Introduction
Today, I am correcting the errors of my last examination of the Easterlings, while still being straight and accurate.
The Land of the East
The Easterlings come from the land of Rhun, east of Rhovanion and Mordor. Rhun is far from an empty land, despite it being a semi-desert land with moderately cool winters and moderately warm summers. Easterlings are not the only inhabitants: Dark Elves live in the forests of the Far East, and north of them is the Red Mountains, or Orocarni, where dwell four of the seven Dwarven clans. In the Last Desert, a fully arid land in the farthest east, there are (or at least according to Shire-Hobbits there are) shapeshifters called Were-worms who can toggle between dragon form and human form, as well as large, troll-like beings called Mewlips. Meanwhile, the White Kine of Araw - oversized pure-white buffalo-like cattle - live near the Sea of Rhun.
As far as Geography goes, the Sea of Rhun is in the center of Rhun's border with Rhovanion, and the Sea has a forest on its northeastern corner as well as mountains bordering its southwest corner. This inland sea has three rivers: one going to Mordor, one coming in from Erebor the Lonely Mountain, and one coming in from the northern tip of the Red Mountains.
In terms of political matters, Rhun is not an Empire or even a single Kingdom, but it is a Confederacy of several dozens of kingdoms, each kingdom dotted with large-stone-wall-guarded large cities, and each kingdom has a huge city with huge stone walls for a capital city, and it is in this city that an Easterling King or Queen lives, ruling his or her kingdom. The stones are most likely brick-red rock leeched from the Orocarni.
Easterling Language
It is not known what the Easterlings speak for an actual language, but given that four of their six most famous human-for-whole-life generals have names in Sindarian (the prefix "Ul" meaning "odor" in Sindarian), it is very likely for the Easterlings to have Sindarian and The Common Tongue (which in our world is 1950's British-English) for recognized (if not official) languages, similar to Gondor naming most of its property & people in Sindarian but predominantly speaking The Common Tongue.
In fact, the above make for actually canonical characters, provided their roles are canonical as well. That is way more than I can say for the idea of declaring a real-world language to be their native language. This can easily be justified by the fact that the Easterlings were loyal to the High Elves during the Years of the Trees and during the First half of the First Age, however those loyalties were broken in the middle First Age, but the Easterlings branched off of their loyalty to the High Elves for Morgoth and not for resources in an off-shore kingdom as the Edain temporarily dropped their contact with the High Elves for.
Easterling Genetics
In the Silmarillion, the Easterlings are described as being "short and broad", which in human heights means variance between five-foot-six and five-foot-ten. As far as weight goes, "broad" means large frame and can vary differently per gender: female humans weight less than do males. In this case, Easterling men can be anywhere between 146 pounds and 180 pounds, while women can be between 140 pounds and 173 pounds, averaging to 163 pound men and 156 pound women.
The book also describes them as "swarthy-skinned, and dark of hair and eye". On the Fitzpatrick scale, a numerical chart distinguishing six different skin tones, the Easterlings would basically be a type 4 coloration, what is called "moderate brown". Hair color for the Easterlings, like with all dark-haired peoples in all alternate realities (and indeed in our reality), varies between plain brown and the purest black, with some variance in between. Easterling eye color, on the Martin Scale of eye color tone measuring, would fit into category 3, the "dark eyes category"; which basically means any tone of brown. The book of the Lord of the Rings factors in the men being "bearded like Dwarves", which to me means nothing other than upper-chest-length beard with elaborate decor.
Far from the general public's perception of them as Racially Oriental, the Easterlings as Tolkien wrote them are primarily evocative of Middle Eastern ethnic broods: Persians, Arabs, Assyrians, Kurdish folk, Parthians, Afghans, and predominantly the Turkic races. The only other groups Tolkien seems to have been pulling on for the Easterling Genetics are the Ancient Greeks, given the large frame of Easterling bodies, and the Ancient Macedonians, given the Easterlings' nature as "strong and war-hardened and asking for no quarter". The Macedonians and the Easterlings also have strategic brilliance i battle as a trait in common as well. Chariots have been a part of Turkish, Assyrian, and Persian warfare from the dawn of the Bronze Age to the dawn of the Early Medieval Age.
The book also describes them as "swarthy-skinned, and dark of hair and eye". On the Fitzpatrick scale, a numerical chart distinguishing six different skin tones, the Easterlings would basically be a type 4 coloration, what is called "moderate brown". Hair color for the Easterlings, like with all dark-haired peoples in all alternate realities (and indeed in our reality), varies between plain brown and the purest black, with some variance in between. Easterling eye color, on the Martin Scale of eye color tone measuring, would fit into category 3, the "dark eyes category"; which basically means any tone of brown. The book of the Lord of the Rings factors in the men being "bearded like Dwarves", which to me means nothing other than upper-chest-length beard with elaborate decor.
Far from the general public's perception of them as Racially Oriental, the Easterlings as Tolkien wrote them are primarily evocative of Middle Eastern ethnic broods: Persians, Arabs, Assyrians, Kurdish folk, Parthians, Afghans, and predominantly the Turkic races. The only other groups Tolkien seems to have been pulling on for the Easterling Genetics are the Ancient Greeks, given the large frame of Easterling bodies, and the Ancient Macedonians, given the Easterlings' nature as "strong and war-hardened and asking for no quarter". The Macedonians and the Easterlings also have strategic brilliance i battle as a trait in common as well. Chariots have been a part of Turkish, Assyrian, and Persian warfare from the dawn of the Bronze Age to the dawn of the Early Medieval Age.
Military of Rhun
Even though Weta Workshop's Easterling outfit design for the films is irrefutably the most amazingly awesome of Easterling outfit designs and should be warmly welcomed to compensate Tolkien not describing what their clothing, armor, or weapons looked like; it is still completely impossible for their armies to only be pikemen, axemen, and swordsmen, as casual moviegoers would have you believe. Instead, these bronze-lamellar-armored fellows with 3-horned helmets had a fairly large roster of troop types to their army:
- infantry with swords and shields
- infantry with pikes and shields
- infantry with swords and composite short-bow archery sets with 100 arrows per archer
- cavalry with the same equipment as their infantry archer counterparts but on unarmored horses
- cavalry with shields and either swords or axes, and maybe one of those long halberds apiece for use as lances, riding heavily armored horses
- large chariots pulled by four horses each and driven & fought from by an elite soldier per chariot (these are called "wains" or "laden wains" in the actual books)
- and smaller chariots pulled by two horses each and driven & fought from by heroes and heroines of the Easterling realm
- as well as infantry with two-handed axes. The short of it as put by Tolkien in Fellowship of the Ring is "swordsmen, spearmen, bowmen upon horses. Chariots of chieftains and laden wains" (laden wains being the larger chariots). In Return of the King all Tolkien says is "Easterlings with axes", but even readers of the book who have not seen this page will understand that there were more Easterlings than just axemen.
- It is unlikely for the Easterlings to have lacked any kind of heavy artillery or siege equipment, given their part in Sauron's hard & fast strike at the World of Men was to attack the Men of Dale; but given the similarity of the Easterlings to real-life Medieval Middle Easterners its entirely possible that Easterling Siege equipment consisted of Trebuchet-like heavy artillery devices called Onagers and
- a special kind of Siege Tower where the first level (out of six or more) is taken up by a battering ram that is part of the tower and gives its human masters the option of going through the walls instead of on them, or this kind of siege tower can penetrate gatehouses in two ways at the same time.
So here we have seven troop types based on lore and another three based upon logic within the context of lore. Only the infantry archers, onagers, and siege-tower-battering-ram hybrid engines are based on conventional logic, the rest are based purely on Lore.
History of Rhun
The humans of Rhun were not always evil, and did not die of the Ring being destroyed as the highly unreliable book Weapons and Warfare by Chris Smith would have you believe. Instead, they have a history that decides for their evil to be a temporary, two-and-a-half age thing that goes away in the Fourth Age because of Aragorn, Viggo Mortensen's character in the films, making peace with them.
Easterling history starts with them awaking with all humans in Hildorien, and them being the last humans to come to the land of Beleriand, where most of the happenings were in the First Age. And even then, only two kingdoms came to Beleriand: the one under King Ulfang, and the one under King Bor, whose name means "faithful" in Sindarian. Bor's Easterlings were loyal to the High Elves as were Ulfang's Easterlings. Then the original Dark Lord Morgoth came and corrupted Ulfang's Easterlings, the same way he corrupted the vast majority of Easterling realms that stayed in Rhun. This lead to the annihilation of Bor's Easterling kingdom and the locking of Ulfang's kingdom into a part of Beleriand called Hithlum, where Morgoth locked them. Angered by the deception of them by their lord, the Easterlings took out their anger by killing and enslaving the natives of Hithlum. Brodda was King of the main Easterling kingdom at first, but eventually an eviler Easterling King named Lorgan came to central-governing power and turned Hithlum into a slave-abusing, prisoner-abusing, citizen-abusing genocide-state (that being exactly what he did only spoken in my words). The War of Wrath saw the death of Morgoth as well as the brutal slaughtering of Lorgan and the end of the First Age.
The Easterlings are the least active outside of Rhun in the Second Age. For the first 1000 years of it, while Sauron is establishing Mordor, the Easterlings are building the huge capital cities, large and minor cities, all walled with stone walls using mountain rock from the Orocarni. They finish there project early under an Easterling High King named Khamul, who was a great King of Men and whose rule was far less evil than Lorgan's, as would explain Aragorn including Khamul in his reference to the Nine Kings as "Great", than Sauron gave to him the second most powerful of the nine rings that would turn the human kings into the Nazgul, or Ringwraiths, of whom Khamul was the second deadliest. The biggest thing to happen in Rhunish history after this is the Easterlings aiding Sauron militarily as the Battle of the Last Alliance.
The Third Age was and is where the Easterlings were the most active. They began their activities with attacking Gondor for the first time in year 450 of the Third Age. Then they continued to attack Gondor repeatedly until in around the early 1100's they started suffering defeats. Then they tried to annex the land of Khand but failed, and the Khandish counter-attacks failed as well. So, they ended up allying with each other and allying with the Haradrim, a third group of humans from the lands south of Mordor, as well. In 1944 of the Third Age the three factions of human conspired together against Gondor, and decided the Variags (humans of Khand) would attack Gondor on both the northern and southern ends, the Easterlings would go only the northern border, and the Haradrim would cross only the southern border. This lead to the last king of Gondor and all his heirs being butchered by the Easterlings and Variags, thus leading to the breaking of the Line of Kings and the loss of Gondor's glory, as frequently referenced by the films, but they never told the above truth about how the line and the glory were lost. It was the First Steward of Gondor that won against the Haradrim force and drove out the Easterling force. Later in time the Easterlings planned to annex the northern half of Gondor from Gondor itself, and failed miserably due to a group of horse-warriors called the Eotheod intervening. Gondor thanked these horse-people by giving them the northern half of Gondor to set up as the Kingdom of Rohan. This lead the Easterlings to also start attacking Rohan, with a similar pattern of victories and defeats as with their war on Gondor, from killing Rohan's first king (Eorl) within its first months of existing to being driven out by Rohan's second king (Brego). Then the Easterlings made one attack where they prepared by encouraging the Haradrim and Corsairs of Umbar - a pirate people living in the Haradrim's homeland's capital - to work with the Wild Men of Dunland on attacking Rohan's western border while the Easterlings attack the eastern border. They pushed all the way to the Great Fortress of Rohan where the Rohirrim managed to push them back and where Helm Hammerhand, King of Rohan during this battle, lead a charge that drove all three factions of attackers (Easterlings, Haradrim, and Dunland) out of Rohan, and it was these actions that lead to the Great Fortress being given a name: "Helm's Deep".
Then, it was the Easterlings and not Saruman's Uruk-hai who started the War of the Ring with their attack on Osgiliath, in which they seized it. A Gondorian force with Boromir leading the heavy armor troops and Faramir commanding the the flexibility-oriented ones like the Rangers drove the Easterlings out. This was before Boromir departed to join the Fellowship. Then the Easterlings attacked and failed to seize Cair Andros, an island fortress north of Osgiliath. The Easterlings then moved on to wage war on the Woses of Druadan forest, a black folk fiercely loyal (but independent from) the folk of Gondor. Next thing known, Frodo and Sam watch an Easterling army enter Mordor (with a Haradrim army not far behind in the book). The Easterlings then participated on a successful conquest of Osgiliath, this time they were a force of 70,000 strong, accompanied by 200,000 Mordor Orcs (in the book there was 20,000 Orcs and 7000 Easterlings, with the 7000 being part of the Haradrim counterattack on Rohan's forces). After this they besieged Minas Tirith. Their infantry poured in at vast numbers but the cavalry were deployed very sparingly. Then the Rohirrim came and wiped away much of Mordor's and Rhun's armies and were themselves attacked by the Haradrim (who in the book were 18,000 men on Oliphaunts, horses, and foot, not just oliphaunts). The Easterlings were the absolute last of the forces to be defeated by the Army of the Dead (or in the book the Men of the Gondorian Fiefdoms). Then, at the battle of the Black Gate, the Easterlings were the larger of the reinforcement forces to Sauron's direct servants. In the north, and this is why Gimli's kinsmen "had not need to ride to war" according to Orlando Bloom's Legolas in the films, the Easterlings made war on the Men of Dale and tried to destroy them, but could only drive them to the Dwarven Kingdoms or Erebor (the Lonely Mountain) and Iron Hills, causing the Easterlings to wage war on Dwarven lands. When the Ring was destroyed, the Easterlings already in battle fought to the death, while the ones back home were ready to make peace with the Free Peoples.
In the Fourth Age the Free Peoples knew Frodo and Sam had freed enemies like the Easterlings from their own corruption by destroying the One Ring, so they readily agreed to peace with the Easterlings, especially with the influence of Aragorn promoting peace between all races of human.
A stark rebuttle of the casual moviegoers' lie that the Easterlings had only minor roles, the Easterlings were actually the beginners of the War of the Ring, and accounted for a huge minority of the "Great Battle of Our Time" as Gandalf put it in film three, and played a major role in battles understandable excluded from the films as well.
Conclusion
The Easterlings have now been explained better than ever, and next I will delve deep into explaining the Men of Dale, especially considering that the film Desolation of Smaug will be out soon. Then I will talk about the Rohirrim as third part of this three-part series.
