The Two Towers by J.R.R Tolkien (Harper Collins 1991, 2007) pp. 682-691
It is important at the outset of these thoughts on warfare in The Lord of the Rings to note that from the arraying of Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli in gear of warfare before the gates of Edoras to the final victory over the hosts of Isengard before Helm’s Deep there are only twenty-seven pages in the Harper Collins edition of The Two Towers. Compare that to the amount of time devoted to the battle in Peter Jackson’s film of the same name and even before we think about the battle at all we see that this Hollywood action movie treats warfare very differently to the way in which Tolkien does.
Tolkien’s personal experience of warfare was very different to that of the armies who fight in his great story. Harold MacMillan, who was the British Prime Minister in the late 1950s and early 1960s was a fellow officer to Tolkien at the Battle of the Somme in 1916 on whose first day the British army lost 60,000 men killed and wounded. MacMillan was himself one of the wounded and spent several hours hiding in a shell hole and reading Aeschylus in Greek to distract himself from the pain before before being found by British soldiers. In a letter of the time he wrote that “perhaps the most extraordinary thing about a modern battlefield is the desolation and emptiness of it all… One can look for miles and see no human being. But in those miles of country lurk (like moles or rats, it seems) thousands, even hundreds of thousands of men, planning against each other perpetually some new device of death. Never showing themselves, they launch at each other bullet, bomb, aerial torpedo, and shell.”
Harold MacMillan as a young infantry officer.
It was a shell that hit and wounded MacMillan as he led an advance of his men towards the German lines. I quote these lines in a reflection upon Tolkien because they describe with dreadful eloquence the experience of warfare shared by soldiers of both sides in that dreadful conflict and contrast so starkly with the language that Tolkien uses to describe the ride of the Rohirrim to Helm’s Deep. Not that Tolkien ignores the horror of war. Théoden describes the hosts of Isengard as they advance “burning as they come, rick, cot and tree”. But he also writes of the beauty of a host of men about to ride out in defence of their homes and families.
“At the gate they found a great host of men, old and young, all ready in the saddle. More than a thousand were there mustered. Their spears were like a springing wood. Loudly and joyously they shouted as Théoden came forth.”
The Riders of Rohan
Tolkien profoundly understood the contrast between the desolate horror that MacMillan described and the heroic language that he used in his own descriptions of battle. Indeed he expressed that contrast in his distinction between the orcs of Mordor and Isengard and, for example, the Riders of Rohan. While the armies of Saruman and of Sauron use all the devices available to them of industrial warfare, the Rohirrim ride into battle carrying spear and sword; and Tolkien’s account is full of acts of individual heroism on the part of the defenders of Helm’s Deep while their enemies are faceless.
What Tolkien achieved in The Lord of the Rings was a restoration of humanity in the brutal and faceless experience of warfare that he knew and which MacMillan described. This means that he is a genuinely modern writer whose war literature can be included alongside A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway or Robert Graves Goodbye to All That. But whereas Hemingway and Graves seek, with great success, to express the experience that MacMillan describes, Tolkien does something quite different. He attempts a kind of redemption of the brutal experience of warfare by restoring the heroic to it. While he understood the experience that Wilfred Owen described in speaking of “these who die as cattle” he restores to those who die a human face and personal heroism.
“What passing bells for these who die as cattle?”
But I must end where I began. Tolkien never sought to glorify war in his writings. This is perhaps best and most explicitly expressed by Faramir who is a warrior by necessity and not by choice and, of all the characters in The Lord of the Rings speaks most in Tolkien’s own voice.
“War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all, but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.”
Wisdom from The Lord of the Rings 
Thank you for this lovely post about Tolkiens view on war . I always loved what he wrote in lotr because he let certain characters give a viewpoint about what he possibly thought without being too obvious with his own thoughts . I loved that you quoted Faramir but I like that he was a character that wasn’t in his first drafts but he is a noble character to express his thoughts on war and also the dream about the wave .
Also I liked how he let Sam express his thoughts about what he thought about one on one combat in Ithilien when Sam saw that for first time .
This entry resonates so much esp because Tolkien was a soldier himself .
It’ll be interesting if you can share your thoughts also on Tolkien and the Great War by John Garth .
Thank you so much for your comment. I agree with you entirely about what Faramir brings to Tolkien’s story. And that moment when Sam sees the young warrior from Harad die at his feet is deeply moving and I am sure that you are right in saying that his reaction reflects what Tolkien felt.
I confess that I have not yet read John Garth’s book although it was on my reading list. What did you think of it?
I really liked it . It’s been a while since I read it though . I did meet John Garth in person as well and he’s a fascinating guy . I feel like Tolkien does reflect a lot of the post war feelings in lotr .
This important post talks about that importance . You have a lot of insightful entries in here. Your eowyn one from last post is very good too. Thank you for them.
Thank you so much for your encouragement.
Thank you for such a deeply felt and well-expressed reflection on a such a vital theme in Tolkien’s works: war, and his efforts to express a concept of a just war. As you say, Faramir’s words to Frodo are those of Tolkien as well. I think Tolkien said somewhere that Faramir embodied his ideal of a soldier. I think Tolkien, like C.S. Lewis, managed to salvage something from his experience as a soldier in the Great War that tried to find meaning, and to place into remembrance the qualities of those who served and suffered. There was nothing facile about that, as anyone who reads his descriptions of the Dead Marshes and the slag heaps will realise. He is said to have remained deeply affected by those experiences. I think he tried in the Tale to portray the service, duty and sacrifice of the ordinary soldiers; that comes out in the characterisation of the hobbits. I’m reminded of Philip Larkin’s poem MCMXIV on the fiftieth anniversary of the War: “Never such innocence again.” You might be interested in an article by the historian Sir Martin Gilbert about his interview with Tolkien, in which Tolkien talked about his war experience: martingilbert.com/blog/what-tolkien-taught-me-about-the-battle-of-the-somme-3/
Thank you so much for these thoughts, Chris. I agree with you entirely about the respect that officers like Tolkien and Lewis (and I would add Harold MacMillan as well) had for their men. Sam Gamgee, of course, exemplifies the qualities that Tolkien admired and I also recall Lewis’s depiction of his sergeant in Surprised By Joy. Thank you so much for the link you sent. I had no idea that a historian as distinguished as Martin Gilbert had interviewed Tolkien. I look forward to reading the interview very much.
Thank you for these reflections, Stephen. As you say Tolkien knew the worst of war. That helps me to trust him when he depicts the heroic aspect of war (aspects that were amplified in Jackson’s films). Tolkien’s larger emphasis within LOTR on loss and sorrow, also help. And there are so many other unique things in the text that win our trust, and you point out one of the best, the character of Faramir.
Thank you, Kevin. I am struck by your use of the idea of amplification in Jackson’s films. I have been thinking a lot since writing my piece about amplification in classical and medieval story telling. Robert Fagles translation of the Homer to which I am indebted gives us Achilles going into battle and Odysseus slaughtering the suitors of his wife and these are quite terrifying in their pornographic vividness. Actually I should say more than pornographic because pornography always falls short in its description of sex as C.S Lewis once argued with Kenneth Tynan who was a fierce critic of all censorship in the 1960s in Britain. Homer is so much closer to reality than this. This leaves me wondering why Tolkien exercises so much restraint in his depictions of war. Is it English reserve or is something else going on?
That’s a really interesting question, Stephen, and perhaps one worth looking into. Any number of guesses come to mind for me. I agree there may have been a simple English reserve that went beyond any intentional reasons. Also, all authors depicting such things have to decide when graphic details cross the line into the unnecessarily sensational. These are just guesses, but in your post I think you’ve hit on something quite important: there simply aren’t a lot of pages in LOTR dedicated to the depiction of battle. After years of watching the Jackson films it can be a surprise, as you note, to go back to the text and see how quickly the Battle of Helm’s Deep goes by. And Tolkien passes over the Battle of Isengard entirely in the narrative, giving us only the general summary in flashback. Frodo passes out, I think, just as Aragorn enters the circle at Weathertop, so we don’t see that fight, either. For whatever reason, even if conflict is ever-present in LOTR, Tolkien just didn’t dwell in the details of battle.
I intend to reflect more on the Battle of Helms Deep and Tolkien’s depiction of the heroic there in this week’s blog post. I must go to Tolkien’s translation of Beowulf before I do that.
Yet in all of his writing did you ever feel you missed or needed more info on the battle scene.
I agree, John. I don’t think that there is anything missing in the telling of the story of the Battle of Helm’s Deep but then Tolkien tells the story as a poet and not a journalist.