The palaver at Morannon

In message
Derek Broughton spoke these staves:
>
> Troels Forchhammer wrote:
>>
>> In message
>> 6481abf7-07f0-46dd-bbda-c778c0d05f45.RemoveThis@v30g2000hsa.googlegroups.com
>> Kunochan spoke these staves:
>>>
>>> "Negotiating" with Sauron's minion would terrify the men

<snip comment>

>>> (who, by the way, certainly don't know they're a "diversion."
>>
>> I can't say that I've ever thought about it before, but I'd
>> expect that they were aware that they were a diversion, though
>> they wouldn't know the background for it.
>
> It seems like basic military strategy to not let the "men" know
> they're a diversion. The staff officers know: they have to be
> given enough information to carry the diversion through; but the
> rank and file can't be told, because _every_ army has spies.

I did think of spies in connection to my 'on the other hand' comments,
but I don't think we can treat it as a given that there were spies in
the army. This is Tolkien, not the real world, and Tolkien's world is,
in many ways, idealized. Gríma Wormtongue is portrayed as an exception
-- once he is removed, there is no further question of spies among the
Rohirrim. Sauron is also described as depending on having his 'spies'
watch the advancing army -- the Nazgûl were monitoring the troop
movements, and the forces that tried to catch the host of the West in a
trap had no idea that they had, themselves, been spotted.

Overall the treachery of the undercover spy seems in Tolkien's world to
be such an heinous sin that it is a matter of single exceptions rather
than a norm (such as also Gorlim and Maeglin in the First Age), despite
Gandalf's assertion that 'all the long wars with the Dark Tower treason
has ever been our greatest foe.' (Though of course Gandalf doesn't
really say that treason has been common -- only that it was potentially
the most damaging).

That, of course, doesn't necessarily mean that the men _did_ know that
they were a diversion, I just don't think that the risk of treachery by
soldiers in the host would be the main reason for keeping the
information from them. In the end, however, all I say is that fairly
solid arguments can be made in favour of both views, so nothing is
really certain.

--
Troels Forchhammer
Valid e-mail is <troelsfo(a)gmail.com>
Please put [AFT], [RABT] or 'Tolkien' in subject.

Giving in is no defeat.
Passing on is no retreat.
Selves are made to rise above.
You shall live in what you love.
- Piet Hein, /The Me Above the Me/

On Fri, 24 Oct 2008 22:21:20 +0200, Öjevind Lång
wrote:

>"Sean_Q_" skrev i meddelandet
>
>
>[snip]
>
>> I wonder how many spies the Americans managed to insert into the
>> Japanese armed forces in WW2. Not many it's safe to assume -- and even
>> if Yamamoto's sushi maker was an American agent how did he report?
>>
>> OTOH in the Vietnam war, I suppose every second Vietnamese janitor
>> on American bases was an agent for Hanoi and so the VC/NVA often had
>> a wealth of intel.
>>
>> Well Saruman had an agent in Rohan, but I'd like to hear more about
>> Sauron's spies in the Allied forces - how did he recruit or infiltrate
>> them? Frodo and Sam passed themselves off as small orcs, but I can't
>> imagine some orc impersonating a Rider from Westfold.
>
>Ah - your post summons forth another interesting possibility. What if
>Gandalf recruited Stoors from the Gladden Fields who infiltrated Mordor,
>disguised as little orcs?
> Perhaps the little tracker orc who shot the big orc when they came too
>close to Frodo and Sam was actually a Stoor who could smell them perfectly
>well and decided to save them by picking a quarrel with the big warrior orc
>and shooting him. And as a good secret agent would, he did not then announce
>himself to Frodo and Sam; he just ran off to resume his normal assignment as
>a secret agent of the West.
> Why didn't they praise HIM at the Field of the Cormallen? Perhaps he was
>still needed for new missions further east? And did he belong to the
>Paddifoot family? Or the Sherlock-Bagginses?

Or they didn't want to reveal the trick, in case they needed to use it
again.
--
"A portent, therefore, happens not contrary to nature,
but contrary to what we know as nature."