Why didn't the Elves attack Angband?

for almost 400 years the siege of angband in the first age allowed for balerian to experience something of a golden age where the elves could truly appreciate and beautify their new lands and were entire generations of men could live and die in peace this all changed when The Siege was broken but the question is why didn't the elves escalate The Siege and assault angband first okay first a bit of background the siege of angband was an event that lasted 395 years it began in the year 60 of the first age after morgoff's forces were crushed at the dagger iglareb the elves realized that morgoth would simply keep attacking unless something was done about it so it began the siege of angband a military investment on the plains of art gallon that would ensure nothing would leave the gates of angband undetected and unengaged that being said the siege of angband was not a perfect measure nor was it solving the problem of morgoth entirely most of angband was underground and either beneath or behind the mountain range known as ered engrin the iron mountains while the elves could besiege angban from the south they could not entirely surround it as the Lands Beyond the Arid angerand were frozen wastelands this meant that morgoth could still send out his forces from angband but instead of heading south they would instead have to go around the mountains thus bands Of Orcs could still terrorize balerion such as in 155 atlamoth or in 375 at the Battle of The Galleon ascar stockade also the fact that the siege of angband unlike the siege of barodur in the second age was not a true Siege meant that morgov's forces were not gradually weakening and dwindling as the sage continued instead morgoth was hard at work replacing his forces and making them all the more deadly the elves got a taste of this when glaurang the father of dragons temporarily broke the siege in 260 and was only defeated when fingon led a force of horse archers against him so while the siege of angban did allow for a long period of Peace it was very clearly a temporary measure morgoth's strength would continue to grow and he would eventually launch a major assault against it this day came in 455 the Daga bragalak the Battle of sudden flame where morgoth launched a surprise assault against the procedures wiping them out and proceeding to devastate parts of valerian with the siege broken morgoth could escalate the war and a little over 50 years later he seemed to have decisively won it with all that being said why didn't the noldor attack first instead of Simply besieging angband why didn't they launch a full-scale assault against it and attempt to defeat morkoth that way in this video we'll go through some of the reasons and then I want to talk about whether or not an attack would have actually succeeded the first and perhaps the greatest reason is Manpower this is the greatest weakness of the elves when it comes to war according to agnor the nodal do not marry during times of War also elves rarely have more than four children and usually have less and an elf takes 100 years to reach maturity so during the wars of the first age the elves would have had very little population growth remember several hundred years is a relatively short amount of time for elves so very few children would have been born and many of those would not have reached adulthood in fact it wouldn't be a stretch to assume that the elves probably struggled to replace losses sustained in earlier conflicts for example the noldor lost people at the Ken slaying at algalande crossing the ocean and the hulkarakse at the daganu in gileaf the Duggar aglareb and morgoth's minor attempts to break the siege meanwhile the sindhar and their allies suffered heavy casualties during the first battle of valerian while none of these events were catastrophic for the elves it should be said that these losses would add up and replacing them alone wouldn't be so easy so when it comes to an assault on angband it would be all or nothing for the elves if they fail and retreat with heavy casualties they would not have the strength to try again for centuries at the minimum and in that time morgoth's forces would undoubtedly surpass them the problem of Manpower was partially solved with the arrival of men the Adine interpolarian in 310. in the time it would take for a single L to reach maturity there would be four to five generations of men their numbers could explode in a way that the elves could not replicate however when the Italian first arrived in belarians they didn't number all that much the house of bayor numbered about five thousand the house of halif a little more and the house of hador was the largest at somewhere between 15 to 20 000 it would take generations for them to reach a point where they were truly capable of contributing to the war against morgoth in a meaningful way and by the time that point was reached in the mid-fifth century time was running out the second reason is that there was a lack of willingness and unity we know this because sometime in the fifth century if engulfin actually advocated for an assault upon angband only to be turned down by most of the noldor a common problem for the Elves and the Adine in their war against morgoth was how politically fractured they were many of the noldor actually detested each other although fingolfin was High King the title was basically honorary he ruled over Heffalump and it wielded a great deal of prestige but most of the noldoran printers were completely autonomous the sons of feyenoor and East Valerian regarded madros as their ruler the sons of phenathin angroth and agnor were subject to King finrod falagund and nagafront and even fingolfin's own son turgon was his own independent ruler so going back to fingolfin's idea for assaulting angband it was immediately shot down by most of the princes of the noldor especially the sons of feyenoord who were quite content with the status quo firstly they could safely ignore the O for feyenoor if the silma rules were practically Out Of Reach and secondly they recognized that win or lose there would be enormous casualties with an attack on angband thinkorphins only supporters in this matter were angered and ignore who recognize that their Homeland and dorfonian was most vulnerable to attack but it should be said that angrod and egnor wielded very little power compared to their fellow princes for most of the noldor morgoth had become a problem that was out of sight out of mind so the noldort were faced with two major problems Manpower and disunity Manpower was a valid concern for much of the siege of angband but it was soon partially solved by the arrival of men from the three houses of the Adine I say partially because it did not change the fact that elves reproduced slowly and morgoth's creatures reproduced quickly but even with the Manpower issues solved the elves were still not United in effort and goal for such an assault to ever have a chance of working the noldor and the Adine would have needed to unite under one banner and that was simply something they were unable to do there was too much bad blood between certain factions and individuals okay but let's assume that hypothetically think dolphin was able to unite the noldor and get them to agree on an attack against angband would it have been successful the answer no like the worst no that you can possibly imagine a catastrophic no unfortunately for fengolfin by the time the strength of the noldor and the Adine had peaked shortly before the daguar bragalak morgoff's own forces had surpassed them his Orcs outnumbered them and he now had dangerous new weapons known as dragons when fingolfin advocated for an assault upon angband he was going off the intelligence that was available to him which is to say not much at all the thing about angband is that most of it was underground and most of its vast tunnels and caverns had never been seen by any elf unless they were a prisoner or a slave as a result the true scope of angband and the true size of morgoth's forces was something that the elves were never really aware of and morgoth used this to great effect after the dagor knew in gileaf and the agler Reb Morgan could use angban to conceal how weak his forces had become and later at the nenef are no idea morgoth used angban to conceal just how large his forces were so assuming an assault upon angbam was launched breaking into angband itself wouldn't even be the most difficult part after all it was done twice by Baron and luthien and again by guindor and his company at the none of the ad but guindor's company is a great case study for what might happen to a larger army they burst through the gate and even got as far as morgoth's throne room but were then cut off and destroyed this is because once they were inside angband they were blind and morgoff used a network of hidden doors and tunnels to flood his forces onto the field removing any chance of a rescue attempt any army entering angban would face the same problem they wouldn't know where they are truly going they wouldn't know how many enemies await them they wouldn't know if they were walking into a trap or an ambush and they wouldn't even truly know whether they were winning or losing the host of The Valor was able to avoid this during the war of Wrath by cheating and literally using divine power to unearth angbans and as I said earlier the nodal could not simply Retreat and decide to come back in 10 years and finish the job if they sustained heavy losses which they no doubt would that would be the equivalent of losing the war an attack on angband would be an all or nothing assault in reality the window of opportunity for an assault upon angbans that might have been successful was very small perhaps directly after the nuin gileaf or the agler rep but after both of these occasions the noldor was still in the process of settling and building their realms so the sons of fan or shouldn't be criticized for their inaction even if it was mostly due to selfish reasons although fingolfin was wise to recognize that morgoth could not be contained in angband Forever he did not have the information available to recognize that his solution was just as bad if not worse than simply continuing The Siege and unfortunately for the Elves and the Adine the siege of angband would not be Eternal as I said earlier in 455 the Battle of sudden flame saw the death of fingolfin angrad and egnor and their people were destroyed as was most of the House of bayor the sons of feyenoord were badly bloodied and many of them were forced to abandon their lands and after that the war snowballed in morgoff's favor the noldor and the Adine would make one last throw of the dice in the form of the Union of midros but it was doomed from the start the actions of kelagom and kurofin and the Bad Blood between the fanorians and thingol ensured that nagafront and doriaf two of the most powerful remaining kingdoms would not join the union meaning they had to supplement their Manpower with easterlings many of whom ended up being traitors and at the nunaf are no idea the union made their fateful attempt to reinstate the siege of angband but they were crushed and the war was essentially over thank you for watching I hope you enjoyed it or at least found it interesting I think the worst thing about the first age is that many people aren't as familiar with it as they are with the third age which is a shame because the first stage stuff is truly amazing and in many ways even more fought out than the third age stuff anyway it's all great cheers farewell and remember unless you have the power of the Divine on your side attacking angband will result in an Ang Bang

Channel: Darth Gandalf

Views: 21,987

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Id: 548un3FuLuI

Length: 11min 45sec (705 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 14 2023