Battle Under Farthen Dur IV

The Varden and the dwarves

The Varden and the dwarves have the benefit of have little warning when trying to explain their mistakes. These however does not make them less grave.

They choose not to pursue battle in the tunnels. Why? According to Jormundur (but it could be Ajihad, I am not sure of my memory) it is because their armies need manoeuvering space. What for? It is the largest army that needs the benefit of space and, in our case, the Urgals are the largest army. When the Greeks chose to face the Persians during Xerxes' invasion they did not do so in the Plain of the four river (in the region late named Macedonia) or the Thessalian plain where the Persian army could be fully deployed and crush them. They chose the vale of Tempe and Thermopylae. Leonidas chose to sacrifice himself and his soldiers(and the 700 Thespians chose of their free will in order to delay the Persian army's advance on the plain of Boeotia while the rest of the army escaped.

It is in constricted or problematic in general space that one chooses to face a superior enemy and in this case it was inside the tunnels where most constriction was to take place. Channeling the enemy at the plain was usefull as a second step, if the defence at the tunnels was no longer viable. In my opinion the best strategic plan would be to channel the Urgals in the three tunnels but fight inside them. A relay system to rotate dwarves and Varden fighting the Urgals so as to keep fresh troops at the front line, like the one set up in Thermopylae by Leonidas, would be most usefull. If the dwarves are waiting for reinforcements to arrive from other dwarven cities or Orrin, fighting inside the tunnels they gain valuable time. However we are not told if they expect reinforcement to arrive sometime, only that they are unlikely to arrive.

Another mistakes come next on the organisation of the battlefield. We are never really given a topographic plan of the battlefield (nor, like in real world battlefield can we go and do one ourselves) so we have to rely on the description given by Paolini. The three different battles take place in sites that while visible to each other but cannot communicate with ease. When Eragon asks who leads each column he is told that the one in front is led by Ajihad and the one on his right by Hrothgar, implying thus that they are on the same side of the crater. We are never told however if they are near the crater's walls. However the crater walls play no importance in the battle. Is it because they are far from the battlefield? We are not told.

Not using the difference in height given by the presence of the crater is very bad generalship. We are never told how slanted the crater walls are but even if they were verticals a platform could have been built so that archers placed on it could use it to pick on targets with impunity. At least the Urgal archers are also not using the crater walls for their purposes. Furthermore the difference in height can be exploited in very innovative ways. When Alexander the Great was fighting his Balkan campaign he was facing a band of Thracians who were fortified in a montain pass. They had lifted heavy carts in higher ground and would roll them down the slopes against Alexander's soldiers. Why couldn't the dwarves do something like that? Even if the opennings of the tunnels were too far away from the walls, they could simply have chosen opennings nearer the walls. Rolling carts is even unecessary, they could have rolled boulders.

Finally no war machines are present in the battle. Why? Obviously war machines are known to Alagaesians, they are used in the battle of the Burning Plains. Could it be that they dwarves do not have any available at Tronjheim? That is a strong possibility. We are not told if Tronjheim is the main base of the dwarven army the way that Gilead is the main base of Galbatorix's army, but if it is not and Hrothgar does not keep some around him for show it is very possible they were unavailable. I will continue with my critique later...