The Battle at the Black Gate

The Battle at the Black Gate, also known as the Battle of the Morannon, is the final military engagement of the War of the Ring, a desperate and deliberate sacrifice undertaken by the Captains of the West. Having learned that Sauron's forces were converging on the Black Gate, Aragorn and Gandalf led a small army of perhaps seven thousand men to the very gates of Mordor, not to win a victory but to draw the Dark Lord's attention and eye away from the true peril: Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee, who were at that very moment crossing the wastes of Mordor toward Mount Doom with the One Ring. The battle is a study in calculated self-destruction, a feint so costly that its participants knew they would likely die, and its significance lies not in the clash of arms but in the race between the destruction of the Ring and the annihilation of the Western host.

The March to the Morannon and the Challenge

The Captains of the West came within cry of the Morannon, the Black Gate of Mordor, and unfurled their banner and blew upon their trumpets. The heralds stood out and sent their voices up over the battlement of Mordor, crying: "Come forth! Let the Lord of the Black Land come forth! Justice shall be done upon him. For wrongfully he has made war upon Gondor and wrested its lands. Therefore the King of Gondor demands that he should atone for his evils, and depart then for ever. Come forth!" There was a long silence, and from wall and gate no cry or sound was heard in answer. But Sauron had already laid his plans, and he had a mind first to play these mice cruelly before he struck to kill. Even as the Captains were about to turn away, the silence was broken suddenly by a long rolling of great drums like thunder in the mountains, and then a braying of horns that shook the very stones and stunned men's ears. The door of the Black Gate was thrown open with a great clang, and out of it there came an embassy from the Dark Tower.

The Mouth of Sauron and the Parley

At the head of the embassy rode a tall and evil shape, mounted upon a black horse, if horse it was; for it was huge and hideous, and its face was a frightful mask, more like a skull than a living head, and in the sockets of its eyes and in its nostrils there burned a flame. The rider was robed all in black, and black was his lofty helm; yet this was no Ringwraith but a living man. He was the Lieutenant of the Tower of Barad-dûr, and his name is remembered in no tale; for he himself had forgotten it, and he said: "I am the Mouth of Sauron." It is told that he was a renegade, who came of the race of those that are named the Black Númenóreans; for they established their dwellings in Middle-earth during the years of Sauron's domination, and they worshipped him, being enamoured of evil knowledge. He entered the service of the Dark Tower when it first rose again, and because of his cunning he grew ever higher in the Lord's favour; and he learned great sorcery, and knew much of the mind of Sauron; and he was more cruel than any orc. He rode out with only a small company of black-harnessed soldiery, and a single banner, black but bearing on it in red the Evil Eye. Halting a few paces before the Captains of the West, he looked them up and down and laughed, mocking Aragorn with scorn: "Is there anyone in this rout with authority to treat with me? Or indeed with wit to understand me? Not thou at least! It needs more to make a king than a piece of Elvish glass, or a rabble such as this. Why, any brigand of the hills can show as good a following!"

The Mouth of Sauron then produced tokens that struck at the heart of the Western host: the coat of mithril mail, the cloak, and the sword of a companion, which he claimed proved that the Ring-bearer had been captured and destroyed. Gandalf, intent and watching him as a man engaged in fencing with a deadly foe, saw that for the taking of a breath the Messenger was at a loss; yet swiftly he laughed again and cried: "Do not bandy words in your insolence with the Mouth of Sauron! Surety you crave! Sauron gives none. If you sue for his clemency you must first do his bidding. These are his terms. Take them or leave them!" Then Gandalf said suddenly: "These we will take!" He cast aside his cloak and a white light shone forth like a sword in that black place. Before his upraised hand the foul Messenger recoiled, and Gandalf coming seized and took from him the tokens: coat, cloak, and sword. "These we will take in memory of our friend," he cried. "But as for your terms, we reject them utterly. Get you gone, for your embassy is over and death is near to you. We did not come here to waste words in treating with Sauron, faithless and accursed; still less with one of his slaves. Begone!"

The Trap Springs

Then the Messenger of Mordor laughed no more. His face was twisted with amazement and anger to the likeness of some wild beast that, as it crouches on its prey, is smitten on the muzzle with a stinging rod. Rage filled him and his mouth slavered, and shapeless sounds of fury came strangling from his throat. But he looked at the fell faces of the Captains and their deadly eyes, and fear overcame his wrath. He gave a great cry, and turned, leaped upon his steed, and with his company galloped madly back to Cirith Gorgor. But as they went his soldiers blew their horns in signal long arranged; and even before they came to the gate Sauron sprang his trap. Drums rolled and fires leaped up. The great doors of the Black Gate swung back wide, and out of it streamed a great host as swiftly as swirling waters when a sluice is lifted. The Captains mounted again and rode back, and from the host of Mordor there went up a jeering yell. Dust rose smothering the air, as from nearby there marched up an army of Easterlings that had waited for the signal in the shadows of Ered Lithui beyond the further Tower. Down from the hills on either side of the Morannon poured Orcs innumerable. The men of the West were trapped, and soon, all about the grey mounds where they stood, forces ten times and more than ten times their match would ring them in a sea of enemies. Sauron had taken the proffered bait in jaws of steel.

The Last Stand and the Fall of Pippin

Little time was left to Aragorn for the ordering of his battle. Upon the one hill he stood with Gandalf, and there fair and desperate was raised the banner of the Tree and Stars. Upon the other hill hard by stood the banners of Rohan and Dol Amroth, White Horse and Silver Swan. And about each hill a ring was made facing all ways, bristling with spear and sword. But in the front towards Mordor where the first bitter assault would come there stood the sons of Elrond on the left with the Dúnedain about them, and on the right the Prince Imrahil with the men of Dol Amroth tall and fair, and picked men of the Tower of Guard. The wind blew, and the trumpets sang, and arrows whined; but the sun now climbing towards the South was veiled in the reeks of Mordor, and through a threatening haze it gleamed, remote, a sullen red, as if it were the ending of the day, or the end maybe of all the world of light. And out of the gathering mirk the Nazgûl came with their cold voices crying words of death; and then all hope was quenched.

The first assault crashed into them. The orcs hindered by the mires that lay before the hills halted and poured their arrows into the defending ranks. But through them there came striding up, roaring like beasts, a great company of hill-trolls out of Gorgoroth. Taller and broader than Men they were, and they were clad only in close-fitting mesh of horny scales, or maybe that was their hideous hide; but they bore round bucklers huge and black and wielded heavy hammers in their knotted hands. Reckless they sprang into the pools and waded across, bellowing as they came. Like a storm they broke upon the line of the men of Gondor, and beat upon helm and head, and arm and shield, as smiths hewing the hot bending iron. At Pippin's side Beregond was stunned and overborne, and he fell; and the great troll-chief that smote him down bent over him, reaching out a clutching claw; for these fell creatures would bite the throats of those that they threw down. Then Pippin stabbed upwards, and the written blade of Westernesse pierced through the hide and went deep into the vitals of the troll, and his black blood came gushing out. He toppled forward and came crashing down like a falling rock, burying those beneath him. Blackness and stench and crushing pain came upon Pippin, and his mind fell away into a great darkness. "So it ends as I guessed it would," his thought said, even as it fluttered away; and it laughed a little within him ere it fled, almost gay it seemed to be casting off at last all doubt and care and fear. And then even as it winged away into forgetfulness it heard voices, and they seemed to be crying in some forgotten world far above: "The Eagles are coming! The Eagles are coming!" For one moment more Pippin's thought hovered. "Bilbo!" it said. "But no! That came in his tale, long long ago. This is my tale, and it is ended now. Good-bye!" And his thought fled far away and his eyes saw no more.

The Turning of the War and Its Aftermath

The Battle at the Black Gate was never meant to be won by the sword. Its entire purpose was to serve as a diversion, to draw Sauron's attention and his Eye away from the true danger approaching Mount Doom. The Western host was bait, knowingly and willingly offered, and Sauron took the proffered bait in jaws of steel. The battle's outcome was decided not on the field of the Morannon but in the fires of Mount Doom, where Frodo Baggins, at the last moment, claimed the Ring for himself and was attacked by Gollum, who bit off his finger and fell with the Ring into the Cracks of Doom. The destruction of the One Ring unmade Sauron utterly, and the host of Mordor, which had been on the verge of annihilating the Western army, was thrown into confusion and despair. The Nazgûl, whose cold voices had cried words of death, were consumed by the fiery ruin of the Dark Tower. The battle thus stands as the supreme demonstration of the strategy of sacrifice that runs through the entire War of the Ring: the Captains of the West staked everything on the hope that Frodo would succeed, and their willingness to die made his success possible. The Battle at the Black Gate is the moment where the fate of Middle-earth hung entirely on the actions of two hobbits far away, and where the courage of the few who stood against the Dark Lord proved decisive not through victory but through endurance.