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Old 01-27-2009, 10:28 PM   #38
William Cloud Hicklin
Loremaster of Annúminas
 
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William Cloud Hicklin is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.William Cloud Hicklin is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.William Cloud Hicklin is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.
No, not diverted from DG to Mordor; rather, the army from Udun and the Morannon, originally slated to march north and join with that of DG, was rerouted westward into northern Gondor. This was motivated (I speculate) by S's conviction that the Ring was in Gondor; but also by the military necessity of dealing with the Rohirrim, whom Saruman was supposed to have neutralized.

I don't know if this bit is in the excerpts from the Chronology ("Scheme") published in the RC, but it's in the complete document.

As to 'plenty of Orcs left'- well, Tolkien wasn't a general or a general-staff officer, but he spent enough time at war to be aware of a basic fact of armies: on the advance they can't be any bigger than their logistics train allows.

(One can just imagine the cursing and blows in Mordor's quartermaster corps that resulted when Lugburz moved up the whole timetable to 10 March!)
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