King himself) to both Eldarion in Linhir, on the easternmost extreme of those shores, and the lord of Tharagrond, in the west.

So far then we have seen that Elendil built his rule on different foundations: Elendil’s lordship in Arnor, the support of the Princes of Tharagrond and Linhir, the oath of the Gwathuirim natives to Isildur, and the governorship of Pelargir and command of its forces by Anárion, which he shared with his brother Isildur as soon as he came from among the Gwathuirim. And there was not at the time a particular division, let alone theoretical, between Arnor and Gondor.

When establishing what was conceived as a single realm of the human Westlands under Elendil’s rule, he and his sons added more lands to secure the Númenórean core of their dominions: the borderlands of Eriador in the North, the areas north and east of Pelargir up to Mordor, as well as the Gwathuirim lands in between, as we have seen. In Gondor, the old frontier became the centre of the brother kings’ dominions, where they built the head city of each one’s personal fief (Minas Anor for Anórien and Minas Ithil for Ithilien), and their joint capital, Osgiliath. Communications were completed by land with the North-South Road and the strongholds guarding it, most notably Angrenost (Isengard).

That is the basic outline of the general structure of Elendil’s crown. Now this is of course not the place to tell details about the War of the Last Alliance, but some things must be told which affect the subject we are dealing with.

After Sauron unexpectedly ousted Isildur and his family from Minas Ithil and the king fled to Arnor, Anárion stayed behind commanding the defence along the Anduin. Later, when the armies of the North came, a force under the command of Aratan and Ciryon, second and third sons of Isildur, was detached to recover Ithilien and its capital, while Meneldil Anárion’s son stayed behind as governor of the realm of Pelargir. Anárion and Aratan personally commanded the siege of Barad-dûr, and when Anárion was killed, Isildur joined his brother’s command to his own, thus becoming the most powerful commander of the Alliance.

As is well known, Sauron killed Elendil but was on his turn killed (or so it was thought) by Isildur, who became undisputable lord not only of Arnor (by inheritance) and Gondor (by his own kingship) but also of Mordor (by conquest). He had to arrange matters in both North and South, and he sent the main army to Arnor, but stayed a while organising the South.

Now when Anárion was killed, Meneldil made of the fact that his father had held the title of “King” more than a mere circumstance and took it too, until Isildur came from war. Finally Isildur entrusted the government in the South to his nephew Meneldil as a continuation of his functions during the war, and departed to Arnor with his three sons, but said nothing about the title of “King”. It was later evident that Meneldil had the superior ambition to fully succeed his father, but Isildur trusted his nephew would not do it without authorisation; otherwise he could have left behind his sons Aratan or Ciryon, who knew well the realm and were respected commanders of its troops, under the pretext of seeing after the lordship of Ithilien, for example.

But now Arnor was also Isildur’s fief, and much larger than Ithilien, so the King decided to bring all his sons with him, to join his wife and youngest child Valandil, left in Imladris during the war. Meneldil ruled in the south with the following duties:

1. regent of the old colonial kingdom of Pelargir, with jurisdiction over Lebennin and Calenardhon and including vassalage (to say it in modern terms) of Lossarnach;
2. Lord of Anórien, by right of inheritance;
3. governor of Ithilien, on behalf of Isildur, a duty including the watch of Mordor, in concordance with:
4. commander of the Starry Division, which included the governorship of the military territories to the west of Pelargir (later called Lamedon);
5. President of the Council of the Dúnedain for the Realms of the South (later named Council of Gondor); and
6. patronage of the Pelargirean League, which coordinated with Pelargir several old colonies established along the coasts.

Nothing Isildur said about separating from his crown a southern kingdom, which was still his, or to permanently hand it over.

And Isildur and his three sons died in the disaster of the Gladden Fields, and his youngest and now only son Valandil, thirteen years old, had not took part in the war and had no ascendancy over his southern subjects. Therefore Meneldil assumed the royal title, this time on behalf of his Northern cousin, and this bold and dubious step was supported by the prince Eldarion of Linhir, helping the son of his dear Anárion, and the Council of Gondor, happy to have a close King, rooted in the South.

The years it took Valandil to cement his rule in Arnor and the shameful opposition of the northern regent Elentirion, who saw in Meneldil’s elevation the possibility of a similar progress, maybe intending to leave the line of Isildur with no effective power, were enough for Meneldil to do in the South the same functions as not only his father but his uncle too.

Meneldil issued orders as “King for Gondor” at first, and later as “King of Gondor”, thus being the first to officially individuate that territory. Against that, the only resistance that Valandil was able to oppose was to devise a title of High King, which actually consisted only in adding the traditional Númenórean prefix “Tar-“ to his name and, retrospectively, his father and grandfather. But that only had effect in Arnor, while in Gondor, where our records mostly come from, it was deliberately obviated to equate both Kings.

Valandil visited his cousin on two occasions: in his coming of age, and one hundred years later; but on the first he found no option to put away from his governmental duties Cemendur Meneldil’s son and could only obtain a declaration of loyalty less effective than rhetoric; and on the second he did not dare to disturb with requirements the real or feigned illness of his elderly uncle.

Thus was Meneldil finally able to pass as inheritance his kingship to his descendants, and thence the northern Kings, though as the elder line of Elendil considered themselves as rulers of all Númenóreans, were in fact only of Arnor. And for the time being, the situation went on as each kingdom dealt with its own affairs.

There was never again debate over the nature of the High Kingship until the time of the Ship-kings of Gondor. The previous Kings of the South had expanded their rule to the East, thus surpassing the attributions of the first successors of Meneldil. One of the labours of King Siriondil, with his son Tarannon as executor, was to order the borderlands of the kingdom, and a part of the Arnorian nobility that regretted the impossibility to expand of the Northern kingdom went to help him, with the hope of establishing a lordship of their own, and Prince Cemendur, second son of High King Elendur, was their leader.

Elendur knew that Arnor could not expand, but let a part of his subjects help Tarannon to get rid of some troublesome noblemen. But trouble was not kept away that way, since the first campaign was to be held in Anfalas, of doubtful allegiance. This region had been under the control of Tharagrond, whose princes had ceded their rights to Isildur, though the municipalities descending from old colonies belonged to the Pelargirean League. The distancing of the two kingdoms had abandoned the rights over Anfalas in a grey zone, and its municipalities governed themselves and quarrelled with more independence than the old colonies they descended from.

That grey zone was now lit by Tarannon’s plans: it was a debatable matter whether Anfalas was under the High Kings, as descendants of Isildur, or under the Kings of Gondor, as successors of Isildur’s initial government in the South and patrons of the League.

The land forces of the Kings and a mixed royal-Pelargirean fleet put Anfalas under Gondorian rule, but Cemendur and his adventurers were paid with gold but no lordship or lands, a poor reward to the legitimacy that a Northern prince had contributed to Tarannon’s campaign.

The deceived Arnorians came back to their homeland with, among others, the idea that the title of High King had no effect and, within a generation, the kingdom was divided in three. The High Kingship was discarded by Amlaith, as he doubted that Tarannon, his forces now stationed in the very Arnorian frontier, would recognise it. Actually, in Gondor the idea was beginning to spread that the true heir of Númenor was Gondor, not the declining Arnor.

When later the line of Isildur had been extinguished in Cardolan and Rhudaur and the Kings of Arthedain were the only royal line descending from Isildur, they wanted to resume some sense of the High Kingship, but just for Arnor, since Gondor at the time had a great influence in the North through Tharbad. So they added to their names the “Tar-” particle in the Sindarin “Ar-” version: Celephor changed his name for Argeleb (I), later his son Belegorn to Arveleg (I), and from that moment on, princes received a name with the “Ar-” already incorporated to their names.

The last “round” of the debate over the High Kingship happened when King Ondoher of Gondor and his two sons died in battle against the Easterlings, and his only remaining child, princess Fíriel, was the heir to the southern kingdom.

Now nothing in the Númenórean law had never been said regarding preference for males in the inheritance to the throne, and actually the only rule in force was Tar-Aldarion’s law that the King’s firstborn, male or female, was the heir to the throne. But two circumstances worked against Fíriel in this case, keeping her from becoming Ruling Queen.

On the one hand, though the primogeniture rule had been the practice in Númenor itself, in Middle-earth the Kings had had a stronger military component for which the traditional male role of army commanders was more fit, so that there never was a ruling queen in Arnor or Gondor —any possible candidates did not even consider themselves as such.

On the other hand, and most important —and this is the point why the case comes to the “High Kingship debate”—, Fíriel was married to the heir of Arthedain (of all Arnor in fact), Arvedui, and it was highly unlikely that this prince could accept to restrain himself to the role of a consort in Gondor, especially once he had inherited the northern throne.

Maybe if Arvedui had taken more modest steps regarding Gondor could have granted him a slower but successful way to the rule of Gondor, but he in fact claimed the southern throne for himself by right not only of his marriage to Fíriel, but also of him being the heir of Isildur.

This latter point was the key of the controversy, of course. Arvedui was absolutely right in claiming the throne of Gondor, and actually was the first Northerner to claim it from Elendil himself. But for the southern elite he was likely to be either too distant to be a useful presiding figure towards the people, or too detached from the southern interest networks to respond positively to them.

So the Council of Gondor tried to work a way out of this uncomfortable candidature by delaying a decision debating over it. There were those who wanted only to accept someone of the line of Anárion or nothing. The army objected that in those times of trouble and invasion a male commander-King was needed. Only very few proposed reunion with Arnor through the person of Arvedui.

After one year, general Earnil, descendant of King Telumehtar by male line and recent victor of the Easterlings, who was therefore a principal person in Gondor at the time, was summoned to the Council to speak proposing a solution. It was later said in Arnor that he initially intended to speak for Arvedui, but while en route to the meeting he was convinced by a delegation from the Council itself to claim the throne for himself, which was granted wilfully by the Council and the people.

The later story is well known, that in the next generation of Kings things would change much: Arvedui was the last King in the North and his line survived ruling no realm; while in Gondor, it was the kingdom and not the royal line what survived.

We have only to point here to what we could call the “donation of Isildur”, as a parallel to the Donation of Constantine; it is related to what is said in “The Tradition of Isildur”, in the Unfinished Tales:

Isildur […] remained for a time in Gondor, ordering the realm and instructing Meneldil his nephew […]. With Meneldil and a company of trusted friends he made a journey about the borders of all the lands to which Gondor laid claim; and as they were returning from the northern bound to Anórien they came to the high hill that was then called Eilenaer but was afterwards called Amon Anwar, "Hill of Awe." That was near to the centre of the lands of Gondor.

Though the main topic of the “Tradition” is the location of Elendil’s tomb, it is supposed that the scroll that told it, kept by the Stewards, was altered at some point between two which are known with certainty: when it was first written down (ss. V-VI) and when it was used against Arvedui’s claim to the throne of Gondor.

The alteration would be the additions of the situation of Amon Anwar “near to the centre” of Gondor, and of the journey of Isildur and Meneldil along the boundaries of Gondor. That the first one was added is certain because the territory of Gondor could hardly have its centre in Amon Anwar in Isildur’s time (then it was more in a western borderland), let alone in the time of the writing of the scroll, when the kingdom had expanded eastward.

Suspicions are cast over Pelendur, Steward to King Ondoher and a staunch supporter of Gondorian establishment, as the likely hand behind the forgery. The moments in which the document could have been modified were those in which the alterations would be most necessary, and those were no doubt the ones of the debate over the High Kingship: as we have seen, either under Tarannon or after Ondoher’s death.

The latter moment is the one most likely, since the centrality of Amon Anwar corresponds to the boundaries of Gondor in that time: rivers Angren and Anduin in the North, the Mountains of Shadow in the East, river Harnen in the South. The evident intention of the alteration was to “record” the separation of the kingdom of Gondor from the High King’s crown by the only person who could have rightfully done it since he was the true sovereign: Isildur himself.

Moreover, the scroll was under custody of the Stewards, who passed it to every new King in his crowning, and Pelendur was prominent among the refusers of Arvedui’s claims. So he probably added the point of the uncle and nephew Kings’ journey to establish the separation of Gondor, but going further to the situation of Amon Anwar in reference to the boundaries of the realm was a not so necessary step that in the end has revealed the forgery.

Hitos de la expansión colonial de Númenor

El interesante ensayo de Francisco Jaqueti Valandil sobre “La Expansión Colonial Númenóreana” me ha animado a recopilar la siguiente cronología. Me ha parecido interesante incluir en algunas de las fechas (todas de la Segunda Edad del Sol) el salto cualitativo que supuso el acontecimiento. Y recordad que parte de esto es “receta de la casa”:

600 Veantur arriba en Lindon, convirtiéndose en el primer númenóreano en pisar la Tierra Media desde que los edain se llaman de aquella manera, mostrando que se puede llegar a la Tierra Media. Tiene un revelador encuentro, auspiciado por Gil-galad, con descendientes de los edain que no llegaron a ir a Númenor, a los que encuentra en un estado cultural más primitivo.

Ss. VIII-IX El príncipe Aldarion realiza exploraciones extensas de las costas de la Tierra Media. Le llegan noticias de cierta voluntad hostil en el Este, y en el Oeste se cobra conciencia de que el Mal puede haber dejado raíces en regiones distantes de Arda.

Ss. IX-XI Aldarion, ya Rey, establece unas primeras explotaciones permanentes en la Tierra Media, iniciando el interés por ellas más allá de lo pintoresco.

1075-1280 Tar-Ancalime, sucesora de Tar-Aldarion, retira todo patrocinio del Cetro sobre las empresas en la Tierra Media, manteniendo continuidad sólo los establecimientos de las orillas del Gwathló y una franja de la costa de Harad al sur de Umbar.

S. XIII El Gremio de Aventureros, sobreponiéndose al fin a la dejadez del Cetro, retoma la labor de Tar-Aldarion por sus propios recursos, convirtiéndose el impulso de Tar-Aldarion en una corriente propia independiente de lo que opine el Rey.

1583 Tar-Telperien reglamenta la actividad colonial mediante las nuevas instituciones de las cartas de colonización y el Almirantazgo. Las primeras procedimentan el proceso de creación y subsistencia de colonias. El segundo surge de un acuerdo con Ciryandur, jefe del Gremio de Aventureros, reconociendo la autonomía de éste pero sustituyendo a Ciryandur, a su muerte, por un Almirante de designación real, que comandará todas las flotas que operan en la Tierra Media. Con todo ello, el Cetro toma el control de las actividades en la Tierra Media y asegura la viabilidad de las fundaciones.

S. XVII Sauron sale a la luz y Gil-galad pide ayuda a Númenor. Tar-Telperien dilata los preparativos para la guerra con obsesiva preocupación por la seguridad de los soldados y cuando Sauron se apresta para iniciar la guerra, la Reina, incapaz enviar a su pueblo por primera vez a la batalla, abdica en su sobrino Tar-Minastir. Éste termina los preparativos y envía la flota, con lo que los dúnedain inician un nuevo tipo de actividad en la Tierra Media: la guerra.

1701 Victoria contra Sauron en el Oeste gracias a la intervención decisiva de los dúnedain. La toma de conciencia del verdadero poder de Númenor y los trofeos de la guerra empiezan a tornar la satisfacción de los dúnedain por los bienes del mundo en codicia y el contento con la larga vida de que disfrutan en anhelo de inmortalidad (comienzo de la Sombra, incluido el culto a la muerte y el declive de la longevidad).

Ss. XVIII-inicio del XIX El príncipe Ciryatan aplaca dicha codicia viajando por todas las costas mortales que no tienen hielos permanentes. Conocidos los límites del mundo, surge la idea de tutelarlo y luego dominarlo, pero el filósofo Adûnazil de la escuela de Ondosto añade la condición de que ha de hacerse lejos de los Valar y los elfos.

S. XIX La completa ocupación del territorio de la Isla de Númenor, la rebelión del príncipe Mûrazôr (futuro Rey Brujo) intentando tomar por la fuerza el control del Gremio de Aventureros y sus posesiones en la Tierra Media y las ideas políticas de Adûnazil llevan al Rey Tar-Ciryatan a suprimir el Gremio y sustituirlo por los reinos coloniales, de entidad superior a las colonias. La posesión de tierras en la Tierra Media deja de ser sólo cuestión de individuos (colonias) para pasar a ser también un hecho del Estado númenóreano (reinos).

S. XX Primera Guerra de Eriador (1914-43) contra los nativos y expansión de Ciryatandor (1919-79) bajo Herundil, con los que la guerra se establece como un instrumento para el dominio colonial, y cada vez más habitual.

2280 Guerra de los Renegados contra Herundil y Adûnaphel, aliados y luego sometidos a Sauron por medio de dos de los Nueve Anillos. Es la primera guerra con númenóreanos en ambos bandos, si bien no muy sangrienta para ellos.

S. XXIII Ruptura entre elendili y hombres del Rey en Númenor; los elendili, cada vez más incómodos en la madre patria, hallan sus propios motivos para emigrar a la Tierra Media, nutriendo robustamente sus colonias, donde las tensiones con los hombres del Rey son menores.

2577-2743 Victorias de Tar-Calmacil (casi todas aún siendo príncipe) y fin de los Años Oscuros, que rinden definitivamente toda la fachada mortal del Belegaer (excepto las tierras élficas de Lindon y Belfalas) e incorporan territorios en todos los continentes mortales, incluidas las Tierras Quemadas del Sol y las Oscuras del Sur. Los númenóreanos comienzan a convencerse de su invencibilidad.

2750 Primeras revueltas en el Imperio protagonizadas por númenóreanos mismos, no por hombres menores. Desde este momento todos los retrocesos de Númenor (locales a pesar de todo) se deberán a debilidades internas: revueltas de terratenientes (por todo el Imperio en 2750-70, independencias de Tantûrak en 3017 y de Sakal an-Khâr en 3028), excesos tributarios, mezquinas guerras sucesorias (Míredor 3213-15), la inanidad de Tar-Ardamin, el nacionalismo anti-Valar y racismo de Ar-Adûnakhôr (que segregó a los elendili y enanos y apartó definitivamente a los elfos), el asentamiento de los ejércitos.

3033-3102 El Rey Ar-Sakalthôr intenta frenar la degeneración del Imperio reorganizándolo en nueve gobiernos civiles sobre los que dominan los correspondientes gobiernos militares y capitanías sólo dependientes del Cetro. Ordena jerárquicamente las fuerzas armadas (ocho flotas, seis ejércitos), recupera la movilidad de los ejércitos y establece las flotas en la Tierra Media.

3175-3243 Durante la guerra civil en Númenor, el Imperio, sujeto firmemente por Pharazôn desde su gobierno de Umbar, permanece en paz y suministrando fielmente a las fuerzas del Rey, aunque no se puede impedir que algunos rebeldes de las colonias acudan a la metrópoli para apoyar a su partido.

3255-3319 Reinado conquistador de Ar-Pharazôn, en que en la Tierra Media vuelven a aunarse los esfuerzos de los elendili y los hombres del Rey contra los enemigos de la nación númenóreana. Sauron se entrega, sus súbditos son sometidos y el Imperio alcanza su máxima descomunal extensión: aparte de los extremos ardientes del Este y los fríos del Norte y el Sur, sólo Mordor y los reinos élficos quedan fuera de él.

3310-19 Los exagerados esfuerzos de la leva y construcción del Gran Armamento concentran la gran mayoría de las fuerzas del Imperio en Númenor, de donde por el contrario sus últimos elendili huyen a las colonias. Por ello con la destrucción del Armamento, el hundimiento de Númenor y la ruina de muchos puertos por el oleaje del Cambio del Mundo, el Imperio queda al mando de cuadros locales largamente incomunicados los unos de los otros.

S. XXXIV El intento de Elendil de reunir a todos los númenóreanos supervivientes en la Tierra Media es frustrado por el rechazo de Herumor y Fuinur, que gobiernan Umbar, certificándose la ruptura del Imperio de Númenor: tanto los hombres del Rey no sometidos a Sauron (notablemente Bellakar) como los elendili de las costas del Índico y el Pacífico permanecen aparte de la monarquía en el Exilio.

3434-41 La Guerra de la Última Alianza destroza los remanentes del Imperio: los elendili y númenóreanos negros orientales se diezman mutuamente en el Índico; los reinos Númenóreanos del Lejano Harad son arrasados por revueltas indígenas; Umbar y Ciryatandor terminan de arruinarse en luchas internas entre adoradores y enemigos de Sauron, y Arnor sale muy debilitado. Con los menores daños, a pesar de su vecindad con Mordor, queda el reino de Gondor formado en torno a la vieja base naval de Pelargir.

© Breogán Rey, 2009.

El naurnen y la artillería química de Númenor

El rey númenóreano Tar-Calmacil llevó a cabo extensas campañas militares en todas las costas de la Tierra Media y de parte de las Tierras del Sol, el continente oriental, en especial durante sus años de príncipe, antes de asir el Cetro de Númenor. En dichas campañas encontró o prestó atención a cosas hasta entonces ignoradas en Númenor, entre ellas sustancias naturales desconocidas en la madre patria.

Con algunas de ellas, alquimistas de la corte inventaron el naurnen, una sustancia incendiaria resinosa, imposible de apagar con agua, que desde Númenor devolvieron a Calmacil junto con sus inventores para acicatearlo para que continuara sus campañas, pues el príncipe se hallaba por entonces acampado desde hacía varios años en las colonias de las Tierras del Sol. En cuanto el príncipe hubo hecho forjar los ingenios para usarlo en batalla, zarpó de nuevo a la conquista. El naurnen convirtió las batallas de Númenor en completamente arrolladoras y acostumbró a los dúnedain a las victorias sin bajas.

La hipertrofia de lo militar en la sociedad y la política de Númenor proporcionaron el impulso por el que el naurnen fue constantemente mejorado, siempre en el más estricto secreto guardado dentro ya no de la casa sino de la estrecha línea de los Reyes, y fue la base de la variedad de artillería química de los ejércitos númenóreanos. Se llegaron a conseguir sustancias que corroían carne y metal por igual, y otras que se usaban para fracturar las murallas de las ciudades enemigas, que dejaron obsoletas las torres y plataformas de asedio.

Hacia el final de la historia de Númenor los adelantos se aceleraron, en especial con el impulso que les dio Ar-Pharazôn, rey conquistador por excelencia. Se consiguió un compuesto que, en lugar de consistir en un chorro líquido como el naurnen tradicional, se disparaba sólido y estallaba al dar en el objetivo. Los metalúrgicos campaneros de la ciudad de Ondosto lograron el instrumento ideal para dispararlo justo a tiempo de que Ar-Pharazôn se lo llevase en su gran barco a la campaña que iba a emprender para someter a Sauron.

Tras el desembarco en Umbar, el rey se encontró con los ejércitos fanáticos de orcos y hombres de Sauron en Lugarlûr, la fortaleza de la nazgûl Adûnaphel en el río Harnen, y los Nueve Espectros se hallaban al frente de las fuerzas enemigas. Pero Ar-Pharazôn mandó que llevaran el Cañón a la prímera línea de los ejércitos y lo dirigieran hacia la parte más sólida de las murallas de la fortaleza. La inaudita detonación lo agrietó, pero el proyectil siguió el rumbo debido y estalló contra la muralla y derribó una parte importante de ella, devorando parte de las piedras que la formaban y sepultando a los numerosos soldados que la defendían. Y por este crucial hecho Sauron acudió y se sometió, con el resultado que es bien conocido.

Con en fin de Númenor y la destrucción accidental de un único barco que había en las colonias de la Tierra Media con las balas explosivas de Ar-Pharazôn desapareció esta rama de la artillería química. En Umbar quedó por otro lado una gran reserva de naurnen, pero la mayor parte fue usado por Fuinur antes y durante la Guerra de la Última Alianza; prudentemente se reservó una parte para estudiarlo y poder elaborar más, pero nunca se consiguió reproducir el auténtico, y el almacenado acabó por deteriorarse con el tiempo.

Si la fabricación de naurnen sobrevivió al Hundimiento fue porque su secreto había sido uno más de los tesoros que Tar-Palantir había dado a los señores de Andúnie, quienes lo guardaron con el mismo celo que la casa real había puesto en ello. Sus sucesores Elendil y sus hijos Isildur y Anárion, que establecieron los reinos en el exilio, lo fabricaron para la Guerra de la Última Alianza y no sólo le dieron el uso tradicional en tierra, sino que lograron montarlo en las aeronaves usadas en el sitio de Barad-dûr.

Después de esa ocasión los elendili dejaron de utilizar el naurnen por considerarlo un arma inhumana, si bien el secreto se conservó en el seno de la casa real de Gondor (pero no de Arnor, porque el rey Meneldil retuvo en Gondor a los químicos que hubieran debido ir a Arnor con su primo el rey Valandil). Pero al cabo de unos siglos, la ventaja táctica que el naurnen representaba en la marina era de tal magnitud que Tarannon no quiso prescindir de ella en sus conquistas. El naurnen de los Reyes de los Barcos era el mejor que los númenóreanos habían desarrollado antes de los avances que llevaron a la artillería de explosión y corrosión de Ar-Pharazôn: se inflamaba al contacto con el agua y se preparaba para producir tanto chorros de sustancia ardiente como balas incendiarias, modos en los cuales se usó con cruel profusión a partir de la conquista de Umbar por el rey Earnil I.

En la guerra civil de Gondor y el sitio de Osgiliath fueron destruidas las instalaciones que producían la sustancia y no se volvió a usar. Probablemente quedaron registros acerca de su elaboración que Saruman estudió en sus estancias en Gondor y luego utilizó para desarrollar su “fuego de Isengard”, usado en Cuernavilla, y que sobrevivieron al este de Gondor tras el fin de la Cuarta Edad y permitieron al romano Calínico crear el famoso “fuego griego” en base al naurnen.
Los fuegos artificiales de los enanos, vistosos pero sin capacidad destructiva, fueron al parecer una invención independiente a partir de su dominio de los fuegos de la forja.

© Breogán Rey, 2009.

On the Armies of Númenor

[Traducido de la entrada en español del 27/04/2009]

In time of King Ar-Adûnakhôr peaked the trends in the lives of Dúnedain towards the military, a specially remarkable process regarding the evolution of conscription. At first they were not such, but appeals made by private people interested in founding colonies in Middle-earth, but as time passed by they grew in scope and war intentions. The first great conscription was the one made for the War of Sauron and the Elves, and though it had no continuation, great lords already started having a role in them. After the general conscription ordered to confront Herundil’s rebellion, Tar-Ancalimon established a short mandatory military service whose aim was for all the Númenoreans to have a minimum ability to wield weapons, and conscription was one of the tasks that he delegated in the lords of the peninsulas of Númenor. With time, military service became longer. Militarism affected not only the King’s Men, but also the more and more oppressed Elendili, who used the army as their way to emigrate to Middle-earth.

So the armed forces had got an enormous size in its number as well as in its presence in Númenórean society, to the point of making it necessary to regulate a new organization. Until then the colonial kingdoms had needed for their defence forces of their own as well as the legions that the motherland could send from afar, so each one had one army or more that had grown under the circumstances of the moment, and sometimes were not enough to fulfil their tasks, or they were excessive after having them finished. In the same kingdom royal troops, governor’s guards, armies of one origin or another and other varied militia and public order corps could gather together in great disorder.

Now in this time messenger ships were developed, smaller versions of the eagle-ships of Forostar able to sail only using their sails almost against the wind and that by various mechanisms used the force of the waves and sunlight to reach unused speeds. Ar-Sakalthôr, having come to the throne, took advantage of the quickness of communications provided by these new ships to improve the Sceptre’s control over the Empire and to assure with no sight of dissent the majority of territories that stayed faithful to the motherland. His most lasting achievements consisted in the definitive arrangement of the navy and the army in the way inherited by the Númenórean realms of later times, and the organization and levelling of the territories of the Empire.

To do that, Ar-Sakalthôr coordinated a great Númenórean force separating civil from military administration by installing in the kingdoms military governments and captainships depending directly on the motherland, not on the governments of the kingdoms; the forces corresponding to each military government were called armies and fleets. That had a precedent in Umbar and Pelargir, the most important of Númenórean bases. In the former, after the great enlargement and fortification of the place after the War of the Renegades, Tar-Ancalimon put up a powerful military government, whose governor would be different from the civil one but also chosen by the Council of the colonial kingdom; its jurisdiction stretched over Harad from the Harnen to the Tulwang, later sharing boundaries with the colonial kingdoms of Ondor and Ciryatandor. Also, when the colonial kingdom of Ondor was constituted, that same King didn’t want to leave Veantur the command of the Pelargir fleet and separated attributions by the same procedure. From Ar-Sakalthôr onwards, the traditional civil governors were subordinated to their military counterparts, these becoming the highest authority in the governments, directly commanding the army and having under their command an Admiral for the fleet. Both ranks required years of learning at the Officer School and of working in Middle Earth.

Regarding the Navy, though the King was its supreme commander, it had after Tar-Telperien an Admiral, but after Tar-Ciryatan the fleets multiplied both in the Island and Middle-earth and the title of “Lord of the Ships and Havens”, that Tar-Aldarion and later only one person (Ardulion, founder of Míredor) had been given, was resumed to designate the person who commanded all the Admirals, usually the King himself, and if not that way, a mere manager, named or deposed according to the will of the monarch. But being subdued the whole mortal side of the Belegaer, from Lindon to Míredor and even beyond, and with enough fleets available to keep safe all its waters, it was made unnecessary the existence of others in Númenor itself, and Ar-Sakalthôr distributed between those of Middle-earth the ones based at Rómenna (four) Morionde (two) and the fraction of the eagle-ships that didn’t depend on the Lords of Forostar. The fleet-squadron-ship hierarchy was not modified, for it had always shown itself efficient and able to adapt the progressively restricted functions of materials and troops transport that after Ar-Sakalthôr was its only task, thoug of no little importance: that restriction was a consequence of its superiority and cause of its efficacy, since the armies founded the greatest part of their mobility in ships. The largest part of the Númenórean armed forces kept being an enormous navy transporting a colossal navy infantry.

From that moment on the stretch of the Númenórean empire was defined by the territories appointed to each of the military governments, to be protected by them. This was an important step forward in Númenor’s militaristic and conquering progression; the reform of the colonial statute eliminated the figure of the federation -except in the case of Dwarves, because of the geographic particularities of their realms, caverns in their majority-, levelled colonial kingdoms and simple colonies in military aspects and avoided any Númenórean settlement, regardless of how small or distant it was, being not considered under the Sceptre’s authority, and any of them trying not to be was to be considered rebel. On the other hand, that obliged the Sceptre providing defences enough to assure the settlement and prosperity of the foundation. So proud were Númenóreans of their superiority, that no matter where one of them settled, his nation and his King considered having the right to conquer the place.

An important symbolic element was the replacement of the old ensigns of the times of disorder by another, given to each army or fleet, that could be placed besides the White Tree and the Green Star of Númenor. That concession was made by the Sceptre, meaning that loyalty was not towards the colonial kingdom but to the motherland, a major preoccupation in Ar-Sakalthôr’s reforms. In practice that also meant that between armies and fleets could be exchanged the legions and squadrons that composed them, something the King knew to be necessary to avoid an excess of affection towards the land and to keep as the only soldiers’ loyalty that towards “Mother Númenor”.

So the highest-level territory correspondence was in organization and not in troops; it is, what actually belonged to the armies and fleets were the structures of administration and maintenance of the facilities used by men themselves. But besides from acting as police and engineer corps, a division, the part of an army right under the army itself, was hold to be the minimum unit able to carry out a complete campaign; formerly those were units of smaller size like the metropolitan legions[1] or the colonial armies. Now these were made more interdependent; divisions took from the armies some administrative aspects and exchanged units according to the needs of the governments, determined by the supreme authority of the Sceptre; less often were moved entire divisions.

As Ar-Sakalthôr determined it, one division ideally comprised some twenty nine thousand men, distributed in five legions, these in their turn in eight cohorts and these latter in five maniples of one hundred and forty four men[2]. Never from Ar-Sakalthôr’s time onwards an unit lacked men: those numbers were ever increasing and several times it was necessary to split in two some division that accumulated too many soldiers or to create a new one, especially when many auxiliaries from Middle-earth were incorporated to the armies. For another change introduced by Ar-Sakalthôr was to recruit as a rule native auxiliaries to form permanent units and not only as allied or mercenary troops, and the majority of them belonged to peoples that had been federates in the past. Though they kept being treated as inferiors and the disciplined and resolute Dúnedain were ever the bulk of the army through the military service, in some places auxiliaries stood out in specific functions, as the Eriadoran riders, the Halimmi slingers in Ciryatandor and the Míredoran and Womaw explorers.

Under Ar-Sakalthôr also the battle formations maturated. In the War of Sauron and the Elves, the Dúnedain, only constituents of the army, destroyed the enemy lines shooting their bows and artillery from the boats, and later landed and advanced in thin phalanxes, since any Númenórean was a formidable soldier compared to any other Man, and even more to an Orc; never in the first times happened battles requiring a high tactical level. Later, when auxiliaries were introduced, the separation between inexperienced units, marching to the front line, and veteran, better protected in the rearguard, penalized lesser men in comparison to Dúnedain, these usually being veterans. There were some battles in which the latter were mostly dedicated to protect the artillery while the former were cruelly sent to spill their blood in direct combat, sometimes falling under the projectiles of their own side. However, when the advances in chemical artillery reached destructive power enough, the siege towers or platforms became obsolete at last and the advance against enemy fortifications disappeared, for first of all the walls were battered down, leaving the towns exposed.

(Tar-)Calmacil is the first known person having made systematic tactical studies, since he had many occasions to try his sight of the usefulness of havign not only disciplined but also manageable alignments, as opposed to the disorder from which his enemies were unable to escape. Calmacil and the naurnen[3] (see entry 07/18/2009) used the Dúnedain to victories with no casualties. Though under that prince, imitating his figure, some units were allowed to develop “champion” tactics, in which a powerful warrior shattered enemies unworried for his own defense, relying in the ordinary soldiers that were around him, Calmacil himself instituted as more useful and rational the basic tactical unit, the 12 x 12 men-maniple, since that arithmetic allowed to array soldiers in a variety of phalanxes of different depth. Other more complex arrays of his creation were the sereghír, the opening of corridors between the infantry lines absorbing the enemies’ rush, and the narusakal, a line of lances that repelled the initial momentum of the brute charges spearing and drawing up the bodies of the enemies towards the back lines of the Dúnedain[4]. He also invented the thangail, a simplification of the narusakal consisting in a shield line, and the dírnaith, initially conceived as a movable sereghír but at last developed into a quick attack column to breach the enemy lines; these were both mentioned in the tale of the disaster of the Gladden Fields.

Optimal exercise of these tectics, coming from former experience but ordered by Calmacil, endured as long as the Númenórean forging arts, for also the armament of the Dúnedain reached a development higher than any other people of the time, since the Elves of Aman didn’t expect war and relied more in their body strength and abilities, and those of Middle-earth had been decimated by Sauron. In siege machinery they built cyclopean artefacts able to batter the hardest stone, and large vehicles that crushed everything around. They were ever improving naurnen and used substances that equally corroded flesh and metal. These latter arts the Elves refused to learn due to their cruelty, but Dúnedain didn’t hesitate to use them against Sauron’s minions.

Among Dúnedain light units, both cavalry and infantry, soon disappeared for heavy ones, since improvements in metal working allowed to make pieces thinner and even some hollow ones though equally useful, like spears and some parts of siege machines, so heavy armament was as easily portable as was for lesser men light one; until then only bows used to be hollow[5]. Their quality offered the Sceptre with a new way to practice its rapacity: since though the long span of the military service weapons lasted even more, the soldier that left the army was obliged to return his weapon in an acceptable conservation status though he had to pay the Sceptre’s forges its repair. The criteria of what was considered to be “acceptable” served to collect more or less gold according to the need or avidity of the Treasury at that moment. Armament control was total after the Wood Wars in Eriador, in which some lesser men that in the past had been instructed by Númenóreans turned their weapons against their masters; since then the components that required most advanced techniques were forged only in Númenor by the old Guild of Weaponsmiths, though metals came wholly from Middle-earth.

Six or seven of the eight Dúnedain cohorts of each legion were made up of hoplites wearing the basic panoply: armour, sword or combat axe, shield, spear, bow and arrows and dagger, the other cohorts being of specialized archers, bearing a great amount of arrows and projectiles of different kinds but could equally use swords when necessary. After the alliance with Ruuriik, through the accession of these Dwarves to the required metals, the majority of the armours of the eastern Númenórean armies and that of the arrows of all of them were made of dwarven steel, the only complement to the Guild of Weaponsmiths. Also from the Dwarves brought the Númenórean axe wielding through two ways: indirectly through the Sindar masters of the Edain in Beleriand, and directly and most important through the dealings with Baruzimabûl and Ruuriik -that weapon never lacked importance. Fighters were arrayed in chequered alternate rows of swordsmen and axe men, since for Dúnedain it was as comfortable to smash enemies cleaving with the axe from their tall stature as to thrust with the sword from behind the shield. But with time one weapon was reduced: for soldiers, swords and axes were initially blended in the model of Dramborleg, and each row fighted, before coming to the final disorder of the battle, cleaving and thrusting alternately and co-ordinately; though with the tactical improvements, thrusting was increasingly preferred, being best for fighting in close formation, and sword-axes evolved to swords, giving the famous eket, the short (for Dúnedain standards) sword typical from the last centuries of Númenor. Officers, on the other side, just left the axe to move more lightly and achieve a better command of their units.

Cavalry and auxiliaries were organized in the same kind of units than infantry; it was in the battlefield when they were deployed according to the tactic needs. With time, Rávanári colonists from the Eastern Sea were almost the only Númenórean cavalry, since horses were rarely brought from Númenor and they were the only ones to develop an extensive breeding. Apart from them, the largest cavalry units that ever existed were cohorts, incorporated to the legions it was thought to be appropriate. Though the Rávanári never rode in the abrupt and wild terrain of the Lands of the Sun, they bred many horses next to their havens in eastern Middle-earth to use them not only as beasts of burden or mount for couriers, as was usual among other Númenóreans, but also for combat. The most usual formation was a long line of cataphracts, the horse’s front defended by large jagged plates that could be chained to each other, and the long spears to the front. After the pact with Ruuriik there were too Rávanári knights who, armed by Dwarves, fought individually, on the back of the mighty “barrel horses”, so called because they weighed as much as a full liquid tank, the biggest horses ever known and that only the Rávanári bred. Both these horses and their knights fought fully plate-armoured against powerful enemies of great size, like trolls or elephants, and the rider handled, more than wielded, weapons of great weight incorporated to the horse’s armour. Rávanári’s action used to be overwhelming and were never rivalled: never, throughout all the battle history of Númenor, the enemy broke a line of cataphracts, nor was an ironclad knight dismounted.

In other parts of the Númenórean empire they tried to imitate these knights, but the barrel horses and dwarven forges not being available, there were only small units maintained for the picturesque. The Dúnedain rightly confident in the discipline of their foot formations and mounted units in those regions were mostly auxiliary riders, being the heavy cavalry reserved to Dúnedain: in Umbar and Pelargir there were some small companies, and in Eriador were based the Knights of Menelmacar who had appeared in the War of Sauron and the Elves. Inspired by the Guild of Venturers, they made the fight against Sauron their strict aim, making them bold raiders even after Tar-Ancalimon broke down their see of Minas Menelmacar in Orrostar, being since based only in Middle-earth.

Finally, artillery was developed from archers and was never fully split, since it was integrated in the other units and was maintained even after Tar-Calmacil, who was the first to use chemical artillery. Each cohort had a minimum number of artefacts of different kinds, used both in the open field and in sieges or fortification defense, and therefore this development added few men to the numbers of the cohorts since almost all of them were fighters too. For thanks to the strong health and high culture of the Dúnedain, both engineers and other specialised corps as physicians and cooks were part of the troop, so that in a hypothetical desperate occasion there were no units unable to going into battle.

Starting from the times in which the first native peoples from Middle-earth were conquered, Dúnedain knew from them the use of warcries, though for centuries they were considered a barbaric use, and when some unit shouted during or off the battle it was for their own and apart from the rest of the army. However, Calmacil ordered this aspect too, acknowledging that, on the one hand, voices and no doubt noise could affect the enemies’ courage, and on the other, coordinate sounds served to command formations. Since then, timpani and pipes marked marches, tactic commandments were given through large metal horns, and one-handed fifes coordinated soldiers in the din during the combat. And arranged chants were composed for the legions to sing with deep voice when they were in the battle formation before launching the attack, and they sounded like the echoes of the Orossi in the caves of the earth; enemies learnt to fear subsequent silence, preceding the shoots from the bowmen cohorts, when the unison of thousands of hollow steel bows roared like a furious thundering before the fall of a lethal hail.

[1] Calling them “metropolitan” is a mere explanation, for the legion was the unit reunited in Númenor itself to send as one to the colonies. It was originally an enlistment made to establish a colony in Middle-earth, a mainly civil enterprise, including about one third of soldiers or men able to wield weapons, of the several thousands of people that after Tar-Telperien the Sceptre required to consider viable the new foundation. After the War of Sauron and the Elves the expeditions took an ever growing military character and both the proportion of soldiers and the total number of people in every enlistment or legion. Hence the translation in the name that we’ve made in this Chronicle, due to the similitude in meaning (the original name was gonon, “list”) and name with the Roman one.
[2] A Hirzagar (“leading sword”, a lieutenant) commanded a maniple, an Azgarân (“battler”, a captain) a cohort, an Attabar (“strength father”, a mayor) a legion, and an Attuzagar (“warrior lord”, a general) a division.
[3] Naurnen was an incendiary, resinous substance, impossible to extinguish with water, invented by alchemists of the Númenorean court with materials Calmacil had sent there as a present. The substance was sent back to Calmacil together with its creators, and he ordered the artifacts to use it in battle to be forged and used it ever since. (See next entry.)
[4] Lances were curved and were used as pikes nailed in the ground; soldiers speared with their own hands the attackers, retreated behind the second row of lances and the latter repeated the action; lances were recovered in a later moment of the battle or after its ending.
[5] Though the weight of weapons and armours was lightened, it was made in a way that their uses were not impaired. The lightness of some parts of the weapons was compensated by means of introducing heavy metals in the appropriate points (axe heads, sword ends) to make them devastating enough.

© text and compilation, Breogán Rey, 2009.

Sobre los ejércitos de Númenor

He aquí un primer farragoso fragmento, me entretendré en traducirlo próximamente.

En la época del rey Ar-Adûnakhôr culminaba la orientación de la vida de los dúnedain a lo militar, proceso notorio en la evolución de las levas. Las primeras conscripciones no eran tal cosa, sino convocatorias hechas por particulares interesados en fundar colonias en la Tierra Media, pero con el tiempo fueron creciendo en alcance e intención bélica. El primer gran reclutamiento fue el realizado para la Guerra de Sauron y los Elfos y si bien no tuvo continuidad, ya los grandes señores empezaron a participar en ellos. Después de la leva general ordenada para hacer frente a la rebelión de Herundil, Tar-Ancalimon estableció un breve servicio militar obligatorio cuyo objetivo era que todos los númenóreanos tuviesen una mínima destreza con las armas, y el reclutamiento era una de las tareas que delegó en los señores de los promontorios de Númenor; con el tiempo, el servicio militar se hizo más prolongado. El militarismo afectó no sólo a los codiciosos hombres del Rey, sino también a los cada vez más oprimidos elendili, que usaron el ejército como vehículo de su emigración a la Tierra Media.

Por tanto, las fuerzas armadas habían adquirido una dimensión descomunal tanto en su número como en su presencia en la sociedad númenóreana, hasta el punto de hacer necesario regular una nueva organización. Hasta entonces los reinos coloniales habían necesitado para su defensa de fuerzas propias además de las legiones que la metrópoli podía enviar desde lejos, por lo que cada uno tenía uno o varios ejércitos, que habían crecido sujetos a las circunstancias de cada momento, y a veces no bastaban para realizar sus tareas, o se quedaban demasiado grandes al finalizarlas. En un mismo reino podían acumularse tropas reales, guardias del gobernador, ejércitos de uno u otro origen y otros variados cuerpos de milicia y orden público en un gran desorden.

Ahora bien, por este tiempo se desarrollaron los barcos mensajeros, versiones más pequeñas de los barcos-águila de Forostar capaces de navegar sólo con sus velas casi contra el viento y que con varios mecanismos aprovechaban la fuerza del oleaje y la luz del sol para alcanzar velocidades inusitadas. Ar-Sakalthôr, llegado al trono, aprovechó la rapidez de comunicaciones proporcionada por estos nuevos barcos para aumentar el control del Cetro sobre el Imperio y asegurar sin atisbos de disyunción la mayoría de territorios que permanecía fiel a la metrópoli. Sus más duraderas realizaciones consistieron en la ordenación definitiva de la marina y el ejército del modo que heredaron los reinos númenóreanos de tiempos posteriores y la organización y nivelación de los territorios del Imperio.

Para ello Ar-Sakalthôr coordinó una gran fuerza númenóreana y separó la administración colonial militar de la civil instalando en los reinos gobiernos militares y capitanías directamente dependientes de la metrópoli y no de los gobiernos, y las fuerzas correspondientes a cada gobierno militar se denominaron ejércitos y flotas. Existía un precedente en Umbar y Pelargir, las mayores bases de Númenor. En el primero, tras la gran ampliación y fortificación de la plaza que siguió a la Guerra de los Renegados, Tar-Ancalimon instaló un poderoso gobierno militar, cuyo gobernador habría de ser diferente del civil pero igualmente elegido por el consejo del reino colonial, y que tenía jurisdicción sobre Harad desde el Harnen hasta el Tulwang, limitando con los reinos coloniales de Ondor y Ciryatandor. Al constituirse el reino colonial de Ondor, el mismo rey tampoco quiso dejar a Veantur el mando de la flota de Pelargir y separó las funciones por el mismo procedimiento. Desde Ar-Sakalthôr, los tradicionales gobernadores civiles quedaron subordinados a los militares, que pasaban a ser la máxima autoridad de los gobiernos, comandando directamente el ejército y teniendo bajo sus órdenes a un almirante para la flota; ambos rangos requerían años de preparación en la Escuela de Oficiales y de desempeño práctico en la Tierra Media.

En cuanto a la Armada, aun siendo el Rey su jefe supremo, tuvo desde Tar-Telperien un Almirante, pero a partir de Tar-Ciryatan las flotas se multiplicaron tanto en la Isla como en la Tierra Media y el título de “Señor de los Barcos y Puertos”, que Tar-Aldarion y después de él sólo una persona más (Ardulion, fundador de Míredor) habían ostentado, se recuperó para designar al hombre que comandaba a todos los Almirantes, a menudo el Rey mismo, y en caso contrario un mero administrador, nombrado o relegado según conveniencia del monarca. Pero sometida toda la fachada mortal del Belegaer, desde Lindon hasta Míredor y aun más allá, y disponiendo para mantener seguras todas sus aguas de flotas suficientes, se hizo innecesaria la existencia de otras en Númenor misma, y Sakalthôr dividió entre las de la Tierra Media las fondeadas en Rómenna (cuatro), Morionde (dos) y la parte de los barcos-águila del Sorontil que no dependía de los Señores de Forostar. La jerarquía de flota, escuadra y nave no se modificó, pues se había mostrado siempre eficiente y capaz de amoldarse a las funciones cada vez más restringidas al transporte de tropas y materiales que desde Ar-Sakalthôr fue su única función, si bien no poco importante: la restricción de la variedad de operaciones de las flotas era precisamente consecuencia de su superioridad y causa de su eficacia, ya que los ejércitos fundamentaban buena parte de su movilidad en los barcos. La mayor parte de las fuerzas armadas de Númenor no dejó de ser una flota enorme transportando una infantería de marina colosal.

Desde este momento la extensión del Imperio númenóreano vino definida por los territorios asignados a cada uno de los gobiernos militares, que éstos debían proteger. Fue éste un salto importante en la progresión militarista y conquistadora de Númenor; la reforma del estatuto colonial eliminó la figura de la federación excepto en los casos de los enanos por ser los reinos de éstos geográficamente peculiares, cavernarios en su mayoría, niveló a reinos coloniales y colonias en lo militar e impidió que ningún establecimiento númenóreano, por pequeño o distante que fuese, pudiese no ser considerado sujeto a la autoridad del Cetro y que si alguna pretendía no estarlo fuese considerada rebelde; a cambio obligaba al Cetro a proporcionar las defensas que asegurasen el asentamiento y prosperidad de la fundación. Tan pagados estaban los númenóreanos de su superioridad, que allá donde uno se instalaba su nación y su Rey se consideraban con derechos de anexión.

Un elemento simbólico importante fue la sustitución de las viejas enseñas de la época de desorden por una otorgada a cada ejército o flota que podía acompañar al Árbol Blanco y la estrella verde de Númenor; tal concesión era hecha por el Cetro, con lo que se daba a entender que la lealtad se debía no reino colonial sino a la metrópoli, preocupación principal en las reformas de Ar-Sakalthôr. En la práctica esto también implicó que entre ejércitos y flotas pudiesen ser traspasadas las legiones y escuadras que los componían, lo cual el Rey sabía necesario para evitar el apego a la tierra y mantener como única lealtad de los soldados y marinos la de la “Madre Númenor”.

Así, la correspondencia territorial en el nivel más elevado era organizativa y no de efectivos; es decir, los realmente propio de los ejércitos y flotas consistían en la serie de cuadros administrativos y de mantenimiento de las instalaciones usadas por las tropas en sí. Además de ser policía y cuerpo de ingenieros, una división, partición inmediatamente inferior al ejército, estaba entendida como la unidad mínima capaz de llevar a cabo una campaña completa; antes lo eran entidades de menor tamaño como las legiones metropolitanas[1] o los ejércitos coloniales, pero ahora se hizo a éstos cada vez más interdependientes; las divisiones tomaban de los ejércitos algo del carácter administrativo e intercambiaban sus unidades según las necesidades de los gobiernos, determinadas por la suprema autoridad del Cetro; más raramente eran movidas divisiones enteras.

Tal como Ar-Sakalthôr lo estableció, una división comprendía idealmente unos veintinueve mil hombres, repartidos en cinco legiones, éstas a su vez en ocho cohortes y éstas en cinco manípulos de a ciento cuarenta y cuatro[2]. Nunca desde Ar-Sakalthôr a una unidad le faltaron hombres: esos números fueron siempre en aumento y varias veces fue necesario separar en dos alguna división que acumulaba demasiados efectivos o crear una nueva, especialmente al incorporarse numerosos auxiliares de la Tierra Media. Pues otro cambio importante que introdujo Ar-Sakalthôr fue que reclutó regularmente por primera vez a auxiliares para formar unidades fijas y no sólo como tropas aliadas o mercenarias de apoyo, y la mayoría de ellos pertenecían a los antiguos pueblos federados. Aunque siguieron siendo tratados como inferiores y los disciplinados y resueltos dúnedain siguieron constituyendo el grueso del ejército por medio del servicio militar, en algunos lugares los auxiliares destacaron en funciones específicas, como los jinetes de Eriador, los honderos halimmi en Ciryatandor o los exploradores de Míredor y Womawas Drûs.

Con Ar-Sakalthôr acabaron también de madurar las formaciones de batalla. En la Guerra de Sauron y los Elfos, los dúnedain, componente único del ejército, destruían las líneas enemigas disparando sus arcos y artillería desde los barcos, y después desembarcaban y avanzaban en delgadas falanges, ya que cualquier númenóreano era un soldado formidable comparado con cualquier otro hombre y desde luego con un orco; nunca en los primeros tiempos se produjeron batallas que exigieran un gran nivel táctico. Posteriormente, al introducirse auxilares, la separación entre unidades inexpertas, que marchaban al frente, y veteranas, mejor protegidas en la retaguardia, perjudicó a los hombres menores en comparación con los dúnedain, que eran casi siempre veteranos; hubo batallas en las que éstos casi sólo se dedicaban a proteger la artillería mientras que aquéllos eran enviados cruelmente a derramar su sangre cuerpo a cuerpo, cayendo a veces víctimas de los proyectiles del bando propio. Con todo, cuando los avances de la artillería química lograron suficiente poder destructivo, las torres o plataformas de asedio acabaron por quedar obsoletas y el avance hacia las fortificaciones enemigas desapareció, pues las murallas eran destruidas para dejar las ciudades expuestas.

(Tar-)Calmacil es la primera persona que se conoce haya realizado estudios tácticos sistemáticos, pues tuvo numerosas ocasiones para ensayar su visión de la utilidad de disponer de alineaciones no sólo disciplinadas sino también manejables frente al desorden por encima del que sus enemigos eran incapaces de evolucionar; Calmacil y el naurnen (ver entrada del 18/07/2009 en el blog) acostumbraron a los soldados númenóreanos a las victorias sin bajas. Aunque bajo ese príncipe por imitación de su persona se permitió a algunas unidades desarrollar tácticas de paladines, en las que un gran guerrero destrozaba enemigos despreocupado de su defensa, que confiaba a los soldados comunes que lo acompañaban, él mismo estableció como más útil y racional la unidad táctica básica, el manípulo de doce por doce hombres, porque esta aritmética permitía disponer a los soldados en una variedad de falanges de diferente profundidad. Formaciones más complejas de su creación fueron el sereghír, formación de pasillos entre las filas de la infantería que absorbía el ímpetu enemigo, y el narusakal, línea de lanzas que repelía el golpe inicial de las cargas brutas levantando los cuerpos de los enemigos hacia las líneas traseras dúnedain[3]. También inventó el thangail, línea de escudos, simplificación del narusakal, y el dírnaith, que se concibió como un sereghír móvil pero acabó por ser una columna de ataque rápido para abrir brechas en las filas enemigas, mencionados ambos en el relato del desastre de los Campos Gladios.

El óptimo ejercicio de esas tácticas, que venían de la experiencia anterior pero Calmacil fijó y ordenó, perduró tanto como las artes de la forja de Númenor, pues también en el armamento los dúnedain alcanzaron un nivel de desarrollo mayor que el de cualquier otro pueblo contemporáneo, ya que los elfos de Aman no esperaban la guerra y confiaban más en su fuerza corporal, y los de la Tierra Media habían sido diezmados por Sauron. En maquinarias de asedio construyeron artefactos de ciclópeas dimensiones capaces de batir la roca más dura hasta quebrarla, y grandes vehículos que aplastaban todo a su paso; nunca dejaron de mejorar el naurnen y emplearon sustancias que corroían carne y metal por igual. Estas últimas artes no las quisieron aprender los elfos por su crueldad, pero los dúnedain no tuvieron reparos en utilizarlas contra los siervos de Sauron.

Entre los dúnedain las unidades ligeras, tanto de caballería como de infantería, desaparecieron pronto en favor de las pesadas, porque se consiguieron progresos en el trabajo del metal que permitieron hacer piezas más delgadas e incluso algunas huecas pero igualmente útiles, como las lanzas y algunas piezas de las máquinas de asedio, de modo que el armamento pesado era tan fácilmente transportable como lo era para el resto de los hombres el ligero; hasta entonces sólo los arcos solían ser huecos[4]. Su calidad ofreció al Cetro una nueva oportunidad para practicar su rapacidad: como a pesar de la larga duración del servicio militar las armas se conservaban durante más tiempo aun, se obligó al soldado que abandonaba el ejército a devolver el arma en un estado de conservación aceptable aunque tuviese que pagar a las forjas del Cetro una reparación. El criterio de lo que se consideraba aceptable servía para embolsar más o menos oro según la necesidad o avidez del Tesoro en cada momento. El control del armamento fue total desde las Guerras de los Bosques, en que algunos de los hombres que en el pasado habían sido instruidos por los númenóreanos volvieron sus armas contra sus maestros; desde entonces los componentes que requerían una técnica más avanzada eran fabricados únicamente en Númenor por el antiguo Gremio de los Forjadores de Armas, aunque los metales procediesen en su totalidad de la Tierra Media.

Seis o siete de las ocho cohortes dúnedain de cada legión se componían de hoplitas con el equipo básico de armadura, espada o hacha de combate, escudo, lanza, arco y puñal, y las otras eran de arqueros especializados, que portaban gran cantidad de flechas de varios tipos y otros proyectiles pero sabían manejar igualmente la espada de resultar necesario. Desde la alianza con Ruuriik, y por el acceso de estos enanos a los metales necesarios, la mayoría de las armaduras de los ejércitos dúnedain orientales y la de las flechas de todos fueron de acero enano, único complemento al Gremio de los Forjadores. También de los enanos traían los númenóreanos el hacha por dos vías: indirecta a través de los maestros sindar de los edain de Beleriand y directa y más importante por el trato con Baruzimabûl y Ruuriik, de modo que nunca dicha arma careció de importancia. Las filas de combatientes cuerpo a cuerpo se disponían en un ajedrezado alterno de espadachines y hacheros que se complementaban, puesto que a los dúnedain les resultaba tan cómodo destrozar al enemigo hendiendo con el hacha desde su elevada estatura como dar estocadas desde detrás del escudo, de modo que con el tiempo se redujo un arma. Para los soldados, las espadas y hachas se unificaron a imitación de Dramborleg y cada fila combatía, mientras no se llegara al desorden en el fragor del combate, tajando y estocando alternada y coordinadamente; sin bien al ir los dúnedain mejorando tácticamente, se tendió a preferir la estocada por ser mejor para el combate en formación estrecha y las espadas-hachas evolucionaron hacia la primera de las formas, dando la famosa eket, la espada corta (para las medidas númenóreanas) típica de los últimos siglos de Númenor. Los oficiales, en cambio, directamente prescindieron del hacha para moverse con más ligereza y poder dirigir mejor sus unidades.

La caballería y los auxiliares se organizaban en el mismo tipo de unidades que la infantería; era en el campo de batalla cuando se desplegaban según las necesidades tácticas. Los rávanári con el tiempo quedaron casi como la única caballería númenóreana, ya que los caballos rara vez se transportaban desde Númenor y ellos fueron los únicos que llevaron a cabo una cría extensiva. Aparte de ellos, la unidad más alta de caballería que existieron fueron cohortes, incorporadas a las legiones que se considerara conveniente. Aunque los Rávanári nunca cabalgaron en el abrupto y agreste terreno de las Anarnori, impracticable para las monturas, criaban muchos caballos junto a sus puertos de las Grandes Tierras para usarlos no sólo como bestias de carga o montura de mensajeros, como era habitual entre los demás númenóreanos, sino también para el combate. La formación más habitual era una extensa línea de catafractarios con la delantera del caballo defendida por grandes placas dentadas que se podían encadenar, y las largas lanzas al frente. Tras la federación de Ruuriik también hubo caballeros Rávanári que, armados por los enanos, combatían individualmente, a lomos de los poderosos “caballos de tonel”, así denominados por pesar tanto como un tanque de líquidos, los más grandes que se hayan conocido y que sólo ellos criaban. Tanto estos caballos como sus caballeros combatían completamente acorazados contra enemigos poderosos de gran tamaño como trolls o elefantes, y el jinete manejaba más que blandía armas de gran peso que iban apoyadas en la armadura de la montura. La acción de los Rávanári solía ser arrolladora y no tuvieron rival: nunca en todas las batallas de Númenor el enemigo rompió una línea de catafractas, ni fue tan siquiera un caballero acorazado jamás derribado de su montura.

En otras partes del Imperio númenóreano se quiso imitar a estos últimos, pero sin disponer de los caballos de tonel ni de las forjas de los enanos se quedaron en unos cuerpos exiguos mantenidos por lo pintoresco. Confiados con razón los dúnedain en la disciplina de sus formaciones a pie, las unidades montadas en estas regiones eran mayormente jinetes auxiliares, reservada la caballería pesada a los dúnedain: en Umbar y Pelargir había algunas pequeñas compañías, y en Eriador residían los Caballeros de Menelmacar, surgidos en la Guerra de Sauron y los Elfos; inspirados en el Gremio de Aventureros, hicieron de la lucha contra Sauron su estricto objetivo, que los convirtió en unos atrevidos incursores incluso después de que Tar-Ancalimon derruyese su sede de Minas Menelmacar en Orrostar, quedando basados desde entonces sólo en la Tierra Media.

Finalmente, el arma de artillería surgió de los arqueros y no se desgajó nunca del todo ya que estaba integrada en las demás unidades y se mantuvo incluso a partir de Tar-Calmacil, que fue el primero en usar artillería química. Cada cohorte disponía de un número mínimo de aparatos de diferentes tipos, usados tanto en campo abierto como en asedios o defensa de fortificaciones, y por tanto este desarrollo añadió pocos hombres a los números de la cohorte ya que casi todos eran también combatientes. Pues gracias a la robusta salud y elevada cultura de los dúnedain, tanto los ingenieros como otros cuerpos como médicos o cocineros formaban parte de la tropa, de modo que en una hipotética ocasión desesperada no existían unidades que no pudieran entrar en combate.

Ya desde los tiempos en que fueron sometidos los primeros pueblos nativos de la Tierra Media los dúnedain conocieron por aquéllos el uso de gritos de guerra, si bien durante siglos fueron considerados un gesto bárbaro, y cuando alguna unidad lo lanzaba dentro o fuera de la batalla era por propia iniciativa y desordenándose del resto del ejército. Sin embargo, Calmacil también dispuso este aspecto, reconociendo que por un lado, las voces y sin duda el ruido podían afectar al ánimo enemigo, y por otro, los sonidos coordinados servían para dirigir las formaciones. Desde entonces, los timbales y gaitas marcaron la marcha, las órdenes tácticas se dieron mediante grandes cuernos de metal, y los pífanos de una mano coordinaron a los soldados en el fragor de las luchas cuerpo a cuerpo. Y se compusieron cánticos ordenados, que las legiones cantaban con voz grave en cuanto se hallaban en formación de batalla y antes de iniciar el ataque, y sonaban como los ecos de los orossi en las cavernas de la tierra; los enemigos aprendieron a temer el silencio subsiguiente, que precedía a los disparos de las cohortes de arqueros, cuando el unísono de miles de arcos de acero hueco bramaba como una furiosa tronada previa a la descarga de un letal pedrisco.

Notas:
[1] El adjetivo “metropolitanas” es explicativo, pues la legión era la unidad que en Númenor se reunía para enviar de una vez a las colonias. Originalmente era un alistamiento hecho para establecer una colonia en la Tierra Media, empresa mayormente civil, que incluía en torno a un tercio de soldados u hombres aptos para empuñar armas de los varios millares de personas que desde Tar-Telperien el Cetro exigía se reuniesen para considerar viable cada nueva fundación. A partir de la Guerra de Sauron y los Elfos las expediciones tomaron un carácter cada vez más militar y aumentaron tanto la proporción de soldados como el número total de cada alistamiento o legión. De ahí la traducción del vocablo que hemos hecho en esta Crónica, por la similitud en significado (el nombre original era gonon, “lista”) y número con la romana.
[2] Un Hirzagar (“espada adelantada”, teniente) mandaba un manípulo, un Azgarân (“batallador”, capitán) una cohorte, un Attabar (“padre de la fuerza”, comandante) una legión, y un Attuzagar (“señor guerrero”, general) una división.
[3] Las lanzas eran curvadas y se usaban como picas hincadas en el suelo; los soldados ensartaban de su propia mano a los atacantes, se retiraban tras la segunda línea de lanzas y ésta repetía la acción; las lanzas se recuperaban en un momento posterior de la batalla o tras su fin.
[4] Aunque se aligeró el peso de armas y armaduras, se hizo de modo que sus capacidades no se viesen mermadas. La ligereza de zonas de las armas se compensaba mediante la introducción de metales pesados en los puntos deseados (cabezas de hachas, puntas de espadas) para hacerlas suficientemente contundentes.

© Breogán Rey, 2009.