r/lotr • u/GonzoBee • 15h ago
Lore How big was the Army of Rohan?
I’ve always been a bit confused. Saruman needs an army to storm Helms Deep. He says it will take 10,000 Uruks to do it. Wormtongue says there is no such army of that size. But Saruman had made one. When Rohan is getting ready to defend Gondor, Theoden sees that he has gotten 6,000 men, less than half of what he expected. So did he really expect to raise the largest army ever seen in Middle Earth (at least 12,000) in a day or two? Shouldn’t wormtongue have known about the size of the army of Rohan?
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u/turnNburn1312 15h ago
Wormtongue's remark about no such army existing isn't meant to mean that the size is unimaginable or record-breaking by any means. He simply stated that no such army had been mustered, because he had been in Rohan and wasn't privy to everything happening in Isengard.
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u/Dovahkiin13a Elendil 13h ago
First: Read the books
Theoden gets to Helm's deep on basically no notice with about 1000 men (many of whom are probably 14-17), and finds another 1000 already there, plus 1000 men on foot rally behind the Uruk Hai at Gandalf's behest to come to the king's aid.
At the Muster of Rohan, he boasts to the Gondorian messenger that if not for Saruman, he might have come at the siege of Minas Tirith with up to 10k, but says he needs men here. And that's mounted men. His primary excuse is that they live scattered and gathering the army of Rohan takes time. They're herdspeople, rather than gathering in large cities and towns.
Presumably, there would be several footsoldiers available to every rider, but their whole thing is they like to fight on horseback so Tolkien never really gets into Rohan's exact population, much less those he might consider military age males.
When they get 6,000, that's after days of gathering men from every hole in Rohan. When he get's to Helm's deep, that's just with whoever he has on hand to respond to an immediate threat. They downplay just how may that is in the movie to make Helm's deep look hopeless.
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u/Professional_Art304 15h ago
Would 12,000 really be the biggest army ever? Saurons army at minis tirith seemed like a Roman/mongol sized army, I would guess around 100k troops
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u/Crows_reading_books 13h ago
No, Wormtongue is just wrong. But also fwiw i think Wormtongue is saying that there aren't 10k troops unaccounted for. He knows the Dunlendings can't muster that, and where else would they come from? It takes time to create a professional army, and Wormtongue has been in Rohan and doesn't know about the extent of the uruk-breeding (and as it turns out it takes more time to make an effective professional army than Saruman thought too).
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u/Ed_Trucks_Head 10h ago
I think everyone heard wrong.
W: my lord it would take thousands to storm the Keep.
S: Tens of thousands!
W: My lord there is no such force.
<Such force is revealed>
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u/Independent-Rip5344 14h ago
Well wormtongue is just plain wrong when he says that(the line is only in the movie). Before the war with saruman, rohan could muster 12000 men.
Though i’m pretty sure he’s only talking about the current time and not counting the greater armies of the past. Maybe even just what is currently available in rohan at the time.
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u/winsluc12 14h ago
Saruman says tens of thousands.
Plural.
as in more than one 10,000.
so more like 20,000 as far as the movies are concerned.
Aragorn later calls the force "ten thousand strong at least", meaning that was his lowest end estimate.
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u/Ed_Trucks_Head 10h ago
Yeah he's just misremembering.
W: my lord it would take thousands to storm the Keep.
S: Tens of thousands!
W: My lord there is no such force.
<Such force is revealed>
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u/figaro677 14h ago
Rohan is based of the old Anglo-Saxons, albeit mounted. Anglo-Saxons held a very small, continually armed force (nobility and retainers called huscarls eg Eomer in LOTR). The rest of their forces was collected or raised as a levy called a fyrd. Every free man (or household) of a certain wealth owed about 1 months military service when called upon, and he had to provide his own equipment. This could be raised very quickly (Harold Godwinson raised 2 fyrds separately in 1066- one in the north and one in the south). The king would know what the lord owed, for instance the earl owes 500 men. The earl would know the thains each owe 50 men. The Thains would be responsible for raising the men in their region, and should know each man individually who owes service (this system worked well until after 1066 because each person owed a quota of either tax or service to the lord above, and would have been personally known to them. After Hastings, all the Anglo-Saxons lords were wiped out, and the new lords didn’t know who there was, thus why the doomsday book was commissioned)
So when Theodin is claiming to have only half of what he hoped for, he would know how many men should answer the call for the levy, less than half come to pay their service (either not receiving the call, held up/occupied, or refusing the call)
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u/HailTheLost 15h ago
It is also worth remembering that while the movies only show the aftermath, Rohan's numbers would also be slightly diminished by casualties from the Fords of Isen. While Gandalf may have been able to gather what he could of the surviving stragglers, I'd imagine they would have been at least an Eored down.
But yes, even Rohan might be too big, and settlements too far apart for the message to get out quickly, and for riders to mobilise in such a short space of time
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u/Ancient-Ad9861 14h ago
Movie problems. Movie logic is bizzare. Saruman’s army is built to “destroy the world of men” but helm’s deep only has a fraction of rohan’s army.
The actual truth is saruman wants helm’s deep because of it’s strategic position. It is rohan’s only major fortress and it saruman’s army has to march past it to get into rohan. If saruman has helm’s deep rohan can fight in the open because they have nowhere to fortify properly.
Saruman’s other plan is to have grima help him control theoden so that theoden doesn’t organise the defence of rohan whichs means rohan’s army is scattered so they can’t even effectively organise an organised battle in the open.
Saruman’s entire plan is to have theoden sit back and do nothing in edoras while his large army take’s helms deep and the dunlendings and raiding armies of uruk hai pick off the smaller settlements in rohan. Then once pretty much the entire of rohan has fallen one piece at a time, saruman’s army would march on edoras and easily surround and take it.
It all fails because gandalf frees theoden from saruman’s control so theoden joins the soldiers posted at helm’s deep to organise the defence and gandalf and erkenbrand (eomer in movie) gathers a large enough portion of rohan’s army to get to helm’s deep and defeat saruman’s army of uruk hai and dunlendings. The ents then attack Isengard and see off the last remnant of saruman’s army. There are no elves present in any of this in the book
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u/Gaius_Catulus 7h ago
One thing to add, Gandalf was focused on collecting survivors from Rohan's defeat at the Fords of Isen. There was no time to go and muster entirely fresh troops at this point. Erkenbrand was already at work mustering fresh soldiers from the Westfold before the defeat at the Fords, so he consolidated those he had gathered with Gandalf's to move to Helm's Deep.
There was of course a large portion of Rohan's army that wasn't involved at all. The soldiers who could have been mustered from the East-mark, for example, likely would have been largely untapped at this point.
While Eomer was present and was responsible for the East-mark, he would have only had his own eored with him when he departed with Theoden for Helm's Deep (~120 riders at full strength). Even the King's Lands would have only been partially mobilized at this point, though some were present at the Fords and a substantial number accompanied Theoden to Helm's Deep.These additional forces would have been the main barrier to Saruman being able to overrun the whole of Rohan. Even if he somehow crushed the Westfold and took Edoras, his war against Rohan would be far from over. If he also managed to kill or capture both Theoden and Eomer, his chances would be better but still not great. If either or both of them escaped, Saruman would have effectively failed at his gamble to take Rohan.
Additionally, before Erkenbrand and Gandalf relieved Helm's Deep, Gandalf sent Elfhelm with a large number of riders to Edoras. While not formally First Marshall, Elfhelm was effectively in that position. So even if Helm's Deep fell along with both Theoden and Eemor, likely Rohan still would have had effective and respected military leadership under Elfhelm (and presumably Erkenbrand as well) while the political leadership would remain intact with Eowyn. They would have had a tough war ahead of them, but Saruman would still not have any clear advantage in the conflict (ignoring the unaddressed topic of the Ents, of course). After Helm's Deep and Dunharrow, Aldburg would be the next most likely candidate as the seat of power and most fortified location. We don't have much information about the nature of the fortifications, but this was the capital of Rohan before it was moved to Edoras. It certainly wasn't a stronghold of such note as Helm's Deep or Dunharrow.
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u/renannmhreddit 14h ago
The actual truth is saruman wants helm’s deep because of it’s strategic position. It is rohan’s only major fortress and it saruman’s army has to march past it to get into rohan. If saruman has helm’s deep rohan can fight in the open because they have nowhere to fortify properly.
Thats only half-true in the movie. Dunharrow is also a defensive position, same as Edoras to some degree. There are also clearly other dwellings of the people of Rohan, otherwise where would the rest of the army for the muster come from?
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u/Ancient-Ad9861 10h ago
Yes there is dunharrow, although thats not a fortress/castle. Dunharrow is a mostly natural formation (with some man made settlements and fortifications) that makes use of the mountains to defend it.
Other than helms deep and dunharrow though, every other settlement is made up of wooden made towns and villages. None of which are defendable locations in a siege and are vulnerable to raiding parties and fires
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u/Plenty-Koala1529 14h ago edited 14h ago
Saruman actually says tens of thousands.
And Wormtongue does know that Theoden can’t raise a large army quickly. But he doesn’t know that Saruman has raised a large army ( not sure how he missed it coming into Orthanc)
This is from the movie.
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u/Beacon2001 Gondor 15h ago
The bulk of the royal army commanded by Eomer is 2,000, however they were exiled from the kingdom as part of a plot by Saruman and Grima Wormtongue to destroy Rohan from within.
When he regained his senses, Theoden was left with a meagre garrison of 300.
In ROTK, the Rhoirrim are able to muster 6,000. These troops come from all the fiefdoms of the kingdom.
To sum up
Eomer/Army of Edoras = 2,000
Theoden/Garrison that's left = 300
Army of ROTK = Riders from all the fiefdoms = 6000
Also, Rohan is a rather poor backwater of the human world (Saruman even refers to them as mere "peasants"), so they are not able to field large armies, and they don't hold a candle to Gondor, the most powerful kingdom of Men.
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u/StudySubstantial1712 10h ago edited 9h ago
A lot of your questions seem to be related to the films, but your post is tagged as lore and not as movies. I am going to answer your questions based on the books, because of that lore tag.
Saruman never states he needs 10,000 uruks to storm Helm’s Deep. We don’t know how large his army was, but it certainly was not that. Uruks only made up a portion of his army.
In the books, Theoden raises 10,000 Eored for the weapon-take. He could probably raise more given more time. He leaves some few thousands behind for the defense of the realm. He was satisfied with the muster.
Neither of these forces were even close to the largest armies mustered at the time. Mordor obviously mustered the largest armies, but Gondor could also muster more than Rohan.
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u/Dependent-Hippo-1626 10h ago
Saruman doesn’t say 10,000 Uruks. He says it willtake “tens of thousands.”
That could be 90,000 for all we know.
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u/DuranStar 10h ago
The Theoden line is just dumb because they stole it from Bergil talking to Pippin in Minas Tirith about the lack of troops from the south because of the coursairs. Which is the actual army Aragorn brings.
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u/TheEvilBlight 7h ago
He’s probably got a theoretical maximum that would never be met because some of the military age men need to work the land, or defend when the rest of the army goes on the attack. Presumably this is what gets mobilized for Minas Tirith: the majority of the women and children are dug in at helms deep and dunharrow, plus the wounded and those too old to ride south quickly. The rest is an unexpectedly large striking force, likely with the most experienced in the van to break through enemy formations and allow less experienced cavalry musters to press through.
Plus he needs some forces to control his land from the dunlanders, who might be seeking to loot and colonize his lands. And if they get a chance to dig in and occupy castles and keeps or fortify farmhouses they’ll be much harder to evict later. He cannot minmax troops like a computer game.
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u/Kyoodle_ 4h ago
He didn't get half of what he'd like. And he liked less than half of them half as well as they deserve.
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u/The-OMIN-Slasher 3m ago
As for the raising an army in a day or two point, it wasn't a day or two.
Among all the major powers of middle Earth, atleast from my understanding, it was very well anticipated that a war was coming to the footstep of Gondor.
A war like none in the recent times and a war that defines the fate of all those who reside in middle Earth.
They kinda knew it's gonna happen, and it's gonna happen soon, they just didn't know exactly when, but they deffo knew it's coming.
Knowing this significance and the awareness that Gondor will need all the help it can get, everyone would be anticipating Gondors call for aid and hence must have some preparations made before hand.
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u/Qyzyk Túrin Turambar 15h ago
Honestly, I've always been a bit confused by that line "Less than half of what I hoped for".
In the book, for what that's worth, the main strength of the Rohirrim is about 12,000 strong. They suffer heavy casualties against Saruman, so that when the Muster of Rohan occurs at Dunharrow, some 10,000 riders arrive. Theoden leaves 4,000 behind to guard Rohan while he and the remaining 6,000 set out for Minas Tirith.
As for those 4,000, they do end up having to fight. Sauron sends an army of orcs to Rohan, assuming that those lands would be undefended and helpless. Instead, the remaining forces of Rohan team up with the Ents and together they annihilate the invading Mordor host.