Last Alliance

The Last Alliance of Elves and Men was the great military coalition formed in the late Second Age to overthrow Sauron after his return to Mordor. Its decisive campaign culminated in the siege of Barad-dûr and the Battle of Dagorlad, where Sauron was personally overthrown by Gil-galad and Elendil, though both perished. Isildur then cut the One Ring from Sauron's hand, but refused to destroy it, an act that set the stage for the Ring's long survival and the events of the Third Age.

Causes and Background

After the Downfall of Númenor, Sauron fled back to Middle-earth as a spirit of hatred and re-entered Mordor, where he rebuilt his power. Elendil the Tall and his sons, Isildur and Anárion, had escaped the ruin of Númenor and established the Númenórean realms in exile: Arnor in the north and Gondor in the south. Sauron, enraged that Elendil had escaped him and was now ordering a realm upon his borders, made war upon the Exiles before they could take root. Orodruin burst once more into flame and was named anew in Gondor Amon Amarth, Mount Doom. But Sauron struck too soon, before his own power was fully rebuilt, while the power of Gil-galad, the High King of the Elves in Middle-earth, had increased in his absence.

The Campaign and the Siege of Barad-dûr

The Last Alliance was formed in response to Sauron's assault. Gil-galad and Elendil marched east to Imladris, and from there the host of the Alliance crossed the Misty Mountains. At the Battle of Dagorlad, Sauron was defeated and his forces driven back. The Alliance then laid siege to Barad-dûr, the Dark Tower, a siege that lasted for seven years. During the siege, Anárion, Elendil's son, was slain by a stone cast from the Tower.

The Final Combat and the Taking of the Ring

At the end of the siege, Sauron himself came forth to do battle. The final combat took place on the slopes of Orodruin. Gil-galad and Elendil both perished in the struggle: Gil-galad was destroyed by the heat of Sauron's hand, and Elendil fell, his sword Narsil breaking beneath him. But Sauron was overthrown. Isildur, Elendil's son, took up the hilt-shard of his father's broken sword and cut the One Ring from Sauron's hand, claiming it for his own. Elrond and Círdan, who alone stood by Gil-galad in that last contest, counselled Isildur to cast the Ring into the fire of Orodruin, which was nigh at hand where it was made. Isildur refused, saying he would keep it as a weregild for his father and his brother.

Consequences and Aftermath

The victory of the Last Alliance was not wholly fruitless, but it did not achieve its end. Sauron was diminished but not destroyed; his Ring was lost but not unmade. The Dark Tower was broken, but its foundations, made with the power of the Ring, endured. Many Elves and many mighty Men had perished in the war, and never again was there any such league of Elves and Men. The race of Númenor decayed, and the span of their years lessened. Isildur himself was soon betrayed by the Ring to his death at the Gladden Fields, and the Ring passed out of all knowledge for many centuries. The memory of the Last Alliance, however, remained a touchstone of courage and loss, recalled by Elrond at the Council of Elrond as he told the full tale of the Ring's history, and by Aragorn when he revealed the reforged sword Andúril as the heir of Isildur. The great battle was also remembered in the lay of Gil-galad, a fragment of which Samwise Gamgee had learned from Bilbo, and in the ancient scroll of Isildur that Gandalf discovered in Minas Tirith, which confirmed the Ring's identity through the fire-writing of its inscription.