Gilbert, who wrote a definitive account of the Somme offensive, noted that Tolkien’s description of the Dead Marshes matches precisely the macabre experience of the soldiers in that battle: “Many soldiers on the Somme had been confronted by corpses, often decaying in the mud, that had lain undisturbed, except by the bombardment, for days, weeks and even months.”76 In a letter to L. W. Forster, written in December 1960, Tolkien confirmed the influence of the war on his story, at least in his description of its bleak landscapes: “The Dead Marshes and the approaches to the Morannon owe something
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