Should Saruman have accompanied Mauhur and his "lads" ?
 

Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli encountered Saruman on the edge of Fangorn Forest the night after Eomer and his riders had seen off Ugluk and his band. During the battle, Mauhur and his "lads" emerged from Fangorn to attack. Considering Saruman was obviously in the vicinity, would it not have been better if he'd helped Mauhur ?

Come to think of it, Gandalf and Treebeard were close by too - why didn't they intervene on the other side ?

Timing.
 

Gandalf explained to the Three Hunters that Saruman had arrived too late to do anything to help his messengers; and he himself arrived in the vicinity only after Saruman had returned to Isengard. As for Treebeard, why should he interfere in a battle between Men and Orcs? Ents were a secretive race, by and large. If Treebeard had turned up in the middle of a battle, imagine the horror and confusion among the Rohirrim as well as the orcs.

A good commander is supposed to be able to delegate.

That being said, I wouldn't have sent just a few score orcs to recover the Ring. Saruman had (at least) 10,000 at his disposal, and should have sent a thousand- with a sizable unit of warg-riders to expedite the Ring's transport to Isengard.

At the time, Saruman's forces were heavily involved in fighting the Rohirrim at the Fords of Isen, and he wouldn't have wanted to gamble by sending such a large force away from that action. Also, that might have galvanised Théoden to action despite the work of Wormtongue, and Saruman did not want Théoden mobilising the Rohirrim en masse.
Keep in mind too that Saruman did not know whether Merry and Pippin had the Ring or not.

Exactly. Actually Saruman DID send probably as large group as he could - maybe actually a lot more than was necessary! He sent a group that would not be detected immediately because of its size, and be mobile enough, but still it was spotted. Actually, if we trust Uglúk, it was the fault of one of the small Moria-orc scouts who failed to kill the horseman who spotted them.

And as for Saruman's involvement, like it was said, he arrived too late. And aside from that, there has been a lot of speculation whether it actually was real Saruman or just some "image projection" of him.

I'm not sure I agree with the entire assessment.

If the large-scale fighting at the Fords of Isen didn't galvanize Theoden in the first place, then why would Mauhur commanding a larger contingent have galvanized him? I think Theoden was fairly well out of it until Aragorn and Gandalf arrived. And though Saruman didn't know for certain, there are few things that are certain in warfare. He took the gamble: in for a penny, in for a pound (but that's just me. :) )

Saruman still had uruks to spare, as he threw thousands of them against Helm's Deep later. Fast-moving warg cavalry could have gotten Merry and Pippin back well before any uruks on foot.

While the battle of the Fords could have been (and was) minimised in importance by Wormtongue for a while, a large force crossing the West Emnet, that for all the Rohirrim could have known was an invasion army, probably would have been quite concerning to all, including Théoden. Even if Wormtonge was still managing to stonewall Théoden, I can see the Rohirrim, under the threat of a large enemy army riding through the heart of their realm, taking some sort of drastic action against Wormtongue to silence him, and then convincing the King that the 'invasion force' must be stopped. The Rohirrim were a warlike people. Saruman's plans depended on their not being roused to respond to him militarily until it was too late.

I still get the impression that Saruman was being hesitant as a commander. Again, if the Ring is the supreme objective of his entire campaign, his strategy of sending a (comparatively) puny contingent under Mauhur to recover it seems half-hearted.

If this were an espionage mission or a reconnaissance, then it would be more appropriate. But to send the force he did seems like waffling: "Well, I need that ring- if I get it, the war is won! Buuuut, hmmm. I don't want to alarm anyone, either..." [At this point, if I were his Captain, I would be jumping up and down, saying, "Sire, make a @#$% decision! Are these the hobbits or not?!? And are we getting the ring or not!?! Because if they are the hobbits and if we are getting the ring, then we damned well better act like we're going to!" Anyway, back to Saruman's thoughts...] "...So, instead of sending thousands I'll just send..... Oh... Decisions, decisions... a few score under Ugluk... Curses! That might not be enough. Sooooo, I'll send a few score more under Mauhur to, ummm, rendezvous. Yeah, that's it!" :rolleyes:

Saruman's plan seemed to have all of the simplicity, coordination, and clarity of a joint Swiss-Mongolian amphibious assault.

Right, and the attempt to send the Ring to the Cracks of Doom would have been more successful if Frodo had 1000 companions, instead of the paltry eight who were sent.

Saruman's aim was secrecy. If he suddenly sends a massive force across Rohan to the Anduin it's not going to just rouse the Rohirrim - it's going to rouse Sauron as well!

The original poster's question is a good one. In fact, perhaps Saruman should have accompanied his orc band on their entire journey, rather than just trusting that they would get the Ring back to him. Imagine Saruman appearing in the scene where Boromir is trying to take the Ring from Frodo! Saruman could have claimed it for himself on the spot.

But the problem is that he would not have anyone to command Isengard while he was away. Saruman would not trust anybody that much, especially since the situation was so crucial. Again, he could not put all bets on getting the Ring, and it would be highly irresponsible to go there just because of that. Also, Saruman was much more of the type of a ruler, like Sauron, who would not usually do things himself, but who has slaves to do that. Also, Saruman was too much of a coward to, for instance, follow the Fellowship to Moria. So if on his journey he came to such a place, he would probably not like to go there himself. But as long as it was somebody else, he would gladly send them in. So that's why he sent Uglúk and others and didn't go himself.

Oh, I quite agree. Saruman was not very brave and certainly didn't trust anyone. Although he didn't have to go to Moria - the ideal time would have been after the Fellowship left Lorien.

The thing is - all of Saruman's plan really did depend on getting the Ring - perhaps he didn't fully understand how much peril he was in once Sauron discovered his deception.

If Saruman had obtained the Ring then Sauron would not have been confident that he (Sauron) could have defeated Saruman. Although a Ringless Sauron might have still "beaten" Saruman-with-the-Ring in a one on one, mano a mano, confrontation - possibly by simply commanding Saruman to hand it over - it's unlikely that Sauron would have dared to leave the comfort of Barad-dûr to make such an attempt.

Sauron would have hoped that Saruman-with-the-Ring would make a mistake, being over-bold, that might fatally expose him. Perhaps the Ring might assist, by betraying Saruman in some way. It might tempt him to assail Mordor too soon by persuading him that his forces were far greater than Sauron's.

Well the Moria was illustration. Saruman could not have known where the Fellowship will go, I was speaking generally. Imagine that Saruman would not have caught up with the Fellowship until, say, Cirith Ungol. He would not have liked to go there either. Or to Minas Tirith. Or to Edoras. Stuff like that.

Definitely. But Saruman was ultimately deceiving himself, there's no way how it could work. But he could have deceived himself also by making himself think that he will manage to survive as Sauron's faithful servant in the worst case. Of course it wouldn't work, but if it came to that, that's what he would sort of try to hope for.

In any case, Saruman really could not put all his bets on the Ring - even if he had achieved it, he had to have his strong Isengard with a strong army behind him to take the Ring safely to. The Ring alone would not give him victory and he knew as much. Getting ther Ring and returning to Isengard besieged by Rohirrim would not be good at all. That's why he could not dare to leave the war against Rohan to somebody else. He wanted to make sure that it works.

Maybe I wasn't clear: On one hand, if Saruman's aim was secrecy, then he sent too many orcs under Mauhur and Ugluk . It's obvious he did because the warbands were tracked/discovered and annihilated. This is in contrast to the Fellowship, which only had 9 members and did have the objective of secrecy.

On the other hand, if Saruman's aim was to get the Ring no matter what, then the force he sent was too small; it couldn't defend itself from roving bands of Rohirrim cavalry.

Saruman made something of a "split the difference" decision, which was bad either way. I spent a few years as an infantry officer, so I'll say a few things about his strategy from that perspective: it lacked a clear objective, it didn't commit the proper forces for whatever his objective was, and it had too many moving parts.

I'd also add that just being a Maia and having lived a long time doesn't make one a good commander.

That's what I was thinking. Saruman may have had his own kind of brilliance, but applying it to military matters was apparently not among them. He was good when it came to the development of military devices and training, but he didn't, apparently, have a lot of practical experience with warfare. As far as we know, he never went out and fought in a large battle during his time in ME. We know that Gandalf did (the Battle of the Five Armies, at the very least). The only fight I can think of in which Saruman may have been involved directly is the attack on Dol Guldur, and even then, I don't think it would have been quite the same (the fact that Saruman was reluctant to attack Sauron in the first place makes me wonder how actively involved he really was). Particularly after Gandalf managed to escape Orthanc with knowledge that Saruman was building up forces of his own, he seemed very concerned about exposing his hand too soon. Without enough practical experience as a military commander, he would make mistakes, I think. And it appears that he did.

Occasionally I wonder if this was a fault of Tolkien or a fault of Saruman. Ultimately, a character can't be smarter or wiser than the author who penned him, and I have seen plenty of other authors who have written some strange ways of thinking for supposedly intelligent characters.

In the end, I'm inclined to believe that Saruman's lack of sound strategic thinking is a fault of Saruman. Tolkien went out of his way to show someone who was too cunning for his own good.

Saruman didn't think the band under Uglúk would have to deal with the Rohirrim, and he should have been right. It was only Éomer's own initiative and willingness to disobey Wormtongue that caused any action to be taken against them.

Saruman certainly did not consider all possibilities, but then, neither did Sauron. I think that was one thing Tolkien was trying to indicate with his main evil characters; their curious single-mindedness and inattention to detail when it mattered.

I might be inclined to say that it was a lack of attention to all details, and instead hyperfocusing on ones that turned out to be less important than others they ignored or dismissed. In this, they remind me of some attention deficit friends I have. They can have phenomenal attention to something that catches their interest and thus appears very important to them, but while their attention is focused on that manner, they are blind to everything else. In the case of both Sauron and Saruman, their attention was focused on one thing: the Ring, and the way they had each determined it would best be obtained. Sauron believed that anyone of "importance" who came near it would seize it and use it for military conquest. Saruman knew that Gandalf wanted to destroy it, but his lust for it drove him into haste, and thus into making serious mistakes. Perhaps if his desire for the Ring had not been part of the equation, Saruman might have done better as a military commander. With the Ring as a driving motive, he was almost doomed to make fatal mistakes, I think.

This is what I would say. In fact, Saruman sent about 100 Orcs as I recall. He was presumably not planning on intervention from the Rohirrim, because 1) Wormtongue supposedly had things under control, and the Rohirrim were tied down on the other side of Rohan, and 2) there was no way to predict the disobedience of Eomer.

The number sent was about right to ensure success under normal circumstances, while maintaining mobility. To have overcome Eomer's force would have taken considerably more.

Other than that, Saruman certainly made some mistakes. Through Ugluk's intervention, he drove Frodo east over the river, removing any chance of ever getting the Ring...