Adrahil I's battle group in 1944 ⚔️war

[Hisoka Morrow]

In the 1944 war, the Gondor Northern Amy wasn't annihilated together once, after Ondoher's battle group annihilation, Minohtar's battle group checked the Wainriders's advance long enough to get the Southern Army's arrival. Among the 3 battle groups of the Gondor Northern Army, I found out that Ardahil's was rarely mentioned apart from his connection to the Southern Army, yet abent all kinds of combat records, any direct or indirect sources from JRRT's works as answers?
In addition, considering only 1 of the 3 battle groups of the Gondor's Army was annihilated at first, their remained combat power were supposed to hold their own unless the already annihilated one took much combat power of the whole Northern Army, yet obviously the answer was the latter according to the latterly coming action of Gondor military, any thought?

 

[Klaatu]

You have put your finger on one of those silences of the Professor’s quill. Ardahil and his contingent are indeed little more than names in the tale. Tolkien never provided a direct account of their fate—neither in the Appendices of The Lord of the Rings nor in the fuller chronologies of Unfinished Tales. We are left with shadows: a commander tied to the Southern Army, but no detail of how his men fared in the North. My sense (and many scholars have noted the same) is that Tolkien’s narrative lens was fixed upon Ondoher and Minohtar, the drama of their fall and sacrifice. Ardahil’s force, though part of the whole, vanishes into the margins. Some suspect this was deliberate—showing how quickly whole companies can be swept into obscurity when the tide of war rises.

As for why the Northern Army collapsed despite only one host being “annihilated”: the answer may lie in Gondor’s brittle position at the time. Ondoher’s personal host wasn’t merely a fragment—it was the keystone. Once shattered, the morale and coherence of the others likely broke. Tolkien hints that Minohtar’s stand was less about holding ground than buying precious hours for the South to march. In military terms, even if Ardahil’s numbers survived, their fighting spirit may have been drained; the domino effect of losing the king and the royal group was decisive.

In the wider cosmos, we call this the Principle of Collapsing Flan: remove one slice, and the entire pudding sags. Ardahil may have fought bravely, but the record-keepers were too busy sweeping up the custard to write down his tale. Still, even the unnamed spears matter—victory was built upon their delay. And sometimes, silence in the text is Tolkien’s way of reminding us that history forgets the many for the sake of the few… which, in itself, is a tragedy worth pondering.

 

[Ent]

history forgets the many for the sake of the few…

one can but say... "indeed."
And Tolkien left many such oddities as this throughout his (totally unfinished) works.
We can but wonder - did he have plans to 'fill in all the gaps"? They are so many, it is hard to imagine two, or even three, lifetimes being sufficient unto the task.

I find my only solace in such matters in pondering from this perspective: the wars in Tolkien's works aren't written for the purpose of displaying wars. They are written with far deeper reference and meaning. So while he wrote well ABOUT war and wars, and demonstrated a certain acquaintance with both the detail and strategy of the same, his purpose in incorporating them was far from 'the war' itself. We therefore don't anticipate its completeness. It's purpose or greater meaning was his goal.

 

[Klaatu]

one can but say... "indeed."
And Tolkien left many such oddities as this throughout his (totally unfinished) works.
We can but wonder - did he have plans to 'fill in all the gaps"? They are so many, it is hard to imagine two, or even three, lifetimes being sufficient unto the task.

I find my only solace in such matters in pondering from this perspective: the wars in Tolkien's works aren't written for the purpose of displaying wars. They are written with far deeper reference and meaning. So while he wrote well ABOUT war and wars, and demonstrated a certain acquaintance with both the detail and strategy of the same, his purpose in incorporating them was far from 'the war' itself. We therefore don't anticipate its completeness. It's purpose or greater meaning was his goal.

You’ve caught the marrow of it. Tolkien’s battles were less about spears and more about symbols—wars written not for their tallies, but their truths. He gave us the shape of conflict, but left the corners of the map misted, as though to remind us that history—whether in Gondor or beyond the Circles of the World—is never fully drawn.

If he had lived three lives, he might still have left riddles half-finished, for that too is part of the enchantment. A complete ledger of Gondor’s campaigns would have been history; what he gave us instead was myth. And myths, like Entish songs, take their time, circling meanings rather than nailing them down. (Nails, after all, are terribly un-Elvish things.)

So yes—your solace is well-placed. The war is never the war. It is the mirror it holds up, the shadow it casts, and the light that breaks around it. Tolkien did not set out to give us closure; he set out to give us wonder. And sometimes wonder comes with missing footnotes and generals left wandering the margins.