Last Alliance of Elves and Men
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The Last Alliance of Elves and Men is an episode in J.R.R. Tolkien's fictional universe of Middle-earth. It was formed in 3430 of the Second Age (S.A.) in response to the threat of conquest by the Dark Lord Sauron.
The conflict at the end of the Second Age is often known as the War of the Last Alliance. It includes the Battle of Dagorlad and the Siege of Barad-dûr.
Sauron had been contending with the Elves and the men of Númenor for mastery of Middle-earth for over 1200 years. During this time, the Elves had almost been annihilated, and the kingdom of Númenor on the island of Andor had flourished and fallen.
Fearing the establishment of the kingdoms in exile — Arnor and Gondor — by his hated enemies, the Dúnedain survivors of fallen Númenor, Sauron launched a preemptive attack on Gondor in S.A. 3429. Sauron took Minas Ithil in a sudden assault and destroyed the White Tree, although Isildur and his family escaped down the Anduin with a seedling of the White Tree to warn Elendil, while Anárion managed to hold Osgiliath and halt Sauron's advance.
In response, Elendil, High King of the Dúnedain, Isildur and Anárion's father, formed an alliance with Gil-galad, the last High King of the Noldor, to put an end to Sauron once and for all.
The Alliance assembled their armies at the watchtower of Amon Sûl (Weathertop) and marched on Sauron's forces, through Rivendell, the High Pass, and down the Anduin to Mordor. In S.A. 3434 they defeated Sauron's army in the Battle of Dagorlad, breached the Morannon into Mordor, and besieged the Dark Lord's fortress of Barad-dûr.
The siege lasted for seven years, during which Anárion was slain. It culminated in Sauron leaving his fortress and engaging in direct combat, at which time both Elendil and Gil-galad perished to Sauron's weapon. Elendil fell on top of his own sword Narsil and broke it as he died. Using the hilt-shard of his father's sword, Isildur cut the ring from Sauron's finger. Bereft of the power of the One Ring, Sauron's spirit dissipated and would not take form again in Middle-earth for two and a half thousand years.
With the victory over Sauron, and the death of Gil-galad and Elendil, plus irreparable losses to the Elves (especially the Noldor), the Last Alliance was dissolved. Many of the Eldar mourned the victory as bittersweet; despite their sacrifice, the One Ring was not destroyed by an unwilling Isildur who later perished and lost it in the Gladden Fields.
The war resulted in the end of the elven kingdom of Lindon, and the first weakening of Arnor. At the end of it the Second Age ended and the Third Age of the World began.
[edit] Other Accounts
In the Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age chapter of The Silmarillion, we are told that few Dwarves fought in the war upon either side, but that Durin's Folk fought on the side of the Last Alliance.
According to notes made by Tolkien after the publication of Lord of the Rings and found in Unfinished Tales, Oropher, the Sindarin king of the Silvan Elves of Mirkwood, or Greenwood the Great as it was then known, raised a large force as part of the Last Alliance to overthrow Sauron. However, the Silvan Elves distrusted both the Dúnedain and the Noldor in particular (probably a result of disasters in the First Age); as a result they did not place their army under the supreme command of Gil-galad. During the Battle of Dagorlad, roughly two-thirds of their force was driven into the Dead Marshes. Oropher himself disregarded Gil-galad's orders and led a reckless assault upon Mordor in which he was slain. Rule of the Silvan Elves and field command of their remaining strength (barely a third) passed to Oropher's son Thranduil, the father of Legolas.
