History:
History: Third Age, Second MilleniumThird Age, Second Millenium: The Rise of the Wainriders
It was then that Sauron, still processing to form a new body for himself, felt both sufficient strength and strategic need to leave his hidden site in Rhún and return into the North-west.
- not to Mordor which was guarded from almost every side and inaccessible to him but to a different place which would serve his schemes as well as enshroud his identity. He decided for Greenwood the Great, and "coming out of the wastes of the East took up his abode in the south of the forest, and slowly he grew and took shape there again." (RP)
The abode he chose was Amon Lanc [later renamed to Dol Guldur], a barren hill overlooking the valley of the Anduin.
The place was perfectly selected, piercing like a bolt into the weakest spot among his foes' defensive lines, right between the borders of Gondor-beyond-Anduin, Lothlórien, the Wood-elves, and the Northman communities of Rhóvanion. Plus, along the upper course of Anduin and passing by Mount Gundabad he could thus maintain communication and supply routes with his vassal state of Angmar.
Sauron, known only anonymously as the Necromancer, increasingly summoned forces from among the tribes of Rhún into Rhóvanion that poured into the local Mannish communities and undermined the social stability. "The increase in Men was not the normal increase of those with whom they had lived in friendship, but the steady increase of invaders from the East ... in places occupying the Forest and coming through it into the Anduin valley. ... The invasions were no doubt also in great part due to Sauron; for the 'Easterlings' were mostly Men of cruel and evil kind, descendants of those who had served and worshipped Sauron before his overthrow at the end of the Second Age." (DM). ... note the innocent word "mostly" which indicates that as well there were harmless refugees and oppositionals among the immigrants from Rhún, not a collective evil sapping into Rhóvanion.
It seems that the establishing of the as yet unidentified Necromancer in Dol Guldur alarmed even the Valar who ... sent the Order of the Istari into the Mortal Lands, and at least three of them "went as emissaries to distant regions, East and South, far out of Númenórean range: missionaries to enemy-occupied lands, as it were." (L211) "Of this Order the number is unknown; but of those that came to the North of Middle-earth ... the chiefs were five. .... Of the [two] Blue little was known in the West, ... for they passed into the East with Curunir [aka. Saruman], but they never returned, and whether they remained in the East, pursuing there the purposes for which they were sent; or perished; or as some hold were ensnared by Sauron and became his servants, is not now known." (TI) Into the West only Saruman returned, much later, when "he took his abode in Orthanc". (KR)
Historians suspect that the Blue Istari "were founders or beginners of secret cults and 'magic' traditions that outlasted the fall of Sauron." (L211) A source of doubtful value meanwhile attests that "their task was to circumvent Sauron: to bring help to the few tribes of Men that had rebelled from Melkor-worship, to stir up rebellion ... and to cause [?dissension and disarray] among the dark East ... They must have had very great influence on the history of the ... Third Age in weakening and disarraying the forces of East ... who would otherwise have ... outnumbered the West." (LW)
But since they never returned, in the 13th century TA Gondor was worse prepared than it could have hoped for as "in the days of Narmacil I. their [the Easterlings'] attacks began again, though at first with little force; but it was learned by the regent [Minalcar, later becoming King of Gondor] that the Northmen did not always remain true to Gondor, and some would join forces with the Easterlings, either out of greed for spoil, or in the furtherance of feuds among their princes.
Minalcar therefore in 1248 led out a great force, and between Rhóvanion and the Inland Sea he defeated a large army of the Easterlings and destroyed all their camps and settlements east [read: west?] of the Sea. He then took the name of Romendacil." (KR) ... The destruction even of the settlements suspiciously suggests a total genocide. By this massacre, Romendacil II. had for now saved both Dorwinion and Rhóvanion, and well-nigh for another 600 years, an increasingly fragile peace was retained beyond Anduin.
Rhún slowly recovered from the destruction evoked by Romendacil II., and a new constellation, known as the Wainriders, began to climb out of the rubble. They controlled a territory of unknown vastness, maybe as large as Gondor or even larger still, forged an empire of unexpected effectiveness. One may wonder how such a huge, centralised entity could consolidate itself among the Men of Darkness. It was not directly ruled by Sauron or a Nazgûl for it often acted against his interests, but a supreme authority of unprecedented quality must have established itself despite the "weakening and disarraying" inflicted by the Blue Istari. - Or, as one may freely speculate, was it one of them or both who had listened too much to their companion Saruman's dreams of power and had themselves assumed the lordship among the Easterlings?
Gondor, though, was both challenged and preserved at once when in 1636 TA "a deadly plague came with dark winds out of the East.", (KR) hit Gondor so severely that its hold of the provinces beyond Anduin loosened due to massive depopulation, but "no doubt the peoples further east had been equally afflicted" (CE), and so the dooming catastrophe was still prevented for some time. Otherwise, the Wainrider empire already "might have overwhelmed [Gondor] in its weakness; but Sauron could wait." (KR).
[1810] ... the Wainrider empire had advanced to the borders of Dorwinion.
In 1851 TA, "stirred up, as was afterwards seen, by the emissaries of Sauron, they made a sudden assault upon Gondor." (KR) The Northmen, still the vast majority of the population in Gondor-beyond-Anduin, "bore the brunt of the first assaults." (CE) Replenishment forces came to the rescue but could not achieve much: during the ill-fated Battle of the Plains in 1856 TA, "King Narmacil II. was slain ... beyond Anduin" (KR), "south of Mirkwood" (CE), "north-east of the Morannon." (HE) "The people of eastern and southern Rhóvanion were enslaved; and the frontiers of Gondor were for that time withdrawn to the Anduin and the Emyn Muil." (KR) Gondor-beyond-Anduin was lost, never to be regained.
The Wainrider empire now stretched westward to the confines of Mirkwood, meeting Dol Guldur, so that Sauron had by then successfully linked his territories to each other. It controlled the lands from Erebor in the North to the Ash Mountains in the South and Anduin in the South-west, in the east it streteched further south to the borders of Khand.
Even the defeat of the Dúnedain might have been ultimate if the Wainriders had not suffered themselves that much from the plague of 1636. But due to its devastating effects, "the forces of Gondor had inflicted such losses on the Wainriders that they had not strength enough to press their invasion, until reinforced from the East, and were content for the time to complete their conquest of Rhóvanion." (CE) For 43 years, it remained a satrapy of the Wainrider empire.
"King Calimehtar, son of Narmacil II, [was warned] that the Wainriders were plotting to raid Calenardhon over the Undeeps; but ... also that a revolt of the Northmen who had been enslaved was being prepared and would burst into flame if the Wainriders became involved in war." (CE) This seemed a unique opportunity to push the enemy back beyond the Inland Sea. ... And so, the king, "helped by [the] revolt in Rhóvanion, avenged his father with a great victory over the Easterlings upon Dagorlad in 1899, and for a while the peril was averted." (KR)
The Northmen, though, found the resistance harder than expected. They had not expected the strong amazon-style defence of the "dwellings of the Wainriders, and their storehouses, and their fortified camps of wagons" by the Wainrider women who were skillfully trained in defending the home-front. "Thus in the end they never again returned to their former homes" (CE), and southern Rhóvanion for now remained a part of the Wainrider empire.
The mysterious central authority of the Wainriders now aimed into a direction where resistance seemed weaker. "Beyond the reach of the arms of Gondor, in lands east of the Sea of Rhún from which no tidings came to its Kings, their kinsfolk spread and multiplied. ... The eastern Wainriders had been spreading southward, beyond Mordor, and were in conflict with the peoples of Khand and their neighbours further south [i.e. with the Swarthy Men of Near Harad]." (KR)
A conquest of that kind was certainly not in Sauron's interest, wasting precious forces on a war that could not be won even by the Wainriders. But it took even his emissaries and instigators a long time to hem these ambitions. It took till 1944 TA that a fragile "peace and alliance was agreed between these enemies of Gondor, and an attack was prepared that should be made at the same time from north and south" of Mordor. "It was also clear that the hatred of Gondor, and the alliance of its enemies in concerted action (for which they themselves had neither the will nor the wisdom) was due to the machinations of Sauron." (CE)
When the war was launched, "the Wainriders had mustered a great host by the southern shores of the inland Sea of Rhún, strengthened by men of their kinsfolk in Rhóvanion and from their new allies in Khand." (CE) They started with "raids to the south of [Rhóvanion] that came both up the river [Anduin] and through the Narrows of the Forest [of Mirkwood, thus advancing close to Dol Guldur]." (CE) The Dúnedain perceived the peril, but their situation was now even worse than it had been a century ago. For Sauron's machinations were even worse than that: The Dark Lord had inflicted a general offensive against the Realms in Exile. At the same time, his vassal state of "Angmar renewed its attack upon Arthedain at the same time as the Wainriders reappeared in great force" (KR)
Ironically, the advance of the enemies was much aided by the old road network of East Gondor, which, though it had never been completed, helped to speed the chariot and cavalry troops at least for fifty miles east of the Morannon. (CE) But this was not the only unpleasant surprise: "The enemy vanguard ... was composed not only of the war-chariots of the Wainriders but also of a force of cavalry far greater than any that had been expected." (CE) These latter probably were the allies from Khand.
The Wainriders came down upon Ithilien from the north ... to home in on the cities at the Anduin. ... Eärnil, "hastening north, ... came up against the main camp of the Wainriders, while they were feasting and revelling. ... Eärnil stormed the camp and set fire to the wains, and drove the enemy in a great rout out of Ithilien. A great part of those who fled before him perished in the Dead Marshes." (KR) ... Gondor was saved, the war had been won at a terrible cost. The Northern Kingdom was no more, the House of Anárion was almost extinct ... Mordor could no longer be controlled.
Comments pending! 
History: Third Age, Third MilleniumThird Age, Third Millenium: The Diadochs - the Balchoth
The beginning of the third millenium therefore witnessed a considerable turning point: the fall of Minas Ithil in 2002 TA. Her conquerors were not orcs, but "fell men whom the Enemy in his first strength had dominated, and who wandered homeless and masterless after his fall" (TT). The homeless wandering seems to suggest that the Wainriders were once again involved in this war, for, though they do not reappear under this name in recorded Gondorian history, their empire had not perished because of the defeat in 1944. Certainly it was still in existence when in 2063 Gandalf examined Dol Guldur and Sauron retreated once more into his retreat in Rhún, returning but three hundred years later with increased strength. The Wainrider empire may have survived for another long time still but was ultimately doomed.
Neither Gondor nor the Northmen had been able, however, to effectively control eastern Rhóvanion ever longer, and there the grip of the Wainrider empire lasted out. Even in the 26th century TA, when Cirion was steward of Gondor, "in the wide lands of Rhóvanion, between Mirkwood and the River Running, a fierce people now dwelt, wholly under the shadow of Dol Guldur." (KR) This presumably was by then a sovereign diadoch nation split off from the empire of the Wainriders "to whom they were no doubt akin" (CE) but which by then may have been faltered, having grown too large to be maintained forever.
"These Balchoth were constantly increased by others of like kind that came in from the east", (KR) and "they were slaying or driving north up the River Running and into the Forest the remnant of the Northmen ... that still dwelt east of Mirkwood." (CE) Apparently, the Balchoth could not win Dorwinion whose inhabitants were still found there during the War of the Ring; but as far as the Northmen were concerned, "the Balchoth were destroying the last of their kin in the South". (CE) And "often they made raids through the forest [of Mirkwood], until the vale of Anduin south of the Gladden was largely deserted." (KR)
In 2509, "hosts of men were mustering all along the southern eaves of Mirkwood. ... What they lacked in gear of war they made up in numbers, so far as could be guessed." (CE) Their plan, or Sauron's plan, was to expand into the relic of Gondor and take its northern provinces, especially the fertile grasslands of Calenardhon which Sauron may have faked to promise them. "Southern Mirkwood (below the great East Bight) ... was now infested by the Balchoth", (CE) and in 2510, assisted by orcs from Dol Guldur and the Misty Mountains, and "having built many great boats and rafts on the east shores of Anduin, [they] swarmed over the River and swept away the defenders." (KR) The Balchoth "overran the realm (now sparsely populated) north of the White Mountains, pouring into the wold and plain of Calenardon [sic]." (HE)
The invasion may have come out as a success were it not for the famous ride of the Éothéod, who, avenging the destruction of the very last of their southern kinsfolk, took the opportunity to aid the Dúnedain and destroy their hated foe. "Eorl the Young came with his riders and swept away the enemy, and pursued the Balchoth to the death over the fields of Calenardhon." (KR) Cirion was so thankful that he granted the entire province that, he realised, Gondor could not retain on its own, by decree to the Éothéod to be ever theirs, and till the Fourth Age, the descendants of the Éorlingas or Rohirrim, as they called themselves later, remained a loyal ally.
In the beginning, Rohan managed on its own to stabilise its borders, "though during the reign of Eorl their eastern bounds along Emyn Muil and Anduin were still under attack." (FI) ... in the fatal year 2758 TA, "in the days of Beren, the nineteenth Steward", (KR) the Necromancer had managed to arrange another time a concerted offensive against Gondor and its ally ... "the Rohirrim were assailed from the east, and their land was overrun, and they were driven into the dales of the White Mountains." (KR) Presumably, though not named in any chronicles, these mysterious invaders were again the Balchoth who had been driven from Calenardhon but not from Rhóvanion. Crucial for the defeat of this campaign was the accidental coinciding with the Long Winter during which many of the invaders starved ... in late spring, "there were great floods after the snows, and the vale of Entwash became a vast fen. The Eastern invaders perished or withdrew." (KR)
Afterwards, till the War of the Ring neither Rohan nor Rhóvanion heard again of the Easterlings. Presumably, during the draught of the Long Winter and the following floodings their habitations east of Anduin were so harshly affected that they did not survive any longer, and the history of the Easterling dominions in Rhóvanion had come to end. It was only during the lifetime of King Brand of Dale that they reappeared, now fully under the spell of the Dark Lord.
Comments pending! 
History: Third Age, The War of the RingThird Age, The War of the Ring: The Descendants - the Easterlings
Now Sauron felt almost strong enough to wage what he considered the final assault. Even though Boromir boldly claimed that "by our valour the wild folk of the East are still restrained, and the terror of Morgul kept at bay", other Dúnedain knew they were heavily outnumbered ... "This is a great war long-planned, and we are but one piece in it, whatever pride may say. Things move in the far East beyond the Inland Sea, it is reported." (RK)
The Easterlings still maintained the traditions of the Wainriders, approaching with wains and chariots, but like in the war of 1944 supported by cavalry units: "Here and there [there was] the gleam of spears and helmets; and over the levels beside the roads horsemen could be seen riding in many companies. ... These were Men of other race, out of the wide Eastlands." (TT) The axe-men were first seen at Cair Andros. (RK)
Comments pending! 
<<< unto here is this post still WIP <<<
Edited by Námo, 29 December 2012 - 09:35 PM.
