[HotHotLava]

I must have missed the part where Gondorians and Orcs where sitting for months in trenches opposite to each other fighting for the same few kilometers of ground?

The entire war of the ring lasts less than a year, and most battles are won after at most a few days of fighting by glorious charges on horseback with the leader in front of his men. Making them far more similar to the battles of Arthurian legend rather than anything contemporary to Tolkien.

[clarionbell]

That's the "hot" period of the war. Before that there were several centuries long war of attrition between Dunedain, their allies and proxies of Sauron.

The capital city of Gondor, Osgiliath, was turned into ruins, front going straight through. And before that, the same thing happened to Minas Ithil. Those big towers next to Black Gate? Those were fortifications built by Gondor. But after Great Plague, which was probably a biological weapon of sorts, there weren't enough people to man them.

What we see in lotr, is essentially last days of war. When one side is barely clinging on, and can muster only localized offensives.

[openasocket]

Tolkien has specifically stated that the Dead Marshes were inspired by the appearance of Northern France after the battle of the Somme. And that Sam is a reflection of the privates and batman he served with. That said, he explicitly denies that WW1 or WW2 had any influence on the actual plot.

I don't know how much you want to take the Tolkien's word for it (death of the author and all that) but there it is.

[bee_rider]

Trench warfare thing is a thing, a big thing, about WW1. But it isn’t the only thing that happened in WW1. It looms large in our imaginations, probably because it impacted the geopolitical situation, and that’s what we see through the zoomed out lens of history.

But Tolkien experienced WW1 in first person. When people say his books were influenced by WW1, I think they mean the experience of soldiering.

Somebody already mentioned the marshes. The Nazgûl are also described as spreading a sort of deep, supernatural sort of dread; not normal fear, but something that shatters the will of hardened soldiers, just by looming over the siege of Gondor. That could be influenced by the experience of artillery bombardments, without explicitly referencing it.

It is also a story in which the good guys are agrarian, and the bad guys are industrial; this was possibly influenced by the experience of being on the receiving end of industrial warfare. I hear it is unpleasant.

[ekianjo]

from ww1 we know that Tolkien took a strong dislike in industrialisation which made war and killing much more effective than before. Hence the "good" hobbits as traditional farmer-like society, and evil portayed as destroying the natural realm.

[alexey-salmin]

I think the Osgiliath battle lasted for many years? Not exactly trenches, but it was the only suitable river crossing in that area

[HotHotLava]

It was one swift attack that managed to push the Gondorians out of the eastern half of the town, that also marked the beginning of the war, and one surprise attack with boats 9 months later to take the western half that a few weeks before the end of the war.

I don't know if it's mentioned anywhere what happened in the meantime, but Denethor says he's expecting an enemy strike against Osgiliath shortly before the second attack happens, so it can't have been an active frontline at the time.

[boccaff]

This impression looks more like the main events of the movie.

You have the several turns on the Battle of Osgiliath, and Boromir alluding to Gondor paying the cost for holding the frotiers with Mordor.