[Scott]

Bravo Aiwendil, you beat me to that historical snippet.

And in my opinion, whether one would claim The Lord of the Rings to be allegorical or not, it can still be possible to have paralells to the world wars. Every person no matter who they are are influenced in some way or another by the events surrounding their life and that helps to make them the people they are. Tolkien's life was affected by the world wars and it's reflected in his writings.

Even going on a more basic point, the War of the Ring is filled with didacticism and inarguably has characteristics of any or all war, whether directly relating it specifically to any one war (which I agree that it doesn't) or not. Anyone's literary interpretations are as true as another's as long as they can back them up.