Scaling the Walls of War in Middle-Earth - Page 6
© Michael Martinez
Gondor would have had to conquer all of Middle-earth in order to maintain its empire. But Sauron's return prevented that from ever occurring. The slothfulness of the kings further ensured that Gondorian ambitions would diminish. The great conquerors were eventually replaced by the great defenders. But now the defenders relied upon armies instead of unassailable fortifications to hold back the enemy forces. And maneuverability became more dependent upon land access than sea access.
Gondor never fully gave up its navy, but it lost the ability to capitalize on that naval power. And it lost the ability to build fortifications which could withstand long sieges. The diminishment of Gondor's populations also prevented the kingdom from expanding through colonization. Gondor occasionally resupplied itself with colonists from the north, and such migrations helped to preserve the kingdom's strength but did not enlarge it.
Numenor's advantage over Gondor and Arnor was its isolation from the rest of the world. Numenor could send out wave after wave of colonists and conquering armies and navies. Sauron might be able to beat off some attacks, but his power suffered from attrition more than Numenor's. So, in the Third Age, Sauron reversed the tables on the Dunedain. They no longer had an isolated homeland which could produce a continuous flow of surplus population. And he pursued a strategy of gradually wearing down both kingdoms, until in the end very little remained.
The Numenorean kings seemed to understand that the ability to weather storms of attrition would ensure their eventual expansion. Having a surplus population would not be sufficient. That population had to be protected and capable of expanding on its own. Hence, the massive architectural styles arose from the need to build better defenses. The Gondorian kings relied more upon man-power than earth-power. They didn't want to sit in their cities and defend themselves and gradually expand into new territories. Gondor's decline was therefore almost inevitable once Sauron returned.
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