# How to maintain military discipline?



## Hisoka Morrow (Dec 8, 2020)

I wonder if those "War Speech"of those Free People are always the only methods of maintaining military armed forces discipline mentioned by JRRT, Free People usually maintain military discipline via honorable styles. On the contrary, Dark Lord's style to keep discipline seem much passive. Anyway, just leave anything relative and constructive, you're all welcomed.


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## Aldarion (Dec 11, 2020)

@Hisoka Morrow Nope. War speeches are included because they are a staple of heroic and even historic literature: we see them in Anglo-Saxon epics (which I _still_ haven't had time to read...), Illiad, as well as Roman militarily literature. They have nothing to do with discipline _per se_, but are used to motivate people. You can see good examples in _Battlestar Galactica_ and so on.

You have a good article here, part of which covers precisely the speeches and how they are used:








Collections: The Battle of Helm’s Deep, Part VII: Hanging by a Thread


This is the seventh part of a series taking a historian’s look at the Battle of Helm’s Deep (I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII. VIII) from both J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Two Towers (1954) and Peter Jackson’s 2…




acoup.blog





As for discipline, both Rohan and Gondor have kinda-sorta professional militaries, with Rohirric military based on Anglo-Saxon fyrd and Gondorian one on Byzantine _themata_.


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## Hisoka Morrow (Jan 10, 2021)

Yes, but how about further management, such as personnel management principle on each unit(involving why Pippin was assigned into the Tower Guards), how to punish disobedience, how to prevent long time offices commanders's potential revolt(involving why the Kin-Strife took places so disastrously), and so on. 
The Gondor thema-like military settlement system proved their personnel management principles were according to their birth places as the first priority, mainly, of courses, there're exceptional cases such as Pippin's management into the Tower Guards. The Kin-strife proved that the navy and maybe marine corps might be once not that politically neutral. 
Further, about punishment, it's still hardly mentioned in JRRT's work, such as I wonder if Boromir was degraded for the defeat of Osgilithas or not, or maybe there're other reasons to prevent his responsibilities(forget birthright as the Steward's son, I hope some JRRT's expert won't show his low intelligence this time.).


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## Aldarion (Jan 10, 2021)

@Hisoka Morrow The only thing we know is that Beregon would have been, by law, punished with death for leaving the post. This is typical Roman punishment for such a transgression, and _may _indicate that Gondorian army has similar level of discipline, at least as far as Guards of the Citadel and army of Minas Tirith in general are concerned. Provincial forces would likely have lower standards of discipline, though the offence in question is serious enough I am not sure that capital punishment being issued there tells us much about general level of discipline.


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