Meanwhile, the enemy forces assembled before the city on the Pelennor Fields. Since the despairing Steward refused to leave his son's side, the Wizard Gandalf took command of the city's defences. In the retreat to the city, Faramir, son of Denethor, Steward of Gondor, was severely wounded. The city of Minas Tirith was besieged following the fall of Osgiliath and the Rammas Echor, Gondor's final barriers against the forces of Mordor. The battle formed a 'spectacular' centrepiece in Peter Jackson's film The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Others have commented on Tolkien's vivid descriptions of battle, noting that he served in the Battle of the Somme. They have noted, too, the elegiac tone, echoing that of the Old English poem Beowulf, the use of alliterative verse, and the nature of the armour, which is mostly early medieval-style mail shirts with additions of plate armour. Scholars analysing the story have commented on Tolkien's theory of northern courage, which carries on even in the face of certain death. Others have likened the death of the Witch-King of Angmar to the death of Macbeth, who was similarly prophesied not to die by the hand of man 'of woman born' and the crowing of a cockerel at the moment the Witch-King was about to enter the city has been said to recall the cock-crow heralding the resurrection of Jesus at the moment that Simon Peter denied knowing him. In search of Tolkien's sources, scholars have compared the battle with the historic account of the Battle of the Catalaunian Fields where King Theodoric I was trampled to death by his own men after he fell from his horse.

It took place at the end of the Third Age in the Pelennor Fields, the townlands and fields between Minas Tirith and the River Anduin. It was the largest battle in the War of the Ring. Tolkien's novel The Lord of the Rings, the Battle of the Pelennor Fields was the defence of the city of Minas Tirith by the forces of Gondor and the cavalry of its ally Rohan, against the forces of the Dark Lord Sauron from Mordor and its allies the Haradrim and the Easterlings. Tens of thousands of Orcs, Easterlings, Haradrim and Variags

5,000 South Gondorians and men from outlying provinces.

Lord of the rings gondor soldier